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Unbreakable
This is a story of Jelena Dokic's survival. How she survived as a refugee, twice. How she survived on the tennis court to become world No. 4. But, most importantly, how she survived her father, Damir Dokic, the tennis dad from hell.
Jelena was a prodigious talent, heralded as Australia's greatest tennis hope since Evonne Goolagong. She had exceptional skills, a steely nerve and an extraordinary ability to fight on the court. Off it she endured huge challenges; being an 'outsider' in her new country, poverty and racism. Still she starred on the tennis court. By 18, she was in the world's top 10. By 19, she was No. 4. The world was charmed by her and her story - a refugee whose family had made Australia home when she was eleven years old.
Jelena has not told a soul her incredible, explosive story in full - until now.
From war-torn Yugoslavia to Sydney to Wimbledon, she narrates her hellish ascent to becoming one of the best tennis players in the women's game, and her heart-breaking fall from the top. Her gutsy honesty will leave you in awe. Her fight back from darkness will uplift you. Most of all, Jelena's will to survive will inspire you.
Jelena was a prodigious talent, heralded as Australia's greatest tennis hope since Evonne Goolagong. She had exceptional skills, a steely nerve and an extraordinary ability to fight on the court. Off it she endured huge challenges; being an 'outsider' in her new country, poverty and racism. Still she starred on the tennis court. By 18, she was in the world's top 10. By 19, she was No. 4. The world was charmed by her and her story - a refugee whose family had made Australia home when she was eleven years old.
Jelena has not told a soul her incredible, explosive story in full - until now.
From war-torn Yugoslavia to Sydney to Wimbledon, she narrates her hellish ascent to becoming one of the best tennis players in the women's game, and her heart-breaking fall from the top. Her gutsy honesty will leave you in awe. Her fight back from darkness will uplift you. Most of all, Jelena's will to survive will inspire you.
362 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 13, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 299 reviews
February 6, 2018
Well two types of autobiographies, legendary film actors and tennis stars, and I have read many.
As a tennis autobiography, this is the best, yes the very best...
I cannot praise Jelena Dokic enough for her powerful, shocking, shattering, heartbreaking, gripping, tense autobiographies, her honesty is so unbelievable.
This book explains the wonder of how powerful the human heart is, it's power to want to life a happy and good life and be able to do something you really enjoy.
Knowing my love for the game of tennis, playing and watching, and suffering severe ankle injuries, re-construction of both my ankles, DVT and PE. I fought back to be able to play again after a year out!
Why do I explain this, Jelena spends her "whole life" trying to break away from the "Father from Hell" and then later fights health, weight and injury problems to just play a game of tennis.
Her love of the game, and the feeling of winning some great matches and the applause of the crowd is so hard to loose.
Jelena spent nearly twenty six years finally breaking away from the most horrific father, who put his daughter through hell, breaking her physically and mentally for so many years, and yes also the boyfriend from hell.
Damor Dokic is the most horrible man who believed he was helping his daughter, but in reality her life of torture effected her tennis career so much. A semi-final in a Grand Slam was not good enough for Damor, so he beats his daughter.
How Jelena comes through this and makes it through the tunnel to find the light at the end is so unbelievable.
So many good things about this book, so congratulations also go to Jessica Halloran for helping Jelena Dokic right this amazing, shocking book.
As a tennis lover and meeting Jelena at the age of sixteen at Wimbledon, I loved this book with so many stories about the harshness of the tennis circuit, the players that showed their good sides, and many that showed their bad side. So many great players she played, Monica Seles, Steffi Graf, Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport, Venus Williams, Serena Williams and many more.
I believe finally Jelena Dokic has found happiness, but has gone through hell to get there.
The father should rot in hell as far as I am considered.
Could Jelena Dokic have won a Grand Slam, yes I think so, but now we will never know, thanks to her dad.
Five star read.
As a tennis autobiography, this is the best, yes the very best...
I cannot praise Jelena Dokic enough for her powerful, shocking, shattering, heartbreaking, gripping, tense autobiographies, her honesty is so unbelievable.
This book explains the wonder of how powerful the human heart is, it's power to want to life a happy and good life and be able to do something you really enjoy.
Knowing my love for the game of tennis, playing and watching, and suffering severe ankle injuries, re-construction of both my ankles, DVT and PE. I fought back to be able to play again after a year out!
Why do I explain this, Jelena spends her "whole life" trying to break away from the "Father from Hell" and then later fights health, weight and injury problems to just play a game of tennis.
Her love of the game, and the feeling of winning some great matches and the applause of the crowd is so hard to loose.
Jelena spent nearly twenty six years finally breaking away from the most horrific father, who put his daughter through hell, breaking her physically and mentally for so many years, and yes also the boyfriend from hell.
Damor Dokic is the most horrible man who believed he was helping his daughter, but in reality her life of torture effected her tennis career so much. A semi-final in a Grand Slam was not good enough for Damor, so he beats his daughter.
How Jelena comes through this and makes it through the tunnel to find the light at the end is so unbelievable.
So many good things about this book, so congratulations also go to Jessica Halloran for helping Jelena Dokic right this amazing, shocking book.
As a tennis lover and meeting Jelena at the age of sixteen at Wimbledon, I loved this book with so many stories about the harshness of the tennis circuit, the players that showed their good sides, and many that showed their bad side. So many great players she played, Monica Seles, Steffi Graf, Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport, Venus Williams, Serena Williams and many more.
I believe finally Jelena Dokic has found happiness, but has gone through hell to get there.
The father should rot in hell as far as I am considered.
Could Jelena Dokic have won a Grand Slam, yes I think so, but now we will never know, thanks to her dad.
Five star read.
February 25, 2018
It's very hard for me to rate this book. Memoirs generally can be tricky: are you rating someone's life, aka the story and plot, or are you rating the writing and the readability?
Jelena Dokic's fierce concentration, aggressive tennis and often expressionless face was on every TV screen during tennis time in the 90s. So too was her father, who was, even then, quite frankly batshit insane. Like many Aussies, when Jelena had her "so long and thanks for all the fish" moment and took herself off to play for Croatia, I shrugged, made a few acerbic comments about the Aussie Institute of Sport cutting off her funding, and forget about it. Turns out things were very different.
Jelena's father was not simply cuckoo, he was abusive, violent and should have been in jail. Should still be in jail. Jelena took the brunt of his viciousness. This is where it becomes hard to review this book. From my position on the couch, with 20/20 hindsight, I'm wondering why she continued to go back to him, continued to give him $$$$$$$$, continued to stick up for him. But she was the victim of an abuser and a manipulator, and things are never, never, NEVER that simple.
I give this 4 stars for readability, 5 stars for Jelena's courage in writing this, 3 stars for rather a lot of repetition, 5 stars for tennis insights. 4 stars overall.
Jelena Dokic's fierce concentration, aggressive tennis and often expressionless face was on every TV screen during tennis time in the 90s. So too was her father, who was, even then, quite frankly batshit insane. Like many Aussies, when Jelena had her "so long and thanks for all the fish" moment and took herself off to play for Croatia, I shrugged, made a few acerbic comments about the Aussie Institute of Sport cutting off her funding, and forget about it. Turns out things were very different.
Jelena's father was not simply cuckoo, he was abusive, violent and should have been in jail. Should still be in jail. Jelena took the brunt of his viciousness. This is where it becomes hard to review this book. From my position on the couch, with 20/20 hindsight, I'm wondering why she continued to go back to him, continued to give him $$$$$$$$, continued to stick up for him. But she was the victim of an abuser and a manipulator, and things are never, never, NEVER that simple.
