Jelena Dokic ‘I'M FINALLY FREE'

One year on from exposing the shocking abuse she suffered at the hands of her own father, tennis star Jelena Dokic tells Sue Smethurst why it’s finally time to start a new chapter in her life.

Jelena Dokic can pinpoint the happiest moment of her life without blinking. Surprisingly, it isn’t either of her greatest tennis triumphs, knocking world number one Martina Hingis out of Wimbledon in 1999 or reaching the quarter-finals of the French Open in 2002, which catapulted her to number four in the world.

“It was November 13, 2017,” she says bluntly, of an off-court moment little more than a year ago, the day her gut-wrenching memoir Unbreakable hit bookstands around the world. “Writing the book is by far my greatest achievement because it has totally turned my life around. It has changed everything,” she says.

On that day, the world learned of the horrific abuse the former tennis champion suffered at the hands of her father, Damir Dokic.

From the time she was six, he regularly kicked his daughter, pulled her hair, whipped her with a leather belt and called her a slut and a whore. Throughout her career, many had concerns about her father’s erratic, often alcohol-fuelled public behaviour, but no one knew of the horrific violence unfolding behind closed doors.

The abuse overshadowed the talented junior’s tennis career, pushing Jelena to breaking point. On court she put on a brave face, her familiar blue eyes characteristically determined to win every match. However, off court, she battled crippling depression and contemplated suicide.

Now Jelena, who is one of the stars of the Australian Open television commentary team, says life has finally come full circle.

“Writing the book was cathartic. I was mentally drained afterwards, but at the end of the process I felt a huge sense of release – getting it all out of my system – it was very healing for me, and I am now 100 per cent again.”