Is this guy very talented or has a lot of heart because when he played safin i dont know how many freek service games he lost but is was a phonemanal amount if he could hold on how much better would he be?

Q2 In israel are tennis players talented or have more opportunity to progress because they're such a small country?

Q3 Are there any youngsters coming through the ranks?

Q4 When big talents go through the army does that paly a big role in denting there career because they have lost a lot of match practice and dent there confidence or would they have the common sense to move abroad if they were big talents that is?

Thankyou Adam

Today on a sport radio show they interviewed dudi sela. on the game agaont safin, he said he could see himself winning it but after the rain the momentum changed bad for him.

for the last 5 years he hasnt got any sponsor. Israel tennis association dont pay or sponsor any top athlete saying they dont have a budget. not even shachar pe'er. all they do is pay them for playing in the davis cup, and since he couldnt play last year, he got nothing.

his coach works with him for free. five years ago he was 3rd in the world for youth. a company sponsored both him and Marcos Baghdatis for one year (they are good friends and coached together). Baghdatis went much higher and so got major sponsors. Dudi Sela for the past 5 years has had to finance his gear, flights, food, etc by himself and his coach still works with him for free. This is how the israeli tennis federation treats our top players. the radio hosts said they were shocked, and I was also.

so to see how the ITA ruins this sport here, its amazing we even have proffesional players. all the big money goes to football and basketball.

Q2 - I dont know, pop. we are like switzerland or bigger than sweden, and if they can have so much top players we can also.

Q3 - a lot of talent teenegers just give up because they need to be rich to finance themselves (no ITA funding)

Q4 - shachar pe'er could have easily got a permit not to do army service (top athletes in each sport get it), she chose to do
it symbolic, she goes for very few hours. so they dont have to go overseas, its just that to train in top levels in israel with very little competitions is hard.

these are current ranks of israelis in world tennis:


noam okun - 165
dudi sela - 202

shachar pe'er - 18
anna smashnova - 62
tzipi obziler - 110

andy ram/yoni erlich - doubles - in top 10 doubles
http://www.andyyoni.com/

Jan. 21, 2007 8:32 | Updated Jan. 21, 2007 8:49
Pe'er reaches final eight down under

Israeli tennis star Shachar Pe'er won the best victory of her career and matched the best ever Israeli tennis feat by reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian open.

Pe'er, currently ranked 17 in the world, trounced the number 4 best player in the world Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6:4, 6:2, in Melbourne on Sunday morning.

Amos Mamonsdorf was the only other Israeli to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament, in the 1992 Australian Open.

In the quarterfinals, Pe'er will play the winner of the match between Serena Williams and Jelena Jankovic

hey why is that on all the tennis sites her name is spelled Shahar Peer?

well the ch is used in hebrew like kh in arabic or g in dutch
so sometimes instead of ch we just use h in english.
but you have to know hebrew to know when the english h
is really h and when kh.

so its shachar, english people have a problem with ch or kh,
so they say it shahar.

example: we write in english haifa or haddad .. but everyone who
speaks hebrew or arabic will know how to say it right

a little tip, in spanish the ch in hebrew or h in english is sayed like j, for example haifa would be sayed like jaifa, and sahar would be sajar, btw she keeps winning in the australian open and will play the quarter finals against one of the williams sisters :)

yes she jumped to 5-10th in the world !! best position ever reached for israeli tennis.

^^15th yet...

well done Shachar!we proud of you:)

too bad she lost to serena williams in the last set!
but still great she reached 1/4 finals.

yeah she's great!
btw few months ago a good tennis player emmigrated to Israel.She was in 15th place in the world...

I've allways wandered whether players like Sela use different tensions in there strings so that it's lighter and easier to hit through the ball. Or do they all use tough strings because of the work effort and dedication they put into there fitness to show there strength.

q2 Can you compare womens tennis to mens because in my opinion anyone in mens top 500 is better than top 50 of womens tennis ps:i might be wrong.
It was once tried with navratalova against somebody.