Dokic sees light at the end of tunnel
Australia’s Jelena Dokic said she was still keen to give tennis another try despite crashing out of Wimbledon at the first hurdle on Tuesday.
The 26-year-old’s defeat could hardly have contrasted more with her first round appearance here 10 years ago, when she burst onto the tennis scene in spectacular style, knocking out the reigning champion Martina Hingis.
But since then, Dokic’s demons slowly overtook her. Her relationship with her volatile father reached meltdown, she became overcome with depression and walked away from tennis altogether.
Struggling to get her life and career back on track, the Australian number two said at least she now felt able to enjoy playing tennis.
“I still have a lot of work to do, on and off the court,” she admitted after losing 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 to German qualifier Tatjana Malek in her first appearance at the All England Club since losing in the first round in 2004.
“I was at a point where I don’t know if I could have gotten any lower.
“When you’re battling depression, when you’re overweight, you haven’t touched a racquet for six months or a year, you really don’t care anymore. That’s the stage that I was at.
“Then slowly I was actually thinking about what I might do with my life, because I made a decision at the time not to play.
“And then out of nowhere, six months later, I thought I’d just try to pick up a racquet and play for fun for myself.
“It turned into something different. I got that desire back. I thought I might give this another try, because I was not 30 or 35, I was still 24, and I still had a chance to come back.
“I don’t think I can pinpoint to a certain specific situation that turned it around, but I did.”
Her return to Wimbledon came a decade after she had, as a relative unknown ranked 129, beaten Swiss world number one Hingis in straight sets in the first round.
It has been a tough 10 years.
“It was a different situation then. But it’s something that kick-started my career,” the world number 76 said.
“A lot of stuff has happened. I don’t feel like I’ve played as much tennis as I probably should have in the 10 years. I lost about four years, which is disappointing.
“It’s very hard to get out of that situation and start playing again when everyone else has been playing. There are new and younger girls coming but I’m trying my best. I’m here.”
Last week, a Serbian court jailed her father Damir for 15 months for threatening to bomb the Australian embassy in Belgrade and keeping illegal weapons.
But Dokic insists her relationship with her father, a dominant figure in her early years, is broken for good, and she is also sick of speaking about him.
“I’ve said it a million times. I have absolutely nothing at all to do with him. So I don’t see why people would think that I would reunite with my dad when every single question I answer is about me not doing that,” she told reporters.
“Now and forever, there is no way that I would ever reunite with him or ever have a relationship with him, so this is the last sentence ever you guys will hear from me.”
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