The Wall Street Journal-20080125-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Sports -- By the Numbers- Tennis-s Top Champ
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Sports -- By the Numbers: Tennis's Top Champ
Justine Henin's 32-match winning streak may have been ended by Maria Sharapova in the Australian Open quarterfinals this week, but another female tennis champion hopes to continue an even more impressive run in the tournament. Esther Vergeer of the Netherlands, the defending women's wheelchair singles champion, is pursuing her sixth Australian Open title and looking to solidify her claim as perhaps the most dominant competitor in all of sports.
Entering this year's Australian Open, Ms. Vergeer had won 303 consecutive matches. Her last loss came to Daniela Di Toro of Australia in the quarterfinals of the Sydney Invitational in January 2003. Before that, Ms. Vergeer had won 80 straight matches, so since May 2001, her record is 383 wins to one loss.
Wheelchair tennis is played by the same rules as regular tennis except that wheelchair players can hit the ball on the second bounce. It has become a world-wide presence, with the Australian Open, French Open, and U.S. Open including draws for wheelchair players. There are also such premier wheelchair-only events as the Japan Open, British Open and NEC Wheelchair Masters, plus the quadrennial Paralympic Games. Ms. Vergeer played 99 singles and doubles matches last year (losing once in doubles), a schedule more demanding than the ones many Association of Tennis Professionals and World Tennis Association players pursue.
To put Ms. Vergeer's winning streak in perspective, add the four longest women's winning streaks of the Open Era (74- and 58-match streaks by Martina Navratilova; 66 by Steffi Graf; and 57 by Margaret Court) and the total still falls short of Ms. Vergeer's streak by the length of the longest men's Open era streak (46 matches by Guillermo Vilas in 1977).
The rest of her resume is as impressive. She's won 21 Super Series singles titles (the wheelchair equivalent of the Grand Slams) dating back to 2000, a total that dwarfs Roger Federer's career total of 12. The International Tennis Federation has crowned her world champion in her event eight consecutive years, topping Pete Sampras's six-year mid-1990s run and Mr. Federer's still-active four-year streak.
And while Ms. Vergeer has used a wheelchair since a childhood operation to relieve a hemorrhage left her legs unable to move, the source of her dominance would be familiar to any tennis fan. Her movement around the court is unparalleled, and once she gets to the ball, she hits with pace and spin on both her one-handed backhand and her especially effective forehand.
But one way in which Ms. Vergeer can't compete with her counterparts on the ATP and WTA tours is in earnings. The prize money for the entire Australian Open wheelchair event, including men's and women's singles and doubles events, is $47,500, about the same as one player's paycheck for losing in the third round of the men's or women's singles draw.
While Ms. Vergeer's streak is one of sports history's most impressive, at least one milestone looms in the distance. Pakistani squash champion Jahangir Kahn won 555 straight matches from 1981 to 1986. At age 26, Ms. Vergeer should keep collecting major titles -- but there are signs that her competitors may be closing the gap. From August 2004 to October 2006, she didn't lose a set, a streak of 129 singles matches, but last year she was forced to three sets on three occasions. So as players like Maria Sharapova struggle for another major title in Melbourne, remember that on an outside court, another great champion is aiming not just at victory, but continued perfection as well.