I give this 4 stars for readability, 5 stars for Jelena's courage in writing this, 3 stars for rather a lot of repetition, 5 stars for tennis insights. 4 stars overall.
April 3, 2024
I’m not sure where to start with this review because this book was an incredible read and it brought out my emotions including disbelief, and sadness and at times I was angry.
Jelena Dokic started playing tennis at the age of six years old. I’d like to say her childhood was a happy one, but after reading this book it was far from it. Jelena experienced physical abuse, mental abuse and public embarrassment throughout her childhood and tennis career all of which no child should have to go through. The torture she went through with her father nearly killed her.
Many a time when Jelena was playing tennis she was in pain from the physical abuse her father had given her, but somehow she still managed to play great tennis. Winning matches you would’ve thought it would make her father happy, but that was not the case there seemed to be no pleasing him. Sadly many people knew what Jelena was going through, but they chose to ignore it and sometimes Jelena would make out everything was okay because she was scared of her father. How anyone could turn a blind eye to a child being abused is beyond me and I just can’t fathom it or get my head around it.
Jelena says she doesn’t hate her father, but she hates what he did. The title of this book is spot on because Jelena is truly unbreakable and she is one incredibly strong woman this is her story and what a remarkable story it is. Over the years I have seen Jelena play tennis when it was on TV, but I had no idea what she had gone through and after reading this book I will never forget her. I don’t read a lot of memoirs, but I am so pleased I read this one because it shows no matter what life throws at you or how badly treated you are you can still overcome it all and be the best person you can and achieve anything you want. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Jelena Dokic started playing tennis at the age of six years old. I’d like to say her childhood was a happy one, but after reading this book it was far from it. Jelena experienced physical abuse, mental abuse and public embarrassment throughout her childhood and tennis career all of which no child should have to go through. The torture she went through with her father nearly killed her.
Many a time when Jelena was playing tennis she was in pain from the physical abuse her father had given her, but somehow she still managed to play great tennis. Winning matches you would’ve thought it would make her father happy, but that was not the case there seemed to be no pleasing him. Sadly many people knew what Jelena was going through, but they chose to ignore it and sometimes Jelena would make out everything was okay because she was scared of her father. How anyone could turn a blind eye to a child being abused is beyond me and I just can’t fathom it or get my head around it.
Jelena says she doesn’t hate her father, but she hates what he did. The title of this book is spot on because Jelena is truly unbreakable and she is one incredibly strong woman this is her story and what a remarkable story it is. Over the years I have seen Jelena play tennis when it was on TV, but I had no idea what she had gone through and after reading this book I will never forget her. I don’t read a lot of memoirs, but I am so pleased I read this one because it shows no matter what life throws at you or how badly treated you are you can still overcome it all and be the best person you can and achieve anything you want. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
March 9, 2018
“Unbreakable” made for some very very hard reading. If you have children, feel free to skip the next three paragraphs, but if you don’t please read on.
My little Mika is a handful and always has been. Anything you tell her, she’ll just do the opposite. I normally celebrate this, but when she was about two and half years old she got into the habit of sticking her finger in the mains. Thank goodness, this flared up while we were on vacation in the US, where the mains only carries 110 Volts, but still…
Anyway, her mom and I made a plan. Next time she defied us and stuck her finger in the plug, I’d administer an immediate, clinical spanking, doing my best to look angry while I’m doing it, but actually I’d do it totally in cold blood. And, sadly, so it went. Before long, Mika gave me a naughty look, ran to a plug, went for the kill, I scooped her up and did the honors. I’m reasonably sure it did not really hurt that much; regardless, it broke my heart to spank her.
Nothing prepared me for what happened next: my little angel hugged me as hard as she’d ever done and sobbed. For a long time. Her very daddy who’d just spanked her was who she ran to for solace. She did not hug me to say she was sorry (that she never, ever does) she hugged me because I’m who she’s got.
That is the position we parents occupy in our children’s lives.
“Unbreakable” is the story of how a father abused both his daughter and his position as her father for material benefit. It’s also the story of Jelena Dokic’ meteoric rise and fall as a tennis player. And it’s the story of her courageous battle to win back the life she was never allowed to have, the personality she was never allowed to develop and the human contact she was deprived of from age six all the way through to adulthood.
Dokic comes off as a strong woman. And as a loving person. When she says she does not care about money, you have to believe her. When she says she forgives her mom, who stood by throughout her abuse and did nothing to stop it, you have to believe her. In fact, she comes off as sincere to the point of naivete. So she’ll list how four tournaments in a row she somehow went out to the same opponent (Lindsey Davenport) and she does not once even hint at any suspicion of the draw. I take my hat off to her.
She is also not afraid to issue a number of mea culpas. She recognizes that in her career she pushed referees on line calls, that she was awful to a string of coaches, that the Australian public has a right to feel cheated by her mid-career change of allegiance (to Serbia) and that she said nasty things about players to psyche them out. I don’t think you can doubt her contrition, her attribution of most of the above to her total fear of her father notwithstanding.
Most importantly, she sounds 100% genuine when she says that she feels privileged to have the life she’s left with now that injury has ended her career.
And she's not all sweetness and light: she does have lingering bitterness and it is extremely well directed, to the bystanders. The people in the world of tennis who are aware of the tennis parents from hell and do nothing to stop the abuse these people heap on their children.
So this is not only a fascinating autobiography, it’s also a call to arms.
It was very tough to read, but many good books are.
My little Mika is a handful and always has been. Anything you tell her, she’ll just do the opposite. I normally celebrate this, but when she was about two and half years old she got into the habit of sticking her finger in the mains. Thank goodness, this flared up while we were on vacation in the US, where the mains only carries 110 Volts, but still…
Anyway, her mom and I made a plan. Next time she defied us and stuck her finger in the plug, I’d administer an immediate, clinical spanking, doing my best to look angry while I’m doing it, but actually I’d do it totally in cold blood. And, sadly, so it went. Before long, Mika gave me a naughty look, ran to a plug, went for the kill, I scooped her up and did the honors. I’m reasonably sure it did not really hurt that much; regardless, it broke my heart to spank her.
Nothing prepared me for what happened next: my little angel hugged me as hard as she’d ever done and sobbed. For a long time. Her very daddy who’d just spanked her was who she ran to for solace. She did not hug me to say she was sorry (that she never, ever does) she hugged me because I’m who she’s got.
That is the position we parents occupy in our children’s lives.
“Unbreakable” is the story of how a father abused both his daughter and his position as her father for material benefit. It’s also the story of Jelena Dokic’ meteoric rise and fall as a tennis player. And it’s the story of her courageous battle to win back the life she was never allowed to have, the personality she was never allowed to develop and the human contact she was deprived of from age six all the way through to adulthood.
Dokic comes off as a strong woman. And as a loving person. When she says she does not care about money, you have to believe her. When she says she forgives her mom, who stood by throughout her abuse and did nothing to stop it, you have to believe her. In fact, she comes off as sincere to the point of naivete. So she’ll list how four tournaments in a row she somehow went out to the same opponent (Lindsey Davenport) and she does not once even hint at any suspicion of the draw. I take my hat off to her.
She is also not afraid to issue a number of mea culpas. She recognizes that in her career she pushed referees on line calls, that she was awful to a string of coaches, that the Australian public has a right to feel cheated by her mid-career change of allegiance (to Serbia) and that she said nasty things about players to psyche them out. I don’t think you can doubt her contrition, her attribution of most of the above to her total fear of her father notwithstanding.
