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Jelena Dokic has made a heartbreaking admission about the years of abuse she suffered at the hands of her estranged father, Damir.
Speaking on the Mental As Anyone Podcast, the former tennis star, 42, admitted that while she is unable to forgive her father, who she has not spoken to for over a decade, she still cannot bring herself to hate him.
‘People kind of say you have to forgive, not for your abuser or someone that caused you pain, but for yourself,’ she said.
‘But I’m not sure I agree with that because I don’t necessarily have to forgive him to be able to move on.
Jelena continued: ‘I think you have to accept the circumstances. Accepting that that was my life, the cards I’d been dealt, that’s fine but I don’t hate him. Maybe that sounds weird, but I also don’t forgive him.’
Also on the podcast, Jelena recounted details of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, admitting that she was afraid he would kill her.
Jelena Dokic (pictured) has made a heartbreaking admission about the years of abuse she suffered the the hands of her father, Damir
‘I did leave home at the age of 19, escaped during a tennis tournament because the beatings were getting so violent and I didn’t know if I was going to survive the next one,’ she said.
‘A lot of that pressure and abuse continued,’ she added. ‘My father continued to make my life very difficult, but it was more the fact that the trauma and my mental health really took a turn and at the age of 22, in 2005, I almost took my own life.
‘I didn’t know it at the time but I was battling anxiety, depression, PTSD, even an eating disorder which continued, even though I continued playing on the tour.’
Jelena, who has since reinvented herself as a commentator and sports analyst, added that despite her ordeal and its ensuing aftermath, she does not want to be viewed as a victim.
‘I want people to look at me not as a victim, I’m a survivor, but most importantly, thriver, a success story,’ she said.
‘I want people to go, “you know, she did it, I can do it too”.’
Jelena’s revelation comes after she said suffer through ‘100 years of abuse’ from her father if it meant she could undo her decision to turn her back on playing for Australia.
She represented Australia early in her career but announced in 2001 that she was turning her back on her new home and would represent Yugoslavia instead.
Speaking on the Mental As Anyone Podcast, the former tennis star, 41, admitted that she white she is still unable to forgive her father, who she has not spoken to for over a decade, she does not ‘hate’ him.
‘People kind of say you have to forgive, not for your abuser or someone that caused you pain, but for yourself,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sure…I agree with that because I don’t necessarily have to forgive him to be able to move on
Appearing on the Carrie & Tommy Show in November, Jelena admitted that her father was behind the controversial decision and she wished it had never happened.
‘I would take 100 years of abuse if I could take back not playing for Australia for a few years,’ she said.
‘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.’
Jelena detailed the harrowing physical and mental abuse she suffered at the hands of her father in her 2017 autobiography Unbreakable.
The book was subsequently adapted into a documentary, Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story, which was released in cinemas in 2024.
The documentary also aired on Channel Nine in January 2025.
‘I want people to look at me not as a victim, I’m a survivor, but most importantly, thriver, a success story,’ she said. ‘I want people to go, ‘you know, she did it, I can do it too’.’
Following its small screen airing, social media lit up with messages of support for the former world number four, who confirmed she was once knocked unconscious by her father following an on-court defeat.
AFL legend Brendan Fevola labelled Dokic’s story ‘horrific’, while former Uzbekistan tennis star Denis Istomin declared she had the potential to be as good as tennis great Serena Williams.
Other tennis fans praised Dokic for her strength and resilience, with another supporter stating his belief that she would have ‘won multiple grand slam titles’ if she ‘had normal people around her’.
Jelena’s tennis career peaked when she made the Wimbledon quarter-finals in 1999 and semi-finals in 2000, followed by the 2002 French Open quarter-finals.
