Martin Legner holds a unique place among the players on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour. The 58-year-old Austrian is the only player to have contested all seven Paralympic Tennis Events since wheelchair tennis became a full medal sport at the Barcelona Games in 1992.

“I’ve been asked how long I might continue playing ever since my first Paralympics in Barcelona. I want to play for as long as I like it and I enjoy it. That’s the answer I gave then and the answer will always be the same,” says the former world No. 3, who completed his third decade of gracing the world’s tennis courts last year.

“I’ve liked all sports all of my life. When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a professional soccer player or a ski racer,” adds Legner, who was injured in a paragliding accident in 1988 before playing his first international wheelchair tennis tournament in the September of the following year, competing in his day chair.

“When I had my accident, I didn’t know you could do any sports in a wheelchair. At the rehab centre I was at I learnt that I could do basketball, table tennis and ski racing. I liked them all, but wheelchair tennis was the one I enjoyed the most because you can do it with able-bodied people and it’s a social sport.”

Legner’s natural aptitude for sport meant that within three years he was in touching distance of becoming a Paralympian in two sports. However, a fall on the ski slopes would change all that for the man from the Tyrol region, near the Austria-Italy border.

“For the first two or three years I also did ski racing,” he says. “And I also qualified for the Winter Paralympics in 1992, but I couldn’t go because two weeks before the Games I broke both my legs when I crashed at a gate in the German championships. I loved skiing, but tennis is a global sport and not just for those who live in the mountains.”

Skiing’s loss was wheelchair tennis’s gain and Legner would become a Paralympian in Barcelona, where he reached the men’s doubles bronze medal play-off and saw his men’s singles challenge end with a quarter-final loss to eventual gold medallist Randy Snow of the USA.

“Every Paralympics was special, but my best Paralympics was Sydney. In Barcelona I got the fourth place in doubles and in Sydney I got the fourth place in singles,” recalls Legner, whose hopes of winning a Paralympic medal in Sydney came to an end against Germany’s Kai Schrameyer.

“The atmosphere in Sydney was great, with all the people around, it was the one I enjoyed most,” he adds. “London was also exciting for me in terms of having so many people around. That was unbelievable for me that the interest was so big for the Paralympics.”

With Legner having now played internationally for over 30 years, he has also contested more World Team Cup finals than any other player, representing Austria for the first time in 1990 in Irvine, California, the original home of the ITF’s flagship wheelchair tennis team event.

Most recently he helped Austria to win the men’s event at the 2019 BNP Paribas World Team Cup European Qualification before finishing 11th at the finals in Israel.

“Wheelchair tennis was not well known in Austria in 1990, so we were just three players (Robert Troppacher, Klaus Salzmann and Legner) from Austria,” says Legner. “We didn’t have any Austrian uniform, but we went, and it was great playing there for the first time.

“I’ve enjoyed every World Team Cup and each one has its qualities and its differences. At the start we did really well for Austria and won bronze medals several times. Recently we’ve had to go through qualification but have still made it to the main draw.”

Other accolades include three Doubles Masters titles in four years between 2001 and 2004 – one partnering Miroslav Brychta of the Czech Republic and two with Japan’s Satoshi Saida. Legner also partnered Saida to one of his four back-to-back doubles titles in the Wheelchair Classic 8’s at the Australian Open between 2003 and 2006. He partnered Dutchman Robin Ammerlaan to win the other three.

With more than 80 career singles titles and over 260 career doubles titles to his name so far, Legner has also won well over 1200 matches in singles and doubles. He is also a former world No. 1, having reached the summit of the men’s doubles rankings in 1999, a season in which he won 20 doubles titles.

With so much experience behind him, Legner is well qualified to assess the development of the game of wheelchair tennis over the years.

“The quality of the strokes and the power of the strokes have improved so much. It’s much more athletic now than ever before,” he says. “Maybe in another 10 years it will all be different again. But now, if you want to be in the Top 100, you really must be a good wheelchair tennis player.”

With Legner’s career successes in doubles outweighing his singles successes, he could be expected to have a leaning towards the doubles discipline and, along with many observers, he believes that doubles play is a tremendous advert for wheelchair tennis.

“I think doubles events are the best promotion for wheelchair tennis because there are so many great rallies that are exciting for spectators and players and you can match up players with higher and lower disabilities,” he says. “In singles, the rallies are so short, sometimes, these days, because of the power of the players.

“But I don’t think you can improve the movement of wheelchairs, only players,” he adds. “I think the improvement in tennis strokes has more influence than the mobility of the wheelchairs. Over the last 30 years I’ve always said we should give more importance to double events. I think there should be more prizemoney and more thought for doubles.”

Along with the majority of world sport, tennis is, of course, suspended for the time being, due to the coronavirus outbreak. The Tokyo Paralympics has been postponed until 24 August to 5 September 2021 and Legner sees no reason why he cannot extend his Paralympic Tennis Event record participation to span eight Games next year.

“Unfortunately, it is difficult now with coronavirus, but health is more important. If I could get to Tokyo it would be great. Just to get through the qualification would mean a lot,” he says.