Most importantly, she sounds 100% genuine when she says that she feels privileged to have the life she’s left with now that injury has ended her career.
And she's not all sweetness and light: she does have lingering bitterness and it is extremely well directed, to the bystanders. The people in the world of tennis who are aware of the tennis parents from hell and do nothing to stop the abuse these people heap on their children.
So this is not only a fascinating autobiography, it’s also a call to arms.
It was very tough to read, but many good books are.
August 6, 2025
A harrowing read but one that I've wanted to read for a while.
January 16, 2018
The second half of this book lets it down. It is a fascinating story, but loses its way after Jelena leaves her father (which has the nice effect of paralleling her career, but isn’t good reading). What happened to her is truly awful, and it is surprising that she was able to play tennis at all, let alone perform as she did for so long. My heart broke for her when she finally tried to free herself but had so little support to recover in the aftermath of abuse. I wanted to reach through time and send her a decent coach at least! I kept waiting for her to realise that she was being used (again) and take a stand, but she never really did. So we just got a rundown of lost matches on repeat through the years until retirement. It was certainly depressing!
I wanted to hear more about how she processed the trauma, and what realisations she made about her father and herself. But there was not much depth to the self-reflection in the end. She admitted to cheating and lying as a protective measure against her father, but I feel there would be a lot more to unravel off court and in her relationships with her brother and mother. We get little insight into how her brother coped and how exactly they were able to preserve their own relationship despite the father’s efforts to split them. Her experiences with psychologists was disappointing, I can’t believe the advice she got from them given Damir’s obvious traits. This no doubt contributed to her further decline and shows how important quality mental health care is.
Recovery from a narcissist is difficult and although she described being tempted to mend fences and capitulating to his unreasonable demands she did not try to explain why she felt so compelled to do as he wanted. I think for people who have never experienced such a dynamic they would really struggle to understand why she made some of her decisions. It would have enhanced the book if she could have described the emotional hold and turmoil that narcissist victims feel. But, who even knows if she ever got any good care from a psych?
The response from some fellow players seems especially heartless after knowing what was going on behind the scenes. But I suppose the players all being in competition with each other doesn’t motivate them to care much. It seems many young tennis players are surrounded by narcissistic adults looking to ride the wave of their talent. Hopefully this experience of Jelena’s will prompt Tennis Australia to have a look at how they can protect youth from such a fate.
I wanted to hear more about how she processed the trauma, and what realisations she made about her father and herself. But there was not much depth to the self-reflection in the end. She admitted to cheating and lying as a protective measure against her father, but I feel there would be a lot more to unravel off court and in her relationships with her brother and mother. We get little insight into how her brother coped and how exactly they were able to preserve their own relationship despite the father’s efforts to split them. Her experiences with psychologists was disappointing, I can’t believe the advice she got from them given Damir’s obvious traits. This no doubt contributed to her further decline and shows how important quality mental health care is.
Recovery from a narcissist is difficult and although she described being tempted to mend fences and capitulating to his unreasonable demands she did not try to explain why she felt so compelled to do as he wanted. I think for people who have never experienced such a dynamic they would really struggle to understand why she made some of her decisions. It would have enhanced the book if she could have described the emotional hold and turmoil that narcissist victims feel. But, who even knows if she ever got any good care from a psych?
The response from some fellow players seems especially heartless after knowing what was going on behind the scenes. But I suppose the players all being in competition with each other doesn’t motivate them to care much. It seems many young tennis players are surrounded by narcissistic adults looking to ride the wave of their talent. Hopefully this experience of Jelena’s will prompt Tennis Australia to have a look at how they can protect youth from such a fate.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 7, 2018
I've never been more moved by a book then this one. Utterly heart-breaking - we all knew something was wrong but I don't think we could have had inkling of the depth of abuse, both physically and emotionally, that this poor girl was subjected to - by her own father. HER FATHER? It just beggars belief! If you're a tennis fan - or not, it doesn't matter - pick up this book and read it. I promise you it will break your heart but you'll put it down at the conclusion of it and be uplifted by this young women's strength of survival. I have to say, as an Australian tennis fan, it left me in tears and feeling ashamed that we didn't do anything to save her from this abuse. Profoundly effected by this book.
If you read one book in your life, please go buy Jelena Dokic's book. What the girl went through deserves to be widely known. She had the courage to write it, please give her respect and read it.
If you read one book in your life, please go buy Jelena Dokic's book. What the girl went through deserves to be widely known. She had the courage to write it, please give her respect and read it.
November 27, 2017
Interesting but very repetitive
A compelling story of adversity and the difficulty of living a life under constant pressure and scrutiny. Whilst, no-doubt, tragic and pivotal to the story the descriptions of abuse do become overly repetitive and tedious which, I feel, lessens the impact upon the reader.
A compelling story of adversity and the difficulty of living a life under constant pressure and scrutiny. Whilst, no-doubt, tragic and pivotal to the story the descriptions of abuse do become overly repetitive and tedious which, I feel, lessens the impact upon the reader.
January 6, 2018
This is a harrowing book to read. As a tennis fan, it was hard to get to know Jelena during her years as a player, and this book shows why. We were never allowed to see the real girl and woman thanks to her monster (and that's the nicest thing that can be said about him) of a father. The book details the extreme abuse she suffered at his hands and the way he controlled every single aspect of her life, including the persona she showed to the media and public.
I'm so glad I read this book. It was great to finally see the real Jelena, the real woman, tennis player and survivor. It was incredibly brave of Jelena to write this book, something she showed she had a lot of during her life so far. I have so much respect for her. Every tennis fan should read this book. Actually, everyone should read it. While it has a lot of tennis in it, it's really a story of how the human spirit can overcome such hardship. Jelena is such a strong woman.
I'm so glad I read this book. It was great to finally see the real Jelena, the real woman, tennis player and survivor. It was incredibly brave of Jelena to write this book, something she showed she had a lot of during her life so far. I have so much respect for her. Every tennis fan should read this book. Actually, everyone should read it. While it has a lot of tennis in it, it's really a story of how the human spirit can overcome such hardship. Jelena is such a strong woman.
November 22, 2017
It's quite a tough read, because she lived such a tough life. The abuse started young and was just unrelenting. I always suspected her dad was mean, and a bit of a jerk, but it went so much further.
If you drew conclusions about Jelena Dokic based on media articles and interviews during her past, you owe it to her to hear her truth and read this book.
She's still here. She made it through. She is strong. She is a survivor.
As an adult, and an Australian, I want to hug her and apologise on behalf of every adult that ever crossed her path and ignored that nagging feeling that things weren't ok in the Dokic camp.
If you drew conclusions about Jelena Dokic based on media articles and interviews during her past, you owe it to her to hear her truth and read this book.
She's still here. She made it through. She is strong. She is a survivor.
As an adult, and an Australian, I want to hug her and apologise on behalf of every adult that ever crossed her path and ignored that nagging feeling that things weren't ok in the Dokic camp.
April 19, 2019
A story could be perceived to be worth telling but that shouldn’t automatically give it a ‘good book status’. Jelena has been abused and so have many other people but her status as a tennis star makes her book more appealing in terms of bookselling; I this expected to read a work of better quality, hence my disappointment.
