"My father beat me, and things got worse behind closed doors": Jelena Dokic had to sleep in Wimbledon locker room due to abusive father

Jelena Dokic reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon back in 2000, but amongst all of that, she was going through inner turmoil of abuse from her father. She opened up that she was made to sleep in the locker room after being exiled from the hotel.

Dokic lost to Lindsay Davenport and was given a harsh dressing down by Damir Dokic after the match after harrowing abuse from being a child which she has previously opened up about.

“When I started playing tennis and hit the first ball, my father beat me, and things got worse behind closed doors,” Dokic told the Head Game podcast.

“I was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon, I'm sitting in the players' section, crying and listening to my father say that I'm a disgrace and that I've ruined both my family and him because I lost in the semi-finals of Wimbledon.

“I was not allowed to go to the hotel and was told to do whatever I wanted, to manage, to sleep on the street and not be able to come back. I stayed at Wimbledon, I waited for everyone to leave and I went to the corner of the players' sector, to have a place to stay and to sleep there. They found me in the middle of the night, because the cleaners cleaned the place at night.”

Speaking in April, she also opened up about previously being fat shamed and how in her mind, it doesn't matter as she has endured turmoil and is in her mind lucky to be alive.

“What is the most common comment I see when it comes to my body size and weight? What happened to her? I can barely recognise her. Really? What happened? You can't recognise me?” Dokic wrote in April. "Let me tell you what happened. I survived being a refugee twice, I was bullied, I lived in a domestic violence-filled home for 15 years and I was beaten unconscious.

“I was abused physically and emotionally and got beaten for the first time when I was six years [old], I was called a whore and a cow since I was as young as 11.

“I had to escape home, I battled anxiety, depression, PTSD and trauma and I almost committed suicide. I still managed to do pretty well, I managed to be top 5 in the world as tennis player and a grand slam finalist, I am a bestselling author, commentator and speaker but most importantly I survived.”