The 31-year-old Dutch star has been the face of wheelchair tennis for more than a decade.

Vergeer started to play wheelchair tennis at the age of 12 after surgery on her spinal cord went wrong. Her dominance of wheelchair tennis started when she became world No. 1 for the first time in 1999. She has been named ITF Wheelchair World Champion for the last 13 years, winning 169 titles and ends her career on a winning streak of 470 matches, with her last defeat coming against Australian Daniela di Toro in Sydney on January 30, 2003.

In the last 10 years Vergeer has won a total of 120 successive tournaments, beating 73 different opponents, winning 95 matches 6-0, 6-0 and dropping just 18 sets of tennis. In that time she faced only one match point – against fellow countrywoman Korie Homan in the women’s gold medal match at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.

In Grand Slam play, Vergeer won every singles event she entered, racking up 21 singles titles and 23 doubles titles at the majors. She won eight Paralympic medals during her career, seven of which were gold to cement her place in the history books as a true sporting legend. She was part of the Netherlands’ team that won the World Team Cup on 12 occasions, in 1998, 2000-2009 and 2011.