“Disgusting. People should be ashamed”: the drama of ex-tennis player Jelena Dokic who overcame a great depression and is attacked by her body

Jelena Dokic He has had an outstanding career with the racket. He shone as a junior, he was number one in that category in 1998, the year he won the US Open in singles and Roland Garros doubles- