Jelena shares journey
POVERTY, racism, success, rejection and family breakdown are some of the things champion tennis player Jelena Dokic delves deep into in her book Unbreakable.
The former world No.4 will be telling her story at this week’s Word For Word NonFiction Festival at the Geelong Library and Heritage Centre following the release of her autobiography yesterday.
Coming to Australia as a refugee at 11, Dokic writes about her battle through poverty and racism before her acceptance as a budding Aussie superstar.
The racism battle continued through her tennis days, but through her new book, it is the first time she has shared her challenges in such depth.
“It’s not your average sports book or story,” Dokic said yesterday.
“I think there is a lot in there on a lot of subjects and it really does cover my life from the very beginning.
“I’ve never really spoken a lot about any of the things, which at times were very, very hard, but it’s good to put this down and get it out there in the book.
“It was a good experience and in the end I’m glad I did it.”
Dokic read the book more than 10 times during the editing process, so as to tell her full story, which includes her public rise to No.4 in the world and her private battle through a family breakdown.
“I wanted to make sure I had a lot of things and a lot of events in there, that’s why the editing process was hard,” she said.
“The last two or three months I’ve had to read the book over and over again about 10 or 15 times because I wanted to make sure everything was in there.
“In the end, there was so much that even some things we had to cut.
“I don’t think there are too many stories, especially not sport stories, that have come out that are quite similar to this.”
Dokic said she believes people of all works of life — not only sport fans — will find parts of her story resonate with them.
“Hopefully people can relate to my story and if it can help even one person then it’s worth it,” she said.
“Some parts will be quite shocking. There’s just so many different experiences that I’ve gone through.
“I’m interested to see what people think and how they receive the book and hopefully people get something out of it.”