By Sunder Iyer
On behalf of the Tashkent Open Media Team

Seeded second at Tashkent, Israel’s tennis icon Shahar Peer fresh from her triumph at Guangzhou, wants to make it two in row.
Winning her first round easily, she was more than eager to answer our questions.

Just coming back from a long and tiring journey and winning the event at Guangzhou how did you play today?
Shahar: Yes last week, it was a long tournament, the weather was not too good at Guangzhou, and I was little tired after a long journey. But I’ve had time to recover, and today I played well.

So tell us about Today’s match?
Shahar: I’ve played Maret Ani three times before, so knew how she plays and was well prepared.

You won at Guangzhou three years after you won your first event in 2006, hasn’t it been a long wait?
Shahar: It is true that I’ve won a WTA tour event after three years; the best think is that means I’m back in action, it was an important win. I’m not thinking why I didn’t win, but my goal is to try and win more events

You’re rankings also dropped from being to top 15 in 2007 to being 55 now?
Shahar : A lot of things affected my ranking , I was playing some very good tennis , and there was the issue in Dubai where I was not given a visa to play , this affected me personally and professionally, unfortunately it happened at the beginning of the year and I lost some momentum.

Again I was probably playing my best tennis and I was diagnosed for stress fracture and had to pull out of many events and lost the clay season entirely. Making a comeback on Grass at Wimbledon is easy. All this has taken a toll on the ranking.

So how much has all this affected you?
Shahar: I’ve put all this behind me , Importantly I’m playing better tennis , I’m in good shape and my aim to break may highest ranking and be in the top 10 soon.

Coming back on the Dubai issue, what are your thoughts and would you like to play there?
Shahar: Surely I would like to play in Dubai next year, I feel Sports should help in breaking political barriers, and Sports should be not used to politise issues.

What are plans for the remaining part of the year?
Shahar: First on my agenda is to win the Tashkent WTA event, I’ve played four years ago in the qualifying , But I want to win the event, then I travel to Beijing, Osaka, Luxembourg on the next leg of the tour