Esther Vergeer's road to Newport didn't include a Wimbledon singles title—through no fault of her own

WATCH: Esther Vergeer, Rick Draney revealed as 2023 International Tennis Hall Of Fame inductees, at a ceremony in Rotterdam

Last Sunday revealed much about tennis’ future, and that includes Carlos Alcaraz. It also includes Tokito Oda, who is three years younger than Alcaraz and who was playing just his second Wimbledon. Like the Spaniard, he secured the No. 1 ranking with his first Wimbledon title.

“I’m still 17, I want to open champagne, but I couldn’t,” Oda said on court, to plenty of laughs. “I have to drink sparkling water!”

Meanwhile, as Novak Djokovic came up short in his bid for a fifth consecutive Wimbledon, Diede de Groot closed her singles campaign with her 11th consecutive Grand Slam title.

An impressive stat, no doubt, but like Alcaraz, de Groot is still chasing the GOAT in her discipline: Esther Vergeer. The greatest wheelchair tennis player of all time by any measure, Vergeer won a staggering 48 Grand Slam titles (21 in singles, 27 in doubles) and once—are you ready for this?—amassed a 470-match winning streak.

Just 458 more to go, Carlitos.

This Saturday will enlighten much about tennis’ past, and that includes Vergeer, who will officially be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, in Newport, R.I. But the 41-year-old Dutchwoman still keeps an eye on the game she dominated, and where it is going.

“The men’s game has evolved enormously,” Vergeer said during Wimbledon, six days before Oda’s eye-catching victory. “How they hit, how they move—it has made tremendous steps.”

As for the women’s wheelchair game? Well, Vergeer seemed the foretell what the fortnight would bring in her response.

“There’s not a lot of new players on the tour…I would say that Diede de Groot is next generation, and next level. Maybe Yui Kamiji comes close to that, but I wouldn’t say that the whole women’s game stepped up.”

De Groot, who was born in 1996 with unequal-sized legs, is 12 total Grand Slam titles behind Vergeer—but there’s a catch. Vergeer was never allowed to play singles at Wimbledon. The tournament believed the grass surface, which Vergeer agrees is the toughest on which to roll, would be too difficult for singles players to manage.

Still, it was challenge Vergeer was ready, if unable, to meet.

“Your mobility is probably the toughest,” Vergeer says of grass—the surface at this week’s ATP tournament in Newport. “You have so much resistance on your chair with grass, it’s just hard to be fast, so to say.

“I would have loved to play singles there. I was convinced that I could do it, but the organization wouldn’t let me.”

Vergeer nonetheless collected three doubles titles at Wimbledon, and who knows how many more she would have earned in singles. Her lowest singles haul from an individual Slam was six—at both Roland Garros and the US Open.

Vergeer found the atmosphere and the surface at Flushing Meadows most to her liking: she could predict where the ball was going, making shots easier to read, and she could push off the court with her chair swiftly. The bounce also helped: not too high, like at the Australian Open.

Not that that hindered Vergeer much. She won nine singles titles on Melbourne Park’s Rebound Ace courts, and another eight trophies in doubles.

I sent pictures of places and people, tangible items. But it’s the meaning and the significance and the memories behind those things that tell me something. Rick Draney, 2023 International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee

Vergeer’s enshrinement in Newport was, not unlike many of her matches, a fait accompli. She’ll share the stage with Rick Draney, making 2023 the first year two wheelchair players will be inducted (they are the sixth and seventh overall).

Draney, a three-time world No. 1 in quad singles, was vital to the growth of wheelchair tennis. In addition to his on-court achievements, he was the Tournament Committee Chairperson of the US Open USTA Wheelchair Tennis Championships for nine years.

“To go in with Esther is an incredible honor,” Draney says. “There is no one more accomplished and more incredible as an athlete.”

As Draney recalls his past, two “vivid, burning” memories come to mind. Both were away from tournament competition. First: a practice session with David Hall, the 2015 inductee and fourth wheelchair player to make it to Newport.

Much like his connection with Vergeer, Draney remains in awe of the time he shared with another iconic player in Hall, saying, “I held my own, I was proud of what I did.”

The second indelible memory: at a tennis camp in Oregon, Draney was asked by Randy Snow, the second-ever wheelchair Hall of Famer, to play a set.

“And I thought, ‘Wow, Randy Snow is asking me to play some tennis with him,’” Draney says with reverence.

All Hall of Fame inductees are asked to bring items of personal significance with them to Newport, to be displayed in a special exhibit. (One of my favorites belongs to Hall: a cassette tape of the thrash metal band Slayer, which he listened to before taking the court.)

“I sent pictures of places and people, tangible items,” says Draney, “But it’s the meaning and the significance and the memories behind those things that tell me something.”

So along with some conventional artifacts that illustrate Vergeer’s excellence—Paralympic medals, competition shirts, and her chair—there will be one that’s more unexpected, more sentimental: a statue of Buddha.

“I brought it with me everywhere while traveling,” Vergeer says. “My boyfriend gave it to me and he said, wherever you go, please take this with you because it will bring you good luck. And it’s not that I’m very spiritual, but it’s a sign of love, of home.

Home can mean many things, and for Vergeer and Draney, it will also mean the Hall.