Famous Tennis Player Reveals The Nightmare She Lived With Her Father

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

Amid the spate of sexual harassment allegations that have been sparked by the Harvey Weinstein case, retired Australian tennis player Jelena Dokic revealed that she was physically and emotionally abused by her father for years.

The player, who in 2012 ranked fourth in the world ranking, tells in her recently published autobiography that from a young age her father beat and kicked her regularly. Among the abuses he remembers are that he pulled her by the hair, spat on her face, and insulted her with bad words.

The father of the athlete, Damir Dokic, was known on the women's tennis circuit for his bad character, since on more than one occasion he starred in serious incidents with journalists and tournament employees, to the point that he was expelled in some events, they reported. Australian media.

But the one who got the worst of it was her daughter. "She was really hitting me violently," said Jelena, who is now a coach and sports columnist for the Sydney Sunday Telegraph. "Basically, it started the first day I played tennis. Since then, it has not stopped, spiraling out of control.”

After losing to Lindsay Davenport in the Wimbledon semifinals in 2000 at age 17, Dokic said his father refused to recognize her after the game and when he finally contacted him by phone, told him not to return to the hotel where the family was staying.. She was so distressed that she tried to sleep in the player area at Wimbledon, where she was found by tournament officials, who contacted her agents to find her a place to sleep.

Dokic, who retired from the courts in 2012, says that what affected her most was the emotional pain she was subjected to. " Listening to what I was saying when I was 11 or 12 years old, those dirty things, was the most difficult thing for me to digest," he said.

The athlete's father resides in Serbia, her country of origin, where she has been in prison for threats and illegal possession of weapons.