Tennis’ top champ rides a wheelchair
January 25th, 2008
Writing in the “By the Numbers” column in the Wall Street Journal, Allen St. John says one of the most dominant competitors in all of sports is someone few of us know: Esther Vergeer of the Netherlands, the defending women’s wheelchair singles champion. Entering this year’s Australian Open, she had won 303 consecutive matches. That’s longer than the winning streaks of Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Margaret Court and Guillermo Vilas combined.
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.
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on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 9:55 am and is filed under exercise/sports, wheelchair.
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