Tennis champ Jelena Dokic reveals the terrifying moment she feared for her life amid her father’s abuse: ‘I probably wouldn’t have survived that beating’

Jelena Dokic has revealed she feared for her life amid her father Damir’s harrowing abuse during her professional sporting career.

The Australian tennis champion, 41, has documented the years of abuse she suffered at the hands of Damir in her tell-all feature film Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story.

She showed up Nova’s Jase & Lauren to discuss the documentary and recalled her fear of death when she was just 17 years old.

Jelena told how her father forced her to play for Yugoslavia at the 2001 Australian Open, leaving her caught between Damir’s anger and widespread public criticism.

She admitted that she feared being beaten by her father if she did not agree to change which country she played for, and that at one point she was afraid for her life.

“When I had to transfer from Australia to Yugoslavia to play Lindsay Davenport within 24 hours of walking into Rod Laver Arena, I was literally caught between two fires,” she told hosts Jason Hawkins and Lauren Phillips.

“My father here, if I hadn’t started saying it at a media conference that was suddenly organized, when I got back to the hotel room, who knows, I probably wouldn’t have survived that beating.

‘Or here I had the media, sponsors [and the] crowd that was going to hammer me – like they did – so what do you do?

“So of course I did and 24 hours later you walk out and you’re in Rod Laver Arena with 15,000 people booing you and everyone writing that you’re a traitor.”

Jelena heartbreakingly said she would have endured ‘100 years’ of abuse at the hands of Damir if it had meant she could have continued playing for Australia.

“This always makes me emotional, nothing else does,” she said through tears.

“I said recently, and people find it shocking, that I would take a hundred years of abuse if he hadn’t taken that moment away from me with my people, with Australia.

“A few years later I came back, yes I was accepted, but it was never the same until my book came out, and until now.”

Jelena confessed that this was not the only time she feared for her life and was once left unconscious by her father’s abuse while debating how to escape his influence at the age of 19.

Speaking on Nova’s Jase & Lauren, Jelena recalled how she feared for her life when she was just 17 years old due to Damir’s abuse (she is pictured with her parents Damir and Ljiljana)

“I had to leave at 19 because I didn’t know if I would survive the next beating,” she explained.

‘There was one when I was 17 where I was knocked unconscious, I was kicked and punched in the head so hard that I passed out.

‘This is what happens, next time you don’t know if you’re going to survive. I knew that, I knew he was getting more and more violent.”

Jelena was born in Yugoslavia and her family moved to Australia at the age of 11, where she began to practice tennis.

She reached the quarter-finals of Wimbledon in 1999 and the semi-finals in 2000, followed by the quarter-finals of the French Open in 2002, but at the same time suffered shocking abuse from her father.

In her documentary, Jelena recalled how pressure she felt to win because Damir regularly beat her up.

“I knew if I lost the consequences would be catastrophic,” she said, watching footage of herself playing tennis.

‘One day after I lost, I knew what was going to happen… I started to feel really broken inside.

Jelena (pictured in 2011) told how her father forced her to play for Yugoslavia at the 2001 Australian Open and said she would now be suffering ‘100 years’ of abuse if she hadn’t

‘There wasn’t an inch of skin that wasn’t bruised. I’m 17 and because of his actions, [I] became the most hated person.’

Jelena also revealed that she doesn’t “hate” her father for the abuse she suffered, although she cannot forgive him for his actions.

‘I don’t blame anyone. I don’t hate anyone. “I don’t hate anyone at all, and I would never do that,” Jelena told the BBC Daily Telegraph.

‘I’m not bitter about it. Even to my father, which people find surprising. But I don’t hate him. I don’t necessarily forgive him, but I don’t hate him.’