Scheffers and Vergeer Finish Year Atop Wheelchair Tennis Rankings

This is the first time Scheffers has won the honour, while it is the 12th time Vergeer has been named world champion. 13 Dec 2011

Esther Vergeer has been the top women's Wheelchair Tennis player in the world for the last decade.

ⒸAdam Fradgley

By IPC

The Netherlands’ Maikel Scheffers and Esther Vergeer finished the year as the 2011 Wheelchair Tennis world champions, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced Tuesday (13 December).

This is the first time Scheffers has won the honour, while it is the 12th time Vergeer has been named world champion.

The two will receive their awards at the annual ITF World Champions Dinner on 5 June 2012 in Paris during the Roland Garros tournament.

Vergeer extended her singles winning streak to 434 matches this year, winning eight singles titles, including all three Grand Slam events and the year-end NEC Masters.

Unbeaten in singles since January 2003, the 30-year-old also won all four Grand Slam doubles titles and the Invacare Doubles Masters, and she led the Dutch women to victory in the ITF World Team Cup.

“I’m so proud of being ITF World Champion again this year,” Vergeer told the ITF. “It has been a great and successful year for me, and I am looking forward to the Paralympics in 2012. I will play tournaments and train hard in the coming year to prepare for my main goal – a gold medal in London.”

Scheffers, meanwhile, ended the reign of Japan’s Shingo Kunieda’s as men’s wheelchair world champion. The 29-year-old captured six singles titles in 2011, including his first Grand Slam success at Roland Garros and five doubles titles. He was runner-up at the NEC Masters and helped the Dutch men regain the ITF World Team Cup.

"It's been a very memorable year for me, the highlight of which was beating Shingo for the first time and winning my first Grand Slam at Roland Garros,” Scheffers told the ITF. “I'm very proud to become wheelchair world champion, and now I will focus on trying to become Paralympic champion in London in 2012."

The ITF’s selection of its world champions is based on a system that considers all results during the year, giving weight to the Grand Slam tournaments and two ITF international team competitions, the Davis Cup and Fed Cup.