DOKIC REVEALS ABUSE HELL
FORMER tennis star Jelena Dokic has revealed the full extent of the abuse she suffered at her father’s hands in a new autobiography to be released this week.
The first extract from her book ‘Unbreakable’ was released through Australia’s Daily Telegraph yesterday and Dokic is also doing a major TV interview mid-week about her father Damir Dokic, whose abusive behaviour she first revealed in 2009.
Her estranged father’s behaviour at Wimbledon and the US Open saw him banned from the women’s tour for six months at one point. He now lives in Serbia, where he has spent a year in prison for threatening to kill the Australian ambassador.
She alleges he once beat her so badly that she lost consciousness and that he repeatedly physically and verbally abused her to the point where she contemplated suicide.
“The better I played the worse he got. Which is the one thing I couldn’t understand,” she said.
She was world No 4 in 2000 when she was just 19. Two years earlier he abandoned her at Wimbledon after a semi-final loss to Lindsay Davenport, refusing to allow her to return to the hotel room she was technically paying for. matters,” he said.
“We were playing a makey-up game two times a year and against the same opponents every time. That’s not just a poor man’s version of international sport, that is a desperate man’s version.”
Marc Ó Sé also reckons that “the whole venture is on its last legs” especially given the GAA’s decision to restructure the intercounty championships.
“Last Friday night the Kerry county board broke with tradition to confirm that next year the county championship will not begin until September. You can pretty much bet that most counties will follow suit now,” he said, extrapolating that the calendar will be busier than ever now for club players from September to November which will leave even less room in future for International Rules.