Unbreakable is touching but it is also repetitive, poorly written and badly edited, which makes it tedious. I lost all interest by page 150. I was able to finish it but it took me a while! When I love a book I can finish it in one day or a couple of days (if I have time), the opposite tends to happen when I read a book that I don’t enjoy much.
I would like to observe that even though I know her story is real, and she was victim of family abuse, I still believe we should read her views of other Australian tennis players, Tennis Australian, and the Australian public as subjective, and heavily influenced by her own emotional turmoil. Tennis Australia claims that they did try to help and noticed family issues but they couldn’t do much with tour the support of those directly involved. Jelena continuously lied and defended her father so that didn’t help investigations. There is always more than one side of an issue.
In the second part of the book things were a bit off; Jelena discusses her finances and I detected conspicuous inconsistencies in her descriptions. Certainly, anyone who follows tennis and has followed Jelena Dokic’s career should be able to see what I am trying to convey. I did scrutinise some of the statements she makes in this book because the numbers just didn’t add up. It is just basic maths. Some of her assertions sound exaggerated. Frankly, it is relatively easy to calculate Jelena’s earnings by the time she and her father parted ways. Admittedly, she wouldn’t have been making much after their separation for her career started to go downhill months after that and she didn’t win any Grand Slams or had particular outstanding results after either.
Further, by the time she left her father Damir, Damir had already invested most of Jelena’s money in properties for himself and cars, and she basically left him with everything, yet she claims that after that she sent him forthrightly $200,000 transfers for at years after that. Were did that money come from if she left everything to him and her earnings significantly declined ? Many other tennis players who have achieved more than Jelena and had better contracts can see the flaw here! Her claims in this book may have been simply oversights or the usual colloquial overstatements but they should have been removed from Unbreakable because, in my view, those extraordinary claims affect this book’s credibility. I do believe that she was still supporting her family after she left them but I do think that, as a reader, I must question obvious inconsistencies.
Unbreakable is touching but it is also repetitive, poorly written and badly edited, which makes it tedious. I lost all interest by page 150. I was able to finish it but it took me a while! When I love a book I can finish it in one day or a couple of days (if I have time), the opposite tends to happen when I read a book that I don’t enjoy much.
I would like to observe that even though I know her story is real, and she was victim of family abuse, I still believe we should read her views of other Australian tennis players, Tennis Australian, and the Australian public as subjective, and heavily influenced by her own emotional turmoil. Tennis Australia claims that they did try to help and noticed family issues but they couldn’t do much with tour the support of those directly involved. Jelena continuously lied and defended her father so that didn’t help investigations. There is always more than one side of an issue.
In the second part of the book things were a bit off; Jelena discusses her finances and I detected conspicuous inconsistencies in her descriptions. Certainly, anyone who follows tennis and has followed Jelena Dokic’s career should be able to see what I am trying to convey. I did scrutinise some of the statements she makes in this book because the numbers just didn’t add up. It is just basic maths. Some of her assertions sound exaggerated. Frankly, it is relatively easy to calculate Jelena’s earnings by the time she and her father parted ways. Admittedly, she wouldn’t have been making much after their separation for her career started to go downhill months after that and she didn’t win any Grand Slams or had particular outstanding results after either.
Further, by the time she left her father Damir, Damir had already invested most of Jelena’s money in properties for himself and cars, and she basically left him with everything, yet she claims that after that she sent him forthrightly $200,000 transfers for at years after that. Were did that money come from if she left everything to him and her earnings significantly declined ? Many other tennis players who have achieved more than Jelena and had better contracts can see the flaw here! Her claims in this book may have been simply oversights or the usual colloquial overstatements but they should have been removed from Unbreakable because, in my view, those extraordinary claims affect this book’s credibility. I do believe that she was still supporting her family after she left them but I do think that, as a reader, I must question obvious inconsistencies.
January 16, 2018
We've had the #metoo movement with celebrities coming forward on sexual harrassment but not so many speaking out on relationship abuse and violence. Thank you, Jelena Dokic, for writing this incredibly difficult and powerful book. I could not put it down and it may become "the" book of 2018 for me.
Dokic explosively blows the lid on the culture of secrecy and silence surrounding domestic violence. The abuse she suffered over 15 years was so extreme that you have to wonder how she came through it, especially when dealing with the pressures of tennis, climbing to world #4 in the sport. She is also a refugee who had family members who were murdered and who left everything she knew to start again in a new country, with a language she didn't speak, at the age of 11.
Without too many spoilers, I will cite 2 incidents. At about the age of 12, Dokic notes in the book that she struggles to find a centimetre of flesh on her back that isn't bruised from the beatings she was receiving with a strap for not training or playing 'well enough.' At 17, she's knocked unconscious by her father in a hotel room on the US tour.
It's a very courageous book but one Jelena had to write, if only to clear her own name after every scripted press interview her father forced her to give and to explain the bizarre behaviour he forced upon her, making her personally sack coaches while still a young teenager. I felt so sad that Jelena clearly stills feels ashamed and embarrassed by some incidents. It's great she wrote this book to explain for the public and tennis world was really going on. She finishes the book with nothing but thanks to so many people.
People who have been in abusive relationships will need to be aware that they will have to carve out the right time and space to read this. It covers all the red-flags for relationship abuse: the controlling nature, the violence, the denigration, vicious verbal abuse, the gas-lighting, the denial of responsibility by the abuser, the blaming of others (including the victim), the escalations, the lack of assistance from anyone, the financial abuse; the enforced secrecy, lies and silence. How Jelena played tennis throughout all this defies all description.
Jelena is still clearly haunted by the love she feels for family and the losses she has suffered from their behaviour. One hopes that she finds all the happiness she deserves in the next phase of her life.
Dokic explosively blows the lid on the culture of secrecy and silence surrounding domestic violence. The abuse she suffered over 15 years was so extreme that you have to wonder how she came through it, especially when dealing with the pressures of tennis, climbing to world #4 in the sport. She is also a refugee who had family members who were murdered and who left everything she knew to start again in a new country, with a language she didn't speak, at the age of 11.
Without too many spoilers, I will cite 2 incidents. At about the age of 12, Dokic notes in the book that she struggles to find a centimetre of flesh on her back that isn't bruised from the beatings she was receiving with a strap for not training or playing 'well enough.' At 17, she's knocked unconscious by her father in a hotel room on the US tour.
It's a very courageous book but one Jelena had to write, if only to clear her own name after every scripted press interview her father forced her to give and to explain the bizarre behaviour he forced upon her, making her personally sack coaches while still a young teenager. I felt so sad that Jelena clearly stills feels ashamed and embarrassed by some incidents. It's great she wrote this book to explain for the public and tennis world was really going on. She finishes the book with nothing but thanks to so many people.
People who have been in abusive relationships will need to be aware that they will have to carve out the right time and space to read this. It covers all the red-flags for relationship abuse: the controlling nature, the violence, the denigration, vicious verbal abuse, the gas-lighting, the denial of responsibility by the abuser, the blaming of others (including the victim), the escalations, the lack of assistance from anyone, the financial abuse; the enforced secrecy, lies and silence. How Jelena played tennis throughout all this defies all description.
Jelena is still clearly haunted by the love she feels for family and the losses she has suffered from their behaviour. One hopes that she finds all the happiness she deserves in the next phase of her life.
