Taking the court today against France’s Florence Alix-Gravellier is a young woman that has been widely spoken about since the US Open’s start. Though she faces challenges unimaginable by most top players, Ester Verger has taken them head on and risen to become number 1 in the rankings for the International Tennis Federation.
Widely known in her home country of the Netherlands, Verger is the most successful Dutch athlete in the countries history. Though she was born with the ability to walk, Verger became a paraplegic at the age of eight after a, successful, surgery to remove hemorrhaging from her spinal cord. First though she took up tennis early on, Verger joined the national wheelchair basketball team and won the European championship in 1997. Playing her first tennis tournament in 1996, she won her first US Open championship in 1998. Since that time, she has become a five-time Paralympics tennis champion and an eleven-time consecutive world-champion.
Remaining unbeaten in singles matches since January 2003, she hasn’t lost a match in 6 and half years. Yet despite her world record and obvious talent, if Verger is capable of taking home her Fourth US Open title she’ll take home only $9600, this is in comparison to the singles prize at $1.6 million dollars. Also, most in America haven’t even heard of Vergeer. Until Arthur Ashe Kid’s day, where she competed on behalf of her charity the…., we’d never even seen her play.
Typically not thought of as an ESPN approved sport, wheelchair tennis still holds close to regular tennis with only a few small differences. First, the ball is allowed to bounce twice before it is returned and only the first bounce must land in the prescribed area of the court. If the first bounce is ruled in and the second bounce is out, the ball is still in play unless it bounces a third time.
Though Ester Verger may never be on your Wheaties box, she still remains one of the most understated athletes in tennis, possibly any sport. And if losing only 25 times out of 589 while being the No.1 ranked athlete in your sport for more than eight years isn’t the definition of a great player, then what is?