Damir Dokic was never without demons and daughter Jelena bore the brunt
When I first saw Jelena Dokic play as a teenager, I knew she was a star, but her volatile father and a heartbreaking Olympic saga almost severed her bond with Australia forever.
“You drink Rakija with me, Jelena play Olympics.” How we got there I’ll come to, but such an overture was embedded in the cultural roots of Damir Dokic, who passed away this week.
My first exposure to the Dokic family was watching a 15-year-old Jelena playing the juniors at the French Open. I only needed to watch a few games to recognise her precocious talent and, charged with finding the right Aussie to partner Mark Philippoussis at Hopman Cup, I knew right away she was the one.
Jelena Dokic was special, but little did I know how unique the permutations would be both on and off the court. At that Hopman Cup in January 1999 Jelena, still only 15, and Mark, won the final over Sweden, the first Aussie pair to do so. She was now a name in Australian tennis.
We need to remember Damir had brought his family from Yugoslavia to start a new life in Australia, especially to give Jelena the opportunity to progress in a world-class tennis environment. When you think about it now, it’s a touch ironical given Serbia is no longer considered a weak tennis nation, having produced two world No.1s, Novak Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic. But that was then.
Her progress in tennis was swift, with her notable win over No.1 seed Martina Hingis, on court 1 at Wimbledon in 1999, a performance standout. Jelena was now a famous name in global tennis, as her father Damir would soon be, albeit for the wrong reasons.
The rumours were there, that there may have been abuse, which Jelena denied for reasons now well known. It was a complex relationship, not made any easier by the Balkan patriarchal culture. Plus, with Jelena a star, the attention was relentless.
Jelena was able to deal with attention and stardom, but Damir, like many tennis parents from humble roots, was hopelessly ill equipped to deal with the relentless gaze of the Western media. He seemed to revel in his dubious “star” status, and missteps were inevitable.
Plus, as we know so well now, Damir was abusing Jelena.
Things came to a head leading up to the Sydney Olympics. Jelena was a bona fide top-10 player (being as high as No.4), and was in an exalted group of Olympic ambassadors appointed by the AOC.
Damir, out of the blue, announced in early 2000 that Jelena would not be competing in the Olympics. This sent shockwaves through the AOC, who were urgently seeking clarity. Jelena herself was not talking, knowing it was unthinkable to publicly speak against her father. This became a source of great embarrassment within Tennis Australia who were being asked discretely if it had its house in order.
To be fair, TA had tried countless times to make contact with Damir, and had invited him on numerous occasions to come to TA headquarters at Melbourne Park any time he was in Melbourne, which was quite often. He never came. In a senior management meeting at TA, I blurted out “We need to go and visit Damir, not the other way round”. Someone said “Who’s going to do that?” There was silence around the table, so I said “I’ll go. We’ve got nothing to lose.”
So off I headed to a very humble neighbourhood in western Sydney. English was not the first language, as is the case in many communities in our diverse nation. I immediately noticed how humble the house was, even though Jelena was by now earning big money. My mission, in my conversation with Damir, was not to try to talk him into allowing Jelena to play the Olympics, but to explain to him that TA needed to manage the PR fallout, so we’d need to agree on a reason why Jelena would not be playing.
I suggested that, without the cover of an injury excuse, we collectively say immediately post Wimbledon that assuming Jelena’s ranking had dropped (she was defending a quarter-final) that she needed to focus on her tournament schedule and to reboot her ranking, so regrettably would miss the Olympics. I said TA would not condone any player missing the Olympics, but we could at least acknowledge her stance. It wouldn’t be a great message, but that would be the best we could do and, importantly, we’d be on the same page. Damir seemed OK with that.
So Damir did a barbecue for the whole family and we chatted. I was made to feel very welcome, the hospitality in the home was warm and generous, as is always the case in the Balkan culture. I was just about to leave when Damir uttered the words “You drink Rakija with me, Jelena play Olympics”. Rakija is a double distilled fruit brandy, and is the national drink of Serbia. Jelena’s smile said it all, I duly accepted the offer, and that was that.
Jelena Dokic was a point away in the semis from playing Venus Williams for the Olympic gold medal at the Sydney Olympics. She lost that point, then lost the bronze medal playoff against Monica Seles. Instead of bringing Australia a medal, quite possibly gold, and along with it the love of the Australian public which she didn’t have, but has now, she walked away with nothing. Sport is cruel.
From there, in my mind, the downward spiral began, as it was announced by Damir only a month later, and confirmed by Jelena herself, that she was renouncing Australia and would play under the Yugoslav (and then Serbia and Montenegro) flag, which she did. She was still a minor, and had no choice. Nonetheless, no need to elaborate how that went down in the hearts and minds of the Australian public, and her fellow Aussie players. Jelena Dokic was persona non grata.
It came to a head at Australian Open 2001, where Jelena drew world No.1 Lindsay Davenport in the first round. Damir famously proclaimed, as he did on all manner of things, that the draw was rigged (by the way I was tournament director!). Jelena duly lost, and we didn’t see her on Australian soil again for nearly four years.
We all lost contact with Jelena, as her career had pretty much derailed, until Heinz Gunthardt, who had been coaching Jelena part time and was covering the ATP Finals for Swiss TV(who used to be omnipresent until Roger Federer retired), approached me in November 2004 in Shanghai “Paul, can you help. What’s up Heinz? Well, he said, it’s about Jelena, he said. She’s now estranged from her father, but she seems lost. He said he asked her “Where do you think you belong? Her answer “I feel like I’m an Aussie”.
That hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew right away what we had to do. We needed to get her back. She was a young woman who in her heart was one of us, so we at Tennis Australia had an actual, and moral, duty of care.
I reached out to Jelena, who had some fears, well founded, especially with respect to the Australian public and her former Aussie peers.
She clearly had lost control of her finances (no need to guess to whom), so we rented an apartment for her in South Yarra, managed the PR and invited her to the Australian Open wildcard playoffs (for Aussies only), which she won. She was back.
Jelena went on to play some decent tennis, representing Australia again, but she was never the same player.
As for Damir, he served time for threatening to blow up the Australia ambassador’s residence in Belgrade. His demons are well chronicled, a man who I believe loved his daughter, but in an unacceptable way which crossed many fault lines.
Jelena was gracious in her comments after her father’s passing this week.
Paul McNamee co-founded the Hopman Cup and was tournament director of the Australia Open from 1995-2006
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