Shingo Kunieda, the most decorated men’s player in the history of wheelchair tennis, has announced his retirement from the sport.

The news brings an end to Kunieda’s record-breaking 21-year international career – one that has elevated the Japanese 38-year-old to iconic status alongside the world’s sporting greats.

Kunieda ends his career shortly after becoming the first men’s wheelchair tennis player to complete the career Golden Slam, during a 2022 season on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour that also saw him earn his 50th Grand Slam title.

Today on Jan. 22, I made a decision to retire.
Thank you, everyone!@UQAmbassadors @yonex_jp @HondaJP @ANA_travel_info @in_jelly_ @reitakuuniv @BNYMellon @NEC_jp_pr @irctire_bike #oxengineering pic.twitter.com/76UVj3LCvd

— 国枝慎吾/Shingo Kunieda (@shingokunieda) January 22, 2023

After being diagnosed with a spinal tumour at the age of nine, Kunieda took up wheelchair tennis at the age of 11 after his mother discovered the Tennis Training Centre in Kashiwa City, just 30 minutes from their home in Chiba.

He made his Tour debut as a 17-year-old in 2001, winning the first of his 117 main draw singles titles at the Kanagawa Cup. One of his most notable early career successes came two years later, when he helped Japan win the first of three World Team Cup men’s titles, while in 2004 he partnered countryman Satoshi Saida to win the men’s doubles gold medal at the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games. Kunieda would go on to become the only wheelchair tennis player to secure a medal at five successive Paralympic Tennis Events.

After being diagnosed with a spinal tumour at the age of nine, Kunieda took up wheelchair tennis at the age of 11

Kunieda, who ends his career with 28 wheelchair singles and 22 wheelchair doubles Grand Slam titles, won his first in 2006 when he partnered Saida to the men’s doubles title at Wimbledon. Fittingly, his 50th and last Grand Slam title also came at Wimbledon, in 2022, when he finally won the men’s singles title at the All England Club to complete the career Grand Slam.

Kunieda first attained the world No. 1 ranking after winning the US Open USTA Wheelchair Tennis Championships in 2006, the second Super Series singles title of his career, but he took his career to new levels in 2007, winning all three Grand Slam singles titles available to him. It was a feat he would accomplish five times during his career – also doing so in 2009, 2010, 2014 and 2015 - before Wimbledon added men’s and women’s singles wheelchair events to their schedule in 2016 to make all four singles titles available for the first time.

Kunieda may well have repeated the feat in 2008, but there was no US Open wheelchair event in the Paralympic years of 2008, 2012 and 2016 due to the dates of the Paralympic Tennis Event clashing with the final Grand Slam of the year. Instead, Kunieda went on to claim the first of back-to-back men’s singles gold medals with victory at the Beijing Paralympics.

Kunieda was unbeaten in men’s singles competition at the majors from the 2007 Australian Open through to the 2011 Australian Open, winning 12 Grand Slam titles in succession, including five Australian Opens. The first Grand Slam tournament of the year would become his most successful major – his 2022 triumph at Melbourne Park earned Kunieda his 11th Australian Open title.

His unprecedented success at the majors from 2007 through to 2011 underpinned Kunieda’s longest reign at world No.1, which lasted from the end of January 2007 through to December 2011. In that time, he won his first four ITF World Champion Awards.

New achievements were added to Kunieda’s CV between 2012 and 2014 as he won three successive NEC Singles Masters titles, ending 2012 as both Singles Masters and Doubles Masters champion, as well as becoming the first player to win back-to-back Paralympic men’s singles gold medals.

Kunieda was unbeaten in men’s singles competition at the majors from the 2007 Australian Open through to the 2011 Australian Open

Kunieda enjoyed his best year on the Tour in 2014, winning 12 singles titles, while 2015 would be the last season in which he won all three Grand Slam singles titles available to him.

As 2016 and the opportunity of becoming a three-time Paralympic men’s singles gold medallist approached, Kunieda’s career was suddenly threatened by an elbow injury that needed surgery. Though he contemplated retirement and took prolonged periods away from competition to look after his body, he still returned from the Rio 2016 Paralympics with a men’s doubles bronze medal.

It took Kunieda the best part of two years to return to anything like his best, which made his 2018 Australian Open title all the sweeter. After two-year spell that brought ‘just’ five titles and no Grand Slam singles trophies, he described his 2018 victory at Melbourne Park as his ‘happiest’ yet. He similar burst of emotion followed when he followed up with victory at Roland Garros.

Kunieda clinched the gold medal at the 2018 Asian Para Games to secure automatic qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, but while 2019 set him up perfectly for the games with a further nine singles titles, few could have predicted what would follow.

The Covid-19 pandemic ushered in a suspension of professional tennis and the postponement of the Tokyo Games, but Kunieda still managed to add two more Grand Slam titles to his tally that year – reigning again in Melbourne and New York.

With his place in the records books long-since secured, Kunieda’s final season on Tour brought Australian Open and Roland Garros titles, and the icing on the cake: a long-awaited Wimbledon singles crown

Kunieda featured significantly in the marketing and promotion of the rescheduled Tokyo Games, such is his superstar status in Japan, and he also played a significant role in the opening ceremony. However, any resulting pressure on his shoulders did not show as he put together five straight-sets wins to claim his third Paralympic gold medal in front of an adoring home crowd. Within days, he’d also added an eighth and final US Open singles title to his tally.

With his place in the records books long-since secured, Kunieda’s final season on Tour brought Australian Open, Roland Garros titles, and the icing on the cake: a thrilling victory over home favourite Alfie Hewett earned him a long-awaited Wimbledon singles crown.

Kunieda swapped the world No. 1 ranking with Hewett four times throughout 2022 but, with injury having increasingly hampered his unrelenting quest to complete the career Grand Slam, he achieved one final career goal after reaching the semi-finals of the NEC Singles Masters – ensuring he would end the year as world No. 1 and as a 10-time ITF World Champion.

Kunieda withdrew from the remainder of the Masters but it is perhaps fitting that his final career singles title came three weeks earlier: in front of 7000 spectators at the Ariake Tennis Park, the scene of his Tokyo 2020 gold medal, as he edged 16-year-old Tokito Oda in a final set tie-break at the Rakuten Japan Open.

Oda, for many, has been tipped as the future of the sport. Whatever the years ahead bring, one thing for certain: he - and numerous other wheelchair tennis players - have benefitted from the most supreme of role models.