September 8, 2018
As a tennis fan since childhood, I was eager to read Jelena Dokic’s biography, cowritten with Jessica Halloran. Like the rest of Australia, I followed the ups and downs of Jelena’s career through the media from the beginning. Just like all of Jelana’s fans, I too had no idea what was happening in her personal life with her father, mother and younger brother. With Jessica, Jelena has a written a simple, yet powerful biography that chronicles her life from the time she saw her first dead body in Croatia until injury forced her to retire in her late 20s. She writes honestly and succinctly, not holding back from the truth of her life as a daughter and tennis player. Often, Jelena’s physical abuse is hard to read, particularly as it started when she was just 6 years old with an emerging talent. From that moment on, her father punishes Jelena in more ways then one. Not only was Jelena physically and emotionally abused, Damir frequently pushed her to breaking point and beyond during training. Training in freezing conditions, forcing her to run 10km after training was just some of what Jelena experienced in the name of tennis to get her family out of poverty. When Jelana finally evicted Damir from her life, she was still under the shadow of her father. It is love for her brother and finding love with Tin that Jelena credits for helping her to escape the darkness of her childhood.
This is an inspiring true story of survival for girls and women all around the world.
#AWWC#
This is an inspiring true story of survival for girls and women all around the world.
#AWWC#
October 3, 2019
Growing up I used to watch Jelena play on TV. I have a vague memory of her dad being in the headlines and her being ‘rude’ in her press conferences. This book provided so much context of why she behaved in the way she did and why she made decisions such as playing for Yugoslavia instead of Australia and then playing for Australia again.
With its heavy themes of emotional and physical abuse this book was difficult to read at times. Jelena’s story has made me reflect on how she was let down by almost everyone around her. I found it particularly difficult to grapple with how the media felt comfortable in using Jelena’s nightmare as an opportunity to make more money.
Jelena was silenced for far too long and I am so glad this book has given her the platform to reclaim her voice.
With its heavy themes of emotional and physical abuse this book was difficult to read at times. Jelena’s story has made me reflect on how she was let down by almost everyone around her. I found it particularly difficult to grapple with how the media felt comfortable in using Jelena’s nightmare as an opportunity to make more money.
Jelena was silenced for far too long and I am so glad this book has given her the platform to reclaim her voice.
February 19, 2025
A good listen, but be warned it describes the score of so very many tennis matches. The book would have been way shorter if it didn't describe every set of years worth of tennis
Lost a star because it covered her entire post tennis life in the last 15 minutes of the 10 hour listen and I had been looking forward to that part since the halfway point
An incredible survival story though, and paints a worrying picture of the dangers for young players
Lost a star because it covered her entire post tennis life in the last 15 minutes of the 10 hour listen and I had been looking forward to that part since the halfway point
An incredible survival story though, and paints a worrying picture of the dangers for young players
March 8, 2025
Haven’t binged a book for a longgg time!!
Loved it - well written, engaging and an overall great read but also very saddening, left me in disbelief and angry at times.
Cannot believe what she went through and how she managed to play as well as she did!
I watched the documentary after and it was also very well done.
Definitely recommend reading this 👏🏼
Loved it - well written, engaging and an overall great read but also very saddening, left me in disbelief and angry at times.
Cannot believe what she went through and how she managed to play as well as she did!
I watched the documentary after and it was also very well done.
Definitely recommend reading this 👏🏼
September 4, 2025
You are starving; I mean, you are genuinely starving.
You come to understand that you are actually starving. So, you request a sandwich. But you receive the wrong order. Yet, because you are truly starving, you close your eyes and you eat it, hurriedly, and you keep this unsavoury ordeal to yourself. It doesn’t taste good but, somehow, it still nourishes you.
Humanity meets inhumanity, and the meat in-between is an innocent person. Who you gonna tell you ate the wrong sandwich?
Well, it’s out there, now.
You come to understand that you are actually starving. So, you request a sandwich. But you receive the wrong order. Yet, because you are truly starving, you close your eyes and you eat it, hurriedly, and you keep this unsavoury ordeal to yourself. It doesn’t taste good but, somehow, it still nourishes you.
Humanity meets inhumanity, and the meat in-between is an innocent person. Who you gonna tell you ate the wrong sandwich?
Well, it’s out there, now.
February 15, 2025
As the same age as Jelena Dokic, I remember when she burst onto the scene at Wimbledon at 16-years-old, beating players like Martina Hingis and Mary Pierce. And, of course, the negative press about her father's antics over the years.
This is the inside story of that relationship from her side of things and it's so much worse than I would have thought it to be. The book is hard-hitting throughout, opening with the revelation that the following year, Dokic, who had just played in the Wimbledon semi-finals, sat in the players' lounge believing that she couldn't go home and she told people there that she had nowhere to sleep that night. (Because her father had told her so and he controlled the money she earned.)
She says that her father, who saw her as a ticket out of poverty, would beat her a lot, would make her stand for hours while spitting at her and calling her names and would make her run for miles as punishment. She was not allowed to have friends and he also caused intense embarrassment at tournaments by getting drunk and causing scenes.
The book gives an insight into how victims think and why they can't break free of it - when even younger, Dokic stood up in court and denied that her father hit her and later on she would tell the press crazy things that she didn't even believe because he instructed her to e.g. disparaging another player or claiming that draws were rigged.
The reasons obviously are that all she had was her family and would be punished if she spoke up or didn't do what he wanted to, she didn't want to be responsible for breaking up her family and, frankly, lack of courage and maturity to break free even though she knew it was wrong. Her dad also got her to believe that she needed him to play well. I suppose there's also what values she had - she always wanted a normal family unit and didn't care about the money so much. It was frustrating for me that she signed away millions-worth in property and was still giving huge amounts of money to her dad even after she removed herself from him, leading to bankruptcy for her. The sad thing is that all the money didn't work. He continued to berate and abuse her. A leopard can't change its spots. It's a good reminder for me that you can rarely go back to a toxic relationship and expect it to be different.
With the recent news that the coach of regular top 10 player Elena Rybakina has been banned for a year despite Rybakina opposing it, you can see some elements of this going on - Rybakina's coach is in a relationship with her (already rather inappropriate) and has got her to believe that her success is down to him and that she needs him to be successful. Which is arrant nonsense when Rybakina was a top junior and in the top 200 when they first met. It's quite common in tennis for coaches to get the players to be emotionally dependent on them so that they can control them. Note that I'm not saying that her coach is in the same leagues as Dokic's father: I don't know what goes on behind closed doors. But stories like Dokic's are certainly why the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) are taking these cases more seriously now.
In the book Dokic talks a lot about her relationship with Australia - how she didn't want to change her nationality to Yugoslavia when Tennis Australia had helped her so much with coaching and tennis development and also because she felt Australian but her father had made her do that.
And she details the downslide of her career after she left her father - the depression, choosing the wrong coach just because he was nice. Even if you leave abusive situations, a huge amount of damage will have been done.
I'm always a bit suspicious of autobiographies because they can leave things out, not tell the truth, be an opportunity for PR manipulation and so on. But on the other hand, the downside of biographies is that they don't give you someone's side of things so intimately as well as a lot more details, and that's what you get from this. It's a powerful and shocking autobiography.
This is the inside story of that relationship from her side of things and it's so much worse than I would have thought it to be. The book is hard-hitting throughout, opening with the revelation that the following year, Dokic, who had just played in the Wimbledon semi-finals, sat in the players' lounge believing that she couldn't go home and she told people there that she had nowhere to sleep that night. (Because her father had told her so and he controlled the money she earned.)
