Word: shachar
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When he was 14, Ben-Shachar's family moved back to Israel. Luckily, Israel's only commercial squash court was a five-minute walk from his house in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv. Here, Ben-Shachar's training consisted of a ten-mile run before school and about three hours of on-court afternoon practice. "My life was basically squash," he says. When given the option of graduating from high school early, Ben-Shachar accepted it. Graduating at 16 meant that he had two years to devote to squash before fulfilling his obligatory service in the Israeli army...
...free years, Ben-Shachar spent one and a half abroad, based in London (during the remaining time, he earned money to initiate his squash career). "In England, my goal was to improve as quickly as I could," he says. "I thought the best way to do it would be to play the best player that I could find...
...world champion was also based in London at the time. Ben-Shachar went to the club where the champion trained and waited "from sunrise to sunset," hoping that he would need a partner at some point. The world champion began to notice Ben-Shachar, and would play with him once in a while. Meanwhile, Ben-Shachar continued training six hours a day and "improved very quickly." After a few months, he and the world champion were regular training partners, and Ben-Shachar's world squash ranking climbed to number...
...success of Ben-Shachar's training partner was not the only interesting element of their alliance. The world champion was a Pakistani Muslim, Ben-Shachar an Israeli Jew. "We had many interesting discussions about this," Ben-Shachar remembers. Through tournaments, he also met and befriended the Jordanian squash champion. "And then wasn't now," he points out. "Now there is peace, but then it was a little more difficult...
...Shachar recalls one particularly poignant experience when politics--the hostile relationship Israel has with many Arab countries and their allies--became eminently personal. During the junior world championships, the Israeli squash team was slated to play the Malaysian team. But the Malaysian government had other plans...