Sinai Says: Shahar must choose her next coach wisely

Shahar only won 26 of her 50 matches, with 15 of the 24 losses coming against inferiorly ranked players.

By ALLON SINAI
allon sinai Olympics 88 (photo credit: )
allon sinai Olympics 88
(photo credit: )
The next couple of weeks will be of crucial importance to Shahar Pe'er's career. The 21-year-old's season may be long over, but during the next two weeks she will select her new coach, a decision of huge significance, especially considering her current situation. "At the moment we're still checking several options. We have 4-5 candidates," Shahar's brother and spokesperson Shlomi Pe'er told me on Tuesday. "A decision will be made at the very latest in two weeks time because Shahar needs to begin her preparation for next year." Pe'er, who announced three weeks ago that she has played her last match of 2008, pulling out of her final two tournaments of the season due to an infection in the base of her foot, struggled throughout most of the year, failing to repeat the results which arguably made her Israel's number one athlete. In 21 tournaments this year, Pe'er was knocked out seven times in the first round and advanced to just four quarterfinals, with those successes all coming in Tier III events or lower. Shahar only won 26 of her 50 matches, with 15 of the 24 losses coming against inferiorly ranked players, and is currently ranked number 38 in the world, her lowest position since February 2006. Pe'er's next coach will have the difficult task of finding a way to make all these stats from 2008 a distant memory and help Shahar regain her confidence and return to the world's top-20. Unlike soccer or basketball, in tennis a coach doesn't just need to improve his player's performance on-court, but also acts as the player's psychologist and best friend for 40 weeks of the year in which the two travel the world. In May 2006, Pe'er split with Oded Jacob, who guided her at the start of her career, and trained with interim replacements for three months. In August 2006 Shahar teamed-up with Israeli coach Oded Taig and it's no coincidence that their 15 months together were the best of her career. Under Taig, Pe'er won 58 of her 87 matches, reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian and US Opens, and achieving a career best ranking of 15. The excellent relationship between the two had a direct impact on Pe'er's form on-court and Taig's decision to leave at the end of 2007, because he no longer wanted to commit to such a grueling schedule, proved to be a turning point in Shahar's career. Pe'er decided to hire the services of Gabriel Urpi and Conchita Martinez ahead of 2008, but after six months of deteriorating results, they inevitably split and in the five months since she has been without a permanent coach and unsurprisingly has suffered some of the worst defeats of her career. Choosing her next coach is as important a decision as Pe'er will have to make in her career. Whether she gets it right or wrong will likely determine if her recent form is here to stay or if her best is still ahead of her. allon@jpost.com