After a 10-year, 470-match winning streak, the Dutchwoman Esther Vergeer has retired, ending one of the most prolific careers in any sport. "I'm hugely proud of my performances, my titles, and can look back on my career with a great feeling," the 31-year-old said at the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam.

"Keeping going would not add anything." Vergeer won the singles gold at four Paralympics starting at Sydney 2000 and ending in London last year. She also won 21 grand slam singles titles, 23 grand slam doubles titles, three Paralympic doubles gold medals and a silver. Overall, she won 148 singles titles and 136 in doubles.

Vergeer took a break from the sport last year to consider the future after the Paralympic gold. In her 470 wins, she only ever faced one match point, in the final of the Beijing Paralympics.

Her retirement means she will not surpass what is widely believed to be the longest run of consecutive wins in sport – 555 by the Pakistani squash great Jahangir Khan from 1981–86.

In the last 10 years she won 120 straight tournaments, beating 73 different opponents, winning 95 matches 6-0, 6-0 and dropping only 18 sets, the International Tennis Federation said.

Sitting on the couch at home in the snowy Netherlands last month and watching the Australian Open on television, she knew it was time to end her playing career and concentrate on efforts to promote sport for people with disabilities through a foundation she has set up. "It felt great," she said, choking back tears.

In a measure of Vergeer's status in Dutch sport the football great Johan Cruyff attended her announcement and wrote a foreword in the book about her life and career.

Sportspeople like Vergeer, "should be an example to us all," Cruyff said.

Roger Federer paid tribute in another foreword. "She is an astonishing athlete, a huge personality and she has achieved one of the most amazing feats in our sport," he wrote.

Vergeer, who was eight when she lost the use of her legs following surgery to repair blood vessels around her spine, started playing wheelchair basketball as she recovered and was good enough to make the Netherlands team before focusing on tennis.

She rose to No1 in the wheelchair rankings in 1999 and never relinquished the top spot.

"Esther Vergeer is a tremendous ambassador not only for tennis but also for disability sports. She is an inspiration to many," the ITF president Francesco Ricci Bitti said. "Wheelchair tennis owes her a huge debt of gratitude for her professionalism and her quality as a player."

The last time she lost was to Daniele di Toro in Sydney on 30 January 2003. "To be honest, I don't really know or remember what it feels like losing in singles," Vergeer said. "I've lost a couple of times in doubles so I know what it's like to lose. And I know what it's like to lose a Monopoly game and I don't like losing. But this doesn't feel like something I lose. This is not the same thing at all."