Shahar Perkiss

Shahar Perkiss was born in 1962 in Haifa

Shahar Perkiss was born in Haifa on 14 October 1962. He began playing tennis at age 7 at the Carmel tennis club, and until age 13 he also played basketball. From 1976 he trained at the Israel Tennis Centers in Ramat HaSharon.

In December 1977 he reached the final of the Australian Open junior event for players up to 16. He joined the men's professional tour at the end of 1980. Between 1981 and 1992 he played 31 Davis Cup matches for Israel and won 18 of them.

He reached number 53 in the world in singles on 4 March 1985 and number 54 in doubles. In May 1985 a heart defect was found, and in 1986 he partly retired from professional tennis. He played at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and won the Israeli championship 4 times in a row from 1988 to 1991.

In 1987 he became coach of Israel's women's team and studied economics at the Technion and the University of Haifa. He managed the Haifa tennis center from 1991 to 2005, served as CEO of the Israel Tennis Association in 2005, and ran the Hod HaCarmel sports club from 2006 to 2013. Since 2013 he has coached tennis in Haifa, and his autobiography appeared in 2016.