She says that her father, who saw her as a ticket out of poverty, would beat her a lot, would make her stand for hours while spitting at her and calling her names and would make her run for miles as punishment. She was not allowed to have friends and he also caused intense embarrassment at tournaments by getting drunk and causing scenes.
The book gives an insight into how victims think and why they can't break free of it - when even younger, Dokic stood up in court and denied that her father hit her and later on she would tell the press crazy things that she didn't even believe because he instructed her to e.g. disparaging another player or claiming that draws were rigged.
The reasons obviously are that all she had was her family and would be punished if she spoke up or didn't do what he wanted to, she didn't want to be responsible for breaking up her family and, frankly, lack of courage and maturity to break free even though she knew it was wrong. Her dad also got her to believe that she needed him to play well. I suppose there's also what values she had - she always wanted a normal family unit and didn't care about the money so much. It was frustrating for me that she signed away millions-worth in property and was still giving huge amounts of money to her dad even after she removed herself from him, leading to bankruptcy for her. The sad thing is that all the money didn't work. He continued to berate and abuse her. A leopard can't change its spots. It's a good reminder for me that you can rarely go back to a toxic relationship and expect it to be different.
With the recent news that the coach of regular top 10 player Elena Rybakina has been banned for a year despite Rybakina opposing it, you can see some elements of this going on - Rybakina's coach is in a relationship with her (already rather inappropriate) and has got her to believe that her success is down to him and that she needs him to be successful. Which is arrant nonsense when Rybakina was a top junior and in the top 200 when they first met. It's quite common in tennis for coaches to get the players to be emotionally dependent on them so that they can control them. Note that I'm not saying that her coach is in the same leagues as Dokic's father: I don't know what goes on behind closed doors. But stories like Dokic's are certainly why the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) are taking these cases more seriously now.
In the book Dokic talks a lot about her relationship with Australia - how she didn't want to change her nationality to Yugoslavia when Tennis Australia had helped her so much with coaching and tennis development and also because she felt Australian but her father had made her do that.
And she details the downslide of her career after she left her father - the depression, choosing the wrong coach just because he was nice. Even if you leave abusive situations, a huge amount of damage will have been done.
I'm always a bit suspicious of autobiographies because they can leave things out, not tell the truth, be an opportunity for PR manipulation and so on. But on the other hand, the downside of biographies is that they don't give you someone's side of things so intimately as well as a lot more details, and that's what you get from this. It's a powerful and shocking autobiography.
February 12, 2025
3.5 stars
This is difficult to rate, I’d like to think I’m not rating or judging Jelena’s life rather the quality of the book in terms of writing.
This was more like a recount of events than an autobiography. I found it to be written poorly, with the same phrases and same way to describe different events. In saying that, it was really interesting to read about Jelena’s life and the hardships and judgement she experienced in the tennis community, I’m shocked that people would rather bring her down that build her up, especially due to her upbringing.
This is difficult to rate, I’d like to think I’m not rating or judging Jelena’s life rather the quality of the book in terms of writing.
This was more like a recount of events than an autobiography. I found it to be written poorly, with the same phrases and same way to describe different events. In saying that, it was really interesting to read about Jelena’s life and the hardships and judgement she experienced in the tennis community, I’m shocked that people would rather bring her down that build her up, especially due to her upbringing.
February 25, 2022
This is a really great book that discusses abuse and mental health, but I personally would not reccomend it to someone who isn’t a tennis fan.
The first half of the book was speedily read. It made me feel sick to my stomach, thinking how it could ever be possible to say you love someone and physically abuse them in the way that Jelena’s awful father did to her. How could you harm someone you claimed to love without feeling physically ill? It’s horrific to say but I loved the first half of the book the most. I turned the pages quickly in the first half and found myself rooting for Jelena and waiting for the moment she got out of the clutches of her father.
The second half follows her downward spiral of the anxiety and depression that caught up to Jelena following the distance she put between Damir and herself.
The book also goes into detail about the in and outs of life on the WTA tour, Tennis Australia, and specific tournaments. It also uses tennis jargon that a non tennis watcher will find very boring.
I loved it.
References to specific matches. Score lines, even specific line calls made by umpires on specific points. I loved seeing all the names of players I grew up watching. It was cool hearing names that are still on the tour today! Makes you realise just how far in the pack Jelena was when she was playing with the likes of Serena. Also further insights into how tournaments are run, sponsorship deals, tennis academies, coaching debarkles? Cool stuff for a tennis fan.
The writing itself wasn’t amazing, but it feels more authentic to me that way. Jelena was an elite athlete, not an elite writer. The writing didn’t need to be great anyway, it’s her story that shines.
No longer a victim, but a survivor!
The first half of the book was speedily read. It made me feel sick to my stomach, thinking how it could ever be possible to say you love someone and physically abuse them in the way that Jelena’s awful father did to her. How could you harm someone you claimed to love without feeling physically ill? It’s horrific to say but I loved the first half of the book the most. I turned the pages quickly in the first half and found myself rooting for Jelena and waiting for the moment she got out of the clutches of her father.
The second half follows her downward spiral of the anxiety and depression that caught up to Jelena following the distance she put between Damir and herself.
The book also goes into detail about the in and outs of life on the WTA tour, Tennis Australia, and specific tournaments. It also uses tennis jargon that a non tennis watcher will find very boring.
I loved it.
References to specific matches. Score lines, even specific line calls made by umpires on specific points. I loved seeing all the names of players I grew up watching. It was cool hearing names that are still on the tour today! Makes you realise just how far in the pack Jelena was when she was playing with the likes of Serena. Also further insights into how tournaments are run, sponsorship deals, tennis academies, coaching debarkles? Cool stuff for a tennis fan.
The writing itself wasn’t amazing, but it feels more authentic to me that way. Jelena was an elite athlete, not an elite writer. The writing didn’t need to be great anyway, it’s her story that shines.
No longer a victim, but a survivor!
May 15, 2025
this ate just wish I knew more about tennis terminology
April 2, 2023
WOW, how to write a review of this book.
Initially I was just going to give it a star rating, but then I felt Jelena's bravery deserved more than that.
I'm of an age that I remember the headlines with Jelena and even though I'm not a person who follows sports, it was hard not to miss the continual headlines.
So what made me want to read this book?
'A picture tells a thousand words.'
I looked back at all the photos and media coverage of Jelena when her father was in charge.
To put it mildly I was astonished to not only see photo evidence of her abuse while she was training, but the constant rumours about her abuse from her father and yet, nothing was done about it.
WHAT THE HELL, THIS GIRL WAS A CHILD!!
This story made me cry, but also feel angry at those who let Jelena down.
I admire Jelena, not just for her bravery to leave the situation she was in, but also, her constant voice on trying to protect others. Not just in cases of abuse, but by being a spokes person to those who have been driven to the brink of suicide.
Initially I was just going to give it a star rating, but then I felt Jelena's bravery deserved more than that.
I'm of an age that I remember the headlines with Jelena and even though I'm not a person who follows sports, it was hard not to miss the continual headlines.
So what made me want to read this book?
'A picture tells a thousand words.'
I looked back at all the photos and media coverage of Jelena when her father was in charge.
To put it mildly I was astonished to not only see photo evidence of her abuse while she was training, but the constant rumours about her abuse from her father and yet, nothing was done about it.
WHAT THE HELL, THIS GIRL WAS A CHILD!!
This story made me cry, but also feel angry at those who let Jelena down.
I admire Jelena, not just for her bravery to leave the situation she was in, but also, her constant voice on trying to protect others. Not just in cases of abuse, but by being a spokes person to those who have been driven to the brink of suicide.
