Status Updates From Unbreakable

Alicia Molik is all blank stares and silences – it’s a shame we don’t even say hi these days.

‘No problem if you want to have a boyfriend. But you are going to sign everything over to me,’ he says. ‘All the money you have earned up until now and a big part of your future earnings. Then you can do whatever you want. No problem, you can go.’

I meet Enrique Bernoldi a charismatic Brazilian Formula One driver, a man who usually gets what he wants. He’s five years older than me. We exchange email. I’m wary but Enrique pursues me.

I have never had a boyfriend. I’ve never been allowed to really talk to guys.

One day, after our practice, she (Rennae Stubbs) confronts me about the physical abuse she suspects my father is dishing out. She suggests that I stay at the (Olympic) village, assuming I need to get away from him.

“I am thinking about leaving him but I am not sure how I would escape.”

Jelena is 17.

I still can’t quite fathom how it has come to this: that the better I get on the court the more he seems to lose it.

‘You are hopeless.’
‘You are a cow.’
‘You are pathetic.’
‘You are worth nothing.’

If I don’t defend him, guess what: I might actually end up in hospital.

All of a sudden, it hits me – I have lost my confidence.

‘Please come over, Dad.’

Despite all the father has done, Jelena still asks for his help. Talk about trauma 😢

‘How much money have you made?’

I hand over all the money to my father. I never put a cent from my winnings in my own pocket. That’s not how it works.

I defeat her in straight sets and become the youngest player to ever win a singles match in the Fed Cup.

‘This is all your fault,’ he spits and slurs at me. ‘You are not working hard enough to get us all out of trouble.’

Imagine putting all the pressure on a 13yo 😭

‘I wish they’d go back to where they came from,’ . . .

‘She arrived five minutes ago and she’s getting all this,’ I hear a father say to one of the top coaches. ‘It’s unfair.’

My head is throbbing from the thumps of his shoe, my back stinging from the strikes from his belt, and my heart is broken.

Jelena is 11 😱

‘You’re not here to make friends, Jelena, to muck around or have fun. You are here to win,’ he reminds me.

In Osijek I was a content child. In Sombor I have grown into a more robust girl. A confident child, despite my father’s moods and violence.

But in Australia that girl will quickly disappear.

My mum, as usual, obeys his every word. Whatever he says she does. Through my eyes she seems to think it’s normal that he dictates everything, that he screams, hits her and throws a table full of food into the wall if it is ‘no good’.

Soon I stop wishing for my old life. I know o have different priorities now. We just need to survive.