Shahar Peer (Born May 1, 1987 in Jerusalem, Israel) is an Israeli professional tennis player. Her career-high singles ranking is World No. 11, which she achieved on January 31, 2011. It is the highest ranking ever for an Israeli singles male or female tennis player.
Shahar Peer attained her best Grand Slam singles result when she reached the quarter-finals at the 2007 Australian Open and the 2007 US Open. She also reached the Women's doubles final at the 2008 Australian Open with Victoria Azarenka. Peer has won five WTA singles titles and three WTA doubles titles. As of August 29, 2011, Peer was ranked World No. 24 in singles and No. 33 in doubles.
Peer originally played with a "counter-puncher" style, she had adopted a more attacking style of play. She loves to take lots of points with the inside out shot on her backhand. She originally used a kick serve that lacked the drive needed to penetrate deep, but she changed it to more of a slice serve, which works great for her now and even generates aces. She has a good volley and doesn't have a problem going to the net. During matches, Peer often turns her back to her opponent between points, faces the back of the court, closes her eyes and tries to wipe the mental slate clean.
Shahar Peer started her competitive tennis career at the age of six and won her first title at the age of 12 when she captured the Eddie Herr International Doubles title with Nicole Vaidišová. She reached the Eddie Herr singles final as well. Peer's first major victory came at the 2004 Australian Open, where she won the Juniors' Championship. Peer beat her former partner Vaidišová in the final and became the first Israeli women to win a junior Grand Slam title since Anna Smashnova won the French Open girl's singles title in 1990.
In January 2006 in Canberra, Australia, she lost a marathon semi-final match (the first of her career) against Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues that lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes. At the time it was one of the ten longest matches in WTA tour history. Peer finished 2006 ranked 20th in the world, after winning her first three WTA singles titles that year in Pattaya, Prague and Istanbul.
At the 2007 Australian Open, Peer made history by becoming the first Israeli woman to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam event. After beating Kuznetsova twice earlier in 2007, she met Kuznetsova for the third time in the fourth round of the French Open and lost. Peer finished 2007 ranked 17th in the world.
Peer finished the year 2008 ranked World No. 38 with a Singles record of 26–24 and a doubles record of 19–17
In the 2011 Australian Open, which Peer started as the No. 10 seed. After the tournament, Peer's ranking rose to No. 11, her highest in her career so far, due to Elena Dementieva and Justine Henin leaving the WTA rankings.
