Aussie tennis legend Jelena Dokic has opened up about years of abuse suffered at the hands of her father Damir Dokic, detailing the horrific allegations in her forthcoming autobiography Unbreakable.
News Corp spoke with Dokic ahead of the book’s publication, and she revealed distressing details from her childhood and career, saying that her father subjected her to verbal and physical abuse from the first day she picked up a tennis racket, at the age of six.
“It basically started day one of me playing tennis,” she said. “It continued on from there. It spiralled out of control.”
Dokic said that, as a teenager, her father would whip her with his belt after “a mediocre training session, a loss, a bad mood”, and would spit in her face when angry. She claims that he would also beat her with a hard-capped boot, and that at one point, the abuse was so severe that she was knocked unconscious.
The book also contains a story about her semi-finals loss at Wimbledon in 2000 – Dokic says that after being knocked out of the tournament, she was forced to look for a place to sleep, as she was not allowed in the family hotel room, paid for by her own earnings.
Since Dokic’s claims came to light, other Aussie sports stars have rallied around her with, Andrew Bogut saying that her story is “absolutely brutal to read” and serves as “an example of why you should never fully judge someone unless you know the situation they are in.”
https://twitter.com/andrewbogut/status/929423312446517249
Damir Dokic, who acted as Jelena Dokic’s coach throughout her career, has made numerous headlines with his conduct at tournaments and elsewhere. In 2001, he claimed that the Australian Open draw was rigged, and was subsequently banned over claims of abusive behaviour.
He was once escorted out of Wimbledon for drunk and disorderly behaviour, smashing a reporter’s mobile phone in the process, and he was jailed for a period in 2009 after threats be made to the Australian ambassador to Serbia.
Dokic spoke to Fox Sports about her years of abuse, in an interview set to air this Wednesday.
Unbreakable is set for publication tomorrow.
