Former world No.4 Jelena Dokic has revealed the traumatic experiences she faced during her playing career and the one moment on Rod Laver Arena that made her want to "disappear and never come back."
Now a popular tennis commentator on Nine's Wide World of Sports, Dokic's documentary, 'Unbreakable,' was released last night in cinemas across Australia.
Born in Croatia, Dokic moved to Sydney when she was 11 to flee the Balkan wars. Her father, Damir, seeked tennis as an escape from poverty and ensured his daughter quickly rose to stardom.
Four years after Dokic fled, she won the 1999 Hopman Cup for Australia with Mark Philippoussis, before earning a breakthrough moment, defeating former world No.1 Martina Hingis in the first-round of Wimbledon to reach the quarter-finals at 16 years of age.
Behind the scenes, however, it was a dark reality that involved physical and emotional torment from her father.
As Dokic and Hingis walked out onto court before their match, a voiceover in the film heard Dokic say: "No one thinks I can win this, but my father does... actually, he demands it of me," before admitting afterwards: "I see my father in the crowd... he's the only one not clapping," she said after claiming the biggest victory of her young career.
Damir was a heavy drinker and would abuse her "10 times worse" when he was under the influence. At one point, she was forced to sleep in the Wimbledon locker rooms.
"Every morning, I woke up and thought: ‘How do I make sure he doesn’t hurt me today?’," Dokic said in the film.
One scene in the documentary was particularly disturbing and will send shivers down the spines of viewers.
"I remember he was so mad that he goes into the bathroom with me, locks the door, and he beat the crap out of me," Dokic said.
"He slammed my head against the wall multiple times. He was kicking me. My shins were so bruised, I couldn’t walk. He actually punches me in the head. And then I went unconscious for a little bit. He also stepped on my head as well."
One of the interviewees, three-time Grand Slam champion Lindsay Davenport, said that "some other players had noticed bruising" on her body.
At the 2000 US Open, Damir was banned from the tournament as well as being excluded from the WTA tour for six months for his angry and concerning outbursts.
Despite making a professional comeback where she represented Australia due to escaping from her father's cruelty, Dokic was scarred for life.
After losing to Davenport at the 2001 Australian Open, Dokic was booed off court because of her recent announcement that she would join an allegiance with Yugoslavia.
In an interview with the Carrie and Tommy show on Fox 101.9 earlier this week, the 41-year-old expressed how heartbroken she was, stating that she had no influence over the decision.
"I would take 100 years of abuse if I could take back not playing for Australia for a few years,” an emotional Dokic confessed.
"He took away from me, something that I loved so much.
"He took that away from me in that moment. He’s sitting in a hotel room watching this while I’m getting booed by 15,000 people. I just wanted to kind of drop into the ground and disappear and never come back.
"I would take any abuse, anything in this world to not even just go through that personally, but that it didn’t take my people, Australians and my fans and everyone that always cheered for me, that it didn’t take 10 or 15 years until my book came out for them to know the truth and just how much I really love Australia."
One of Australia's leading advocates for raising awareness about domestic abuse, Dokic is proud of the work she has done.
"I’m very grateful (my story) has been received the way that it has and I’m very proud of it," Dokic told the Daily Telegraph.
"It gave me a voice. It gave me the power to reclaim my life … I’m proudly standing up for everyone else that doesn’t feel like they can do it and have a voice. I can tell you there are many stories in tennis and other sports that are like this and they have been very afraid to speak up for that exact reason."
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