Former tennis star Jelena Dokic confirms death of estranged father, Damir Dokic

Damir Dokic, the estranged father and coach of former tennis star Jelena Dokic, has died.

Jelena confirmed in a social media post Damir died last Friday, saying she had “conflicting and complex emotions and feelings” about the news.

Jelena, a former world No 4 and Wimbledon semi-finalist, has recounted surviving years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her father. She chronicled the abuse in her autobiography, Unbreakable, which was released in 2017.

She had been estranged from Damir for the past decade.

“As you know, my relationship with my father has been difficult and painful with a lot of history,” she wrote on Instagram on Wednesday night, alongside a picture of the pair when Jelena was a young child.

“Despite everything and no matter how hard, difficult and in the last 10 years even non existent our relationship and communication was, it is never easy losing a parent and a father, even one you are estranged from.”

Since retiring from professional sport in 2014 and becoming a tennis commentator and pundit, Dokic had been open about her struggles with mental health. In 2022, she revealed she nearly took her own life.

“The loss of an estranged parent comes with a difficult and complicated grief,” she wrote. “It’s an end of a chapter and life as I know it. 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.

“And as always and especially important to who I am as a person and what I want to stand for which is respect, grace, kindness, dignity and empathy, I will and want to be that person in this situation too.

“For now, I will leave it there.

“Please respect mine and the rest of my family’s privacy at this time.”

As Jelena rose to prominence on the tennis court, her father became a controversial presence on the tennis tour, often attracting attention for his outbursts. At one point he was banned by the Women’s Tennis Association.

He served time in prison in 2009 after he threatened to blow up the Australian ambassador to Belgrade.

In her book Jelena alleged constant abuse at the hands of her father, including one instance when she recalled him beating her so badly she lost consciousness.

A film based on the book was released last year, and in it Jelena said: “Every morning, I woke up and thought: ‘How do I make sure he doesn’t hurt me today?’”

She ended Wednesday’s post: “And my final words. RIP.”

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