Ten years ago this month a nine-year-old Niels Vink told himself: ‘I want to get to the Paralympics’ after visiting the London 2012 Paralympic Games with his mum and a friend.

This week, a year on from the conclusion of the delayed Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, the 19-year-old Dutchman has not only achieved his dream, but he is also a Paralympic gold and bronze medallist, Masters champion, quad singles world No. 1 on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour rankings and top seed for the US Open.

“I went to the London 2012 Games because I had a school friend whose dad almost qualified for London 2012 as a powerlifter, but he just missed out, so I went with my mum and my friend and we had tickets for powerlifting and swimming,” says Vink.

“I had never seen anything so big as the Paralympic Games, it was a whole new world to me and I said ‘I want to get to the Paralympics’, but I didn’t know how. At that stage I didn’t do any sport and  I didn’t know about wheelchair tennis back then.”

Shortly after his return to the Netherlands and a little research into how to start his personal quest to become a Paralympian, Vink attended the Cruyff Foundation’s annual sports day at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam.

“It was a day with all the Paralympic sports, so for me it was an amazing day because I had a whole day of sport,” Vink recalls. “I tried things like sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis and wheelchair hockey. I actually tried every Paralympic sport and I liked everything.

“But what we didn’t know is that there were scouts there from the different sports. The day after we came back from Amsterdam we got an email from the wheelchair basketball federation and I got an invite to Papendal, to the professional training centre. So we went and I was allowed to practice with the big guys from Team Netherlands and they asked me if I wanted train with them.”

Vink’s foray into wheelchair basketball was short-lived.

“For a kid of 10 or 11 it was too heavy,” he says. “I like the game of basketball, but I was avoiding everyone on court because I didn’t want to fall out of my chair. So after one training session I quit.”

Vink’s potential exhibited on the Cruyff Foundation sport day also drew interest from sitting volleyball.

“I really, really liked that and did a few training sessions, also in Papendal, but I was so small I could not reach the net. So I was not able to smash and block and those are important things for volleyball,” says Vink.

With his brief excursions into basketball and volleyball behind him, Vink’s wheelchair tennis career was in its early stages.

“In my neighbourhood there was a tennis club and I started tennis sessions for people with disabilities,” he says. “First of all I did it on my prosthetic legs because I did not want to sit in a wheelchair; don’t ask me why, because I don’t know why. We bought a sports wheelchair for the training and it was not until the last minute that I tried the wheelchair and everything went very fast from there.“

While his visit to London 2012 took him to watch the world’s leading Paralympic swimmers in action, he had no knowledge of the action that was taking place at the other end of the Olympic Park, where Shingo Kunieda was on his way to making history as the first men’s wheelchair tennis player to win back-to-back Paralympic gold medals.  

The London Paralympics was also significant for Vink’s fellow Dutchman and Athens 2004 gold medallist Robin Ammerlaan, for it was the final international tournament of Ammerlaan’s glittering career. But Vink and Ammerlaan were destined to meet, that meeting coming at Vink’s local tennis club, and it would have a significant effect on the 12 year-old’s future trajectory.

“I was training for fun at my club and one day we had a clinic with Robin Ammerlaan. I didn’t know who he was then but my trainer told me that he was a Paralympic athlete, so that was really cool,” recalls Vink. “After the clinic he said that he would put us in contact with the national federation.”

Vink soon received a call from Dutch national wheelchair tennis coach Dennis Sporrel, who invited Vink to train with a small group of junior players at the national tennis centre. Vink thrived.

“I played for two years in the juniors and then I was told that with my disability I would be able to play in the quad category and everything else has come from there,” says Vink.

It’s six years since Vink started hitting with the junior players at the national training centre and he can only look back with amazement at how far he’s come.

“It’s crazy, if, you think about it, that 10 years ago I didn’t even know that wheelchair tennis existed and now I’m world No. 1, a Paralympic gold and bronze medallist, Masters champion…. It’s incredible, it’s a dream that came true.”

“Tokyo was so strange because of all that has happened over the years but I enjoyed every moment. To think that as a little kid in 2012, without having played any sport, I said I wanted to compete at the Paralympics. Nine years later, what that little boy said came true. It’s unbelievable.”

A week after making his Paralympic debut in Tokyo, Vink made a memorable debut at the US Open, beating his countryman and defending champion Sam Schroder in the first round. More recently the two players contested the first all-Dutch quad singles final at Wimbledon in July, a match that Schroder won.

“I didn’t have my mind under control at Wimbledon, so afterwards I needed a few weeks off and needed not to think about tennis,” admits Vink. “I went on vacation to Egypt and then Spain. But I’ve been back training hard for a few weeks now and I feel back under control and I’m feeling ready.”