April 4, 2024
What a cruel and sadistic man is Damir Dokic. The tennis world turned a blind eye to Jelena's suffering,
December 3, 2017
What a brutal book to read. I want to say that I loved it but with the content inside to love it seems wrong. This is an account of what it took one young woman to become the person she is today. She is a survivor with a head for tennis.
Words cannot describe how I felt whilst I was reading this book. Shock, awe, hatred and complete lack of understanding. What motivates a father to utterly destroy his daughter in the way that Damir consistently broke Jelena down? How does his love for her not overthrow all of his violent tendencies and protect her. What makes a grown man start beating on a 6 year old. She is 6 years old when this all begins and my heart broke with the first strike.
This young woman has more courage and heart in her than most. She survived being a refugee from Serbia, then moving to Australia, back to Yugoslavia before finally coming home to Australia. In this book she shares her fears, her pain, her absolute love for her brother, as well as her attempts to reconcile her family.
If you want to know what it takes to be a survivor, read this book. If you were a fan of Jelena's, read this book. If you are an advocate against family violence, read this book. Basically, I ask you to read this book to gain some sort of understanding about why someone might stay in a destructive environment, about the strength it takes to break away and stay away. It will also open your eyes to the bystanders who could have stepped in at any time to help this young woman out but didn't. Maybe next time you see something not quite right, you might be able to draw on Jelena's strength and step up.
Words cannot describe how I felt whilst I was reading this book. Shock, awe, hatred and complete lack of understanding. What motivates a father to utterly destroy his daughter in the way that Damir consistently broke Jelena down? How does his love for her not overthrow all of his violent tendencies and protect her. What makes a grown man start beating on a 6 year old. She is 6 years old when this all begins and my heart broke with the first strike.
This young woman has more courage and heart in her than most. She survived being a refugee from Serbia, then moving to Australia, back to Yugoslavia before finally coming home to Australia. In this book she shares her fears, her pain, her absolute love for her brother, as well as her attempts to reconcile her family.
If you want to know what it takes to be a survivor, read this book. If you were a fan of Jelena's, read this book. If you are an advocate against family violence, read this book. Basically, I ask you to read this book to gain some sort of understanding about why someone might stay in a destructive environment, about the strength it takes to break away and stay away. It will also open your eyes to the bystanders who could have stepped in at any time to help this young woman out but didn't. Maybe next time you see something not quite right, you might be able to draw on Jelena's strength and step up.
February 26, 2019
I read this book compulsively - had great trouble putting it down. I remember following Jelena's phenomenal rise in world tennis, and being confused - she played with such fire and dedication, yet her appearance in press conferences seemed so wooden, stilted and closed. Now I know why. Everyone who followed tennis at the time knew that about the millstone who was her father. He became a laughing stock in Australia - the expression "doing a Damir" briefly gained popularity as a way of saying someone had behaved erratically or had thrown a tantrum of sorts. I remember feeling pity for Jelena at the time, because it seemed to me that her father's behaviour was detracting from her performance.
If only the half of it was known! This was a heartbreaking read, and I kept feeling such anger as I read - that this misunderstood, abused girl wasn't better protected.
If only the half of it was known! This was a heartbreaking read, and I kept feeling such anger as I read - that this misunderstood, abused girl wasn't better protected.
December 5, 2017
This is a gruelling read. Jelena Dokic recounts the significant physical and psychological abuse she experienced at the hands of her evil father, Damir Dokic. It's her chance to set the record straight on what was really happening behind the scenes of her early rise up the tennis ranks, and her spectacular fall. Jelena is right to feel betrayed by tennis officials and players within Tennis Australia; her abuse was known by many but not a single person acted, offered support, or spoke out. THIS is the greatest message of her book - that family violence is everyone's responsibility and being a bystander is unacceptable.
November 23, 2017
I could not put this down! The intensity and raw emotions used to describe the awful and unfathomable abuse Jelena was under during a time of being a professional althete was just all consuming. Highly recommend if you want to also feel a better understanding around the behind the scenes of a relationship all of Australia was so exposed to and passed judgement on too easily. Brilliant read.
June 28, 2022
STANDING OVATION FOR JELENA DOKIC! THIS IS A BOOK THAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ!!!
It was on a random day, June 28, 2022, When I decided to break away from my already pre scheduled TBR and pick up a random book that I wasn't at all planning on reading. Wimbledon had just started and I was incredibly excited to get back into the swing of watching tennis, especially at my favourite Grand Slam. The end of the first day of Wimbledon came and went and I realised I need to get back to my current read. But I wasn't really in the mood to read the book that I was currently reading, and recalling that Jelena Dokic Had written her own book and that I still hadn't read it. I decided to shelve my current read and pick up this one an I do not regret it for one moment!
A little bit of background for you. I have been a massive tennis fan since 1997. I remember being Away on holidays and I couldn't sleep one night, so I got out of bed and went to my mom, who was watching this sport on TV that I didn't know. Turned out it was tennis and I fell in love with the game so quickly and went from being someone who was interested. In watching this sport to someone who love this sport, to someone who became totally obsessed with this sport and following women's tennis year round every single year since.
Throughout the years I had players that I liked and players that I loved. But none that I loved half as much as Australia's own Jelena Dokic. I remember her career with the highlights as well as the low lights. For example, I remember when Yellena switched her representing nationality from Australia to Yugoslavia. I also remember knowing somehow at the time that it wasn't her choice. I remember telling everyone who would listen. This is not jelena's decision. This is her freaking father's fault. Turns out I was right. I just had to wait for her to make that announcement. Once she did return to play for Australia.
Therefore, going into this book, I was intrigued to see what I would learn about the things that I didn't quite know that Jelena was going through Off court.
What surprised me was that there was a lot of flashbacks to matches that she played, tournament shoot one things like that and I really appreciated and enjoyed those moments in fact, I enjoyed reliving those moments as I was reading this book because I remember them so well.
Those moments, like that devastating loss to Virginie Razzano At the Australian Open, when a call went against Jelena Dokic being match point up. To the highlights of Jelena's Great. Run to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. And of course, it was hard to hold back tears when she started talking about her time in Malaysia. While I of course couldn't have been at that tournament, I remember following her and being so proud of her when she won that title!
But that's not what dreamy to the book. What drew me to the book was wanting to learn more in jelena's words about what she went through, the treatment, the hardship, the let's call a spade a spade, the abuse. That she went through behind the scenes. To that end, I am not going to sugarcoat this for you. Yellena doesn't sugarcoat her experiences. If abuse is a trigger for you, then I do not advise reading this book. In saying that, I found it absolutely refreshing that yellena was happy to' go there.'
I also felt like a lot of things were validated for me that I always thought were the case, but it was good to get confirmation in this book. One example being yellena's regret over not being able to have a lot of time with her brother Savo in her life. I always figured that you like that had a strong love for her brother, but unfortunately, thanks to her father, they just really couldn't be in each others lives a lot, which was tough to read about.
It has been tough also to read that since this book has been published jelena's most solid rock Tin, Her boyfriend at the time when the book ends And her have broken up since. To that end, Yellena does seem to be spiralling a little bit here and there, as she has publicly announced recently feeling moments of suicidal tendencies.
On a personal level, I wish nothing but the absolute best for Jelena Dokic. Goodness knows she has been through heck and a half through the duration of her life, and she deserves nothing but the best. I truly hope that she can find that over the course of the coming years.
