Shahar was born in Jerusalem on May 1st, 1987. Shahar is the youngest out of three children. Her brother Shlomi is seven years older, and her sister Shani is four years older. Dovik, Shahar's father, was born in South Africa in 1955 and came to Israel in 1961 with his mother and three brothers. Aliza, Shahar's mother, was born in Jerusalem in 1955.
They went to the same elementary school. Dovik had a crush on Aliza from the first grade, but Aliza was not interested. Dovik continued to pursue her, and by the time they got to high school, Aliza gave up and the two started dating. They got married in 1978. Both come from athletic backgrounds. In high school, Dovik was the swimming champion of Jerusalem and Aliza was a champion sprinter.
Dovik is now the CEO of the online dictionary and translation software Babylon. Aliza is a retired sports teacher.
When Shahar was one year old, she moved with her family to Macabim. That same year, Dovik bought Shlomi a racquet. This was the family's first connection to tennis. Shlomi played seriously until the age of 13. Shani then started playing seriously at the age of 10 and stopped at 16. In her siblings' footsteps, Shahar started playing at the age of six and did not stop.
Shahar attended kindergarten and elementary school in Macabim and then moved to a school in Reut for junior high and high school. Shahar had strong connections with her teachers, in particular her kindergarten teacher, Miri Petel, who she visited often in her later years.
Shahar led a busy life as a child. Starting from the age of seven, she had tennis practice three times a week in the morning, and every day in the afternoon. She started this routine with Shani, but by the age of 10 she was doing it on her own.
Three times a week, Shahar would wake up at 5:30 am so her mother could drive her to Tel Aviv for her morning practice. She would have an hour of practice, and then go back to Macabim to get to school at 8:00. When school was over, her mother would pick her up, feed her lunch in the car, and take her straight to her afternoon practice in Tel Aviv for five hours. Shahar returned home every night at around 8:00 pm. While her days were extremely tiring, Shahar realized the importance of her education and was determined to finish school. She received a lot of help from all the faculty members in her school in order to reach this goal. She graduated high school in July 2005.
Israeli citizens have mandatory army service at the age of 18. Shahar and her family strongly believe in the importance of contributing and giving back to the country. Shahar realized the importance of carrying out this service and felt it was her duty as an Israeli citizen. In Israel, there is a special program for outstanding athletes where the army helps the athlete continue their career while still assigning them a job in the army.
As a member of this program, Shahar, like every other Israeli woman, had a required two-year period in the army. She did basic training for three weeks, then got an office job in a small unit. Starting in October 2005, every time she was home in Israel, Shahar attended her job in the army. She completed her army service in October 2007.
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