Jelena Dokic confirms death of estranged father Damir Dokic

New York Times

21-05-2025

Jelena Dokic, a former world No. 4 and Wimbledon semifinalist, has confirmed that her estranged father, Damir, has died aged 67.
Dokic, 42, who has recounted her father's physical and emotional abuse during her early life and his time coaching her on the WTA Tour, wrote on social media: 'Despite everything and no matter how hard, difficult and in the last 10 years even nonexistent our relationship and communication was, it is never easy losing a parent and a father even one you are estranged from.
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'The loss of an estranged parent comes with a difficult and complicated grief.'
In her 2017 memoir, 'Unbreakable', and its 2024 documentary film adaptation, 'Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story,' Dokic wrote that her father subjected her to constant physical and emotional abuse. In the documentary, Dokic said: 'There was not an inch of skin that wasn't bruised. I'm 17 and through his actions, (I) became the most hated person.'
Dokic said she became terrified of losing a match. On one occasion, she said her father kicked her head until she lost consciousness. Damir admitted to having beaten his daughter in an interview with the Serbian newspaper, Vecernje Novosti, in 2009. He claimed that it was 'for her sake.'
Dokic, who emigrated to Australia with her Serbian family when she was 11, was a phenomenally gifted teenager and tipped as a future world No. 1. In 1999, she qualified for Wimbledon aged 16 and beat the world No. 1 Martina Hingis 6-2, 6-0 en route to the quarterfinals. She reached the semis the following year, and represented Australia in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, losing the bronze medal match to Monica Seles.
But her career suffered as a result of her father's actions, and she became a hate figure in Australia after he convinced her to switch her nationality to Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro and now Serbia) between 2001 and 2005. Dokic's ranking plummeted, and between 2005 and 2008 she was largely playing away from the main tour, before winning her first Grand Slam match in six years with a stirring run to the 2009 Australian Open quarterfinals. Still only 25, Dokic never hit the same heights again and retired five years later.
During her career, her father's aggressive and sometimes illegal public behavior was a constant distraction. Damir smashed a reporter's phone at Wimbledon in 2000, before being banned from the WTA for six months in the same year after abusive behavior at the U.S. Open. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2009, after being convicted of endangering the security of Australia's ambassador to Serbia, Claire Birgin.
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Since retiring from tennis, Jelena Dokic has become a public speaker and tennis commentator, regularly doing on-court interviews at the Australian Open. She said after the release of her documentary last November that she hadn't spoken to her father in more than 10 years.
'It's an end of a chapter and life as I know it,' Dokic wrote in her post confirming her father's death.
'There are lots of conflicting and complex emotions and feelings for me. For the end of this chapter, I choose to focus on a good memory like this picture.'
A post shared by JELENA DOKIC 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺 (@dokic_jelena)