Refocusing back on the book itself and critiquing it for what it was, this was an amazing memoir. It truly digs deep into her life. As we get to not only witness her highs and lows of her career on the court, but also it Pulls back the curtain in an unapologetic way, showing us the real roar things that she went through that no one else saw. I really, truly appreciated getting this from her.
There is no way that this will can receive any less than the overwhelming five stars. I am going to give it.
To anyone who is not triggered by verbal and physical abuse showing up in books, I highly, highly, highly recommend this read.
I'd also love to see Jelena write another book now that her tennis career is over and see how things are for her now compared to how they were back then.
But in the meantime, it is an overwhelming five stars from me, Jelena Dokic, well done!
5 Stars xoxo.
It was on a random day, June 28, 2022, When I decided to break away from my already pre scheduled TBR and pick up a random book that I wasn't at all planning on reading. Wimbledon had just started and I was incredibly excited to get back into the swing of watching tennis, especially at my favourite Grand Slam. The end of the first day of Wimbledon came and went and I realised I need to get back to my current read. But I wasn't really in the mood to read the book that I was currently reading, and recalling that Jelena Dokic Had written her own book and that I still hadn't read it. I decided to shelve my current read and pick up this one an I do not regret it for one moment!
A little bit of background for you. I have been a massive tennis fan since 1997. I remember being Away on holidays and I couldn't sleep one night, so I got out of bed and went to my mom, who was watching this sport on TV that I didn't know. Turned out it was tennis and I fell in love with the game so quickly and went from being someone who was interested. In watching this sport to someone who love this sport, to someone who became totally obsessed with this sport and following women's tennis year round every single year since.
Throughout the years I had players that I liked and players that I loved. But none that I loved half as much as Australia's own Jelena Dokic. I remember her career with the highlights as well as the low lights. For example, I remember when Yellena switched her representing nationality from Australia to Yugoslavia. I also remember knowing somehow at the time that it wasn't her choice. I remember telling everyone who would listen. This is not jelena's decision. This is her freaking father's fault. Turns out I was right. I just had to wait for her to make that announcement. Once she did return to play for Australia.
Therefore, going into this book, I was intrigued to see what I would learn about the things that I didn't quite know that Jelena was going through Off court.
What surprised me was that there was a lot of flashbacks to matches that she played, tournament shoot one things like that and I really appreciated and enjoyed those moments in fact, I enjoyed reliving those moments as I was reading this book because I remember them so well.
Those moments, like that devastating loss to Virginie Razzano At the Australian Open, when a call went against Jelena Dokic being match point up. To the highlights of Jelena's Great. Run to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. And of course, it was hard to hold back tears when she started talking about her time in Malaysia. While I of course couldn't have been at that tournament, I remember following her and being so proud of her when she won that title!
But that's not what dreamy to the book. What drew me to the book was wanting to learn more in jelena's words about what she went through, the treatment, the hardship, the let's call a spade a spade, the abuse. That she went through behind the scenes. To that end, I am not going to sugarcoat this for you. Yellena doesn't sugarcoat her experiences. If abuse is a trigger for you, then I do not advise reading this book. In saying that, I found it absolutely refreshing that yellena was happy to' go there.'
I also felt like a lot of things were validated for me that I always thought were the case, but it was good to get confirmation in this book. One example being yellena's regret over not being able to have a lot of time with her brother Savo in her life. I always figured that you like that had a strong love for her brother, but unfortunately, thanks to her father, they just really couldn't be in each others lives a lot, which was tough to read about.
It has been tough also to read that since this book has been published jelena's most solid rock Tin, Her boyfriend at the time when the book ends And her have broken up since. To that end, Yellena does seem to be spiralling a little bit here and there, as she has publicly announced recently feeling moments of suicidal tendencies.
On a personal level, I wish nothing but the absolute best for Jelena Dokic. Goodness knows she has been through heck and a half through the duration of her life, and she deserves nothing but the best. I truly hope that she can find that over the course of the coming years.
Refocusing back on the book itself and critiquing it for what it was, this was an amazing memoir. It truly digs deep into her life. As we get to not only witness her highs and lows of her career on the court, but also it Pulls back the curtain in an unapologetic way, showing us the real roar things that she went through that no one else saw. I really, truly appreciated getting this from her.
There is no way that this will can receive any less than the overwhelming five stars. I am going to give it.
To anyone who is not triggered by verbal and physical abuse showing up in books, I highly, highly, highly recommend this read.
I'd also love to see Jelena write another book now that her tennis career is over and see how things are for her now compared to how they were back then.
But in the meantime, it is an overwhelming five stars from me, Jelena Dokic, well done!
5 Stars xoxo.
December 30, 2017
Often disturbing; how did she manage the physical and emotional abuse, and still maintain her sanity?
March 21, 2024
This has been on my TBR list/stack for FAR too long, but I finally got around to it and it was well worth the wait!
I don't read a lot of biographies, and sports biographies are especially not my thing, but this story goes way beyond the tennis court and the public persona that so many of us were familiar with throughout Jelena's career. For many years we saw young Jelena Dokic on the tennis court and at press conferences, and I, like so many people, were quick to judge her as often cold and clinical - I don't think I ever really warmed to her as tennis player. Sure, I knew about her father's behaviour at tennis matches, the verbal abuse from the sidelines or the player's box, and the times he was ejected from the arena and banned for the rest of the tournament, but this public behaviour was just a glimpse of the horrific.physical and mental abuse that Jelena was suffering on a regular basis.
This is a story that is often difficult to read, but what struck me the most is the strength and determination of Jelena to become the best version of herself that she could be, to achieve the absolute best that she was capable of in her sport.
I've followed Jelena on Instagram for quite a while and really enjoy her tennis commentary. I've always been impressed not only with her insights into the game, but also her honesty about her life and the struggles she has been through, and the things she continues to deal with now.
If ever there was a person who should be bitter and resentful because of what she has had to deal with in her life it's Jelena..but instead, she is gracious, calm and generous, she has continued on to be successful after her her tennis career ended and she dedicates much of her time to raising awareness about domestic violence and mental health issues.
Thankyou for sharing your story Jelena - you are an amazing and inspirational human being.
I don't read a lot of biographies, and sports biographies are especially not my thing, but this story goes way beyond the tennis court and the public persona that so many of us were familiar with throughout Jelena's career. For many years we saw young Jelena Dokic on the tennis court and at press conferences, and I, like so many people, were quick to judge her as often cold and clinical - I don't think I ever really warmed to her as tennis player. Sure, I knew about her father's behaviour at tennis matches, the verbal abuse from the sidelines or the player's box, and the times he was ejected from the arena and banned for the rest of the tournament, but this public behaviour was just a glimpse of the horrific.physical and mental abuse that Jelena was suffering on a regular basis.
This is a story that is often difficult to read, but what struck me the most is the strength and determination of Jelena to become the best version of herself that she could be, to achieve the absolute best that she was capable of in her sport.
I've followed Jelena on Instagram for quite a while and really enjoy her tennis commentary. I've always been impressed not only with her insights into the game, but also her honesty about her life and the struggles she has been through, and the things she continues to deal with now.
If ever there was a person who should be bitter and resentful because of what she has had to deal with in her life it's Jelena..but instead, she is gracious, calm and generous, she has continued on to be successful after her her tennis career ended and she dedicates much of her time to raising awareness about domestic violence and mental health issues.
Thankyou for sharing your story Jelena - you are an amazing and inspirational human being.
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