Jelena Dokic’s shout out to the parents she never had as her father languishes in jail

Jelena Dokic’s emotional on-air comments about Ash Barty’s parents touched everyone. Now we can reveal why she broke down.

As Ash Barty closed out her match to be declared queen of Wimbledon last week, former Australian tennis champ turned commentator Jelena Dokic made an emotional live-to-air congrats.

Dokic fought back tears as she called out Barty’s parents for supporting the world No.1, family support she said that was missing from her own journey through the ranks of women’s tennis.

Now News Corp Australia can reveal the full extent of her choking with emotion.

As Jelena spoke to TV viewers from the commentary box, her father Damir Dokic was languishing in a Serbian jail, caged for the sort of explosive violence he had subjected his daughter to during her career from junior star to world number 4.

Ash Barty with her parents Robert and Josie in mid-March 2021 just prior to her leaving Australia to begin her campaign in Wimbledon. Picture: Nic Morley

He was arrested on May 8 this year for assaulting a local “official” and immediately pleaded guilty, avoiding a length court case and even lengthier sentence.

He is expected to be behind bars until February 22 next year.

The type of official was unnamed but according to local court reporters it could be anyone from a State tax official or doctor to the more serious government official or police officer.

It was the third set of serious criminal charges for Dokic in recent years.

In June 2009, Dokic was sentenced to 15 months jail for threatening to rocket grenade the car of Australian ambassador to Belgrade Clare Bergin if she did not stop the Australian press writing stories about him, specifically that he mistreated Jelena.

In 2009, prison guards escorting Damir Dokic to the courtroom for his retrial, in Ruma, northwest of Belgrade, Serbia. The lawyer for tennis player Jelena Dokic's jailed father says he has launched a hunger strike to protest his 15-month prison sentence. Picture: AP

He was then formally sentenced after a raid on his house found seven rifles, two pistols and other weapons. He was released from jail in 2010.

Now he is in Sremska Mitrovica Prison, the largest jail in Serbia which was used as a torture concentration camp for Croatian and Bosnian prisoners during the 1990s Yugoslav war.

Serbian police yesterday would only reveal Dokic “attacked an official person”.

They refused to go into details as Dokic was an ordinary citizen, no longer “a famous person” and his early admission and deal to serve out his time meant there were no public facts.

Former Australian tennis player Jelena Dokic.

Friends rallied around Jelena after her emotionally-charged acknowledgment of Barty’s parents last Saturday, which clearly referenced her on-again off-again turbulent relationship with her father.

“I just want to get this out before I fall apart,” the former tennis champion said with tissues in her hand.

“I want to give a shout out to her parents, Robert and Josie, because people underestimate the importance of family. She [Barty] talks about that all the time.

“As someone who didn’t have that support, it is so important. This will set an example for parents in Australia and around the world – not how to raise a champion but a genuinely wonderful human being. This is how you support them. You don’t pressure them, you’re there for them and this is why she’s there. So, big shout out to them, well done.”

The 38-year-old Jelena, who along with her manager declined to speak about the moment, still regularly makes news in her native former Yugoslavia with her tennis commentary and interviews of other tennis stars, her weight battles, even life in Covid lockdown Melbourne.

Former tennis player Jelena Dokic with her father Damir Dokic in Melbourne during January in 2001. Picture: Supplied

Like here, Serbia has also covered widely her claims about her off court struggles with her now estranged volatile father.

Damir was the ultimate in bad tennis dads, coaching his daughter the only way the former combatant of the Yugoslav war knew how.

The Dokic family migrated to Australia in 1994 to flee the war living in Fairfield in Sydney’s west.

Jelena showed huge promise in the junior tennis circuit but not without intense mental and physical torture from her father, she would later claim.

As an 11-year-old, she would later reveal, her training sessions often meant whippings with a leather belt if she did not play well and taunts of “slut” and “whore” from her coaching dad when she lost matches.

Upset player Jelena Dokic with her father Damir after he got into a dispute with officials during the US Open at Flushing Meadows in New York. Picture: Charles Fowler.

Kicked in the shins was a regular rebuke for poor performance and she was pulled about the court by her hair or ear, spat in the face and in 2000 she was beaten until she lost consciousness following a first-round loss at the du Maurier Open in Canada.

Jelena’s 2017 autobiography Unbreakable makes for harrowing reading.

Some of these sad memories clearly flooded back this month as the world saw Barty’s parents Rob and Rosie cheer their daughter on then after the win, have their daughter cite their constant positive support and influence for making her who she was today as a person and player.

Damir Dokic at his property in the Serbian town of Vrdnik. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

View of the town from Damir Dokic’s property in Vrdnik, Serbia. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Jelena’s career was punctuated with public hint’s of Damir’s volatility and violence, where in 2000 he was physically ejected from the US Open after throwing a plate of salmon at a cafeteria worker claiming the fish was too small before them verbally abusing tennis officials. He earlier had a drunken tantrum in Wimbledon, his second during that event after a year earlier in a warm up match being ejected for abusive tirades then he was banned from the Australian Open in 2001 after claiming the draw was fixed against his daughter.

Damir Dokic in 2009. Picture: Srdjan Ilic

His volatility scared some around him, no less the media in Serbia who would refuse to visit his semi-reclusive life and home in the alpine village of Vrdnik in Serbia’s north close to the Hungary border.

“It seems Damir Dokic has attacked an official person, allegedly a communal (civic) employee,” one local villager said.

“There were no precise informations in the public but it is a pity for Damir Dokic that he has to be in jail again. He was a world famous person because of his daughter, so it is not kind of a happy end right now.”

They added he had led quite a quiet life since being released from jail and was in regular contact with his son Sava.

Neither father nor son could be contacted for comment.

Originally published as Jelena Dokic’s shout out to the parents she never had as her father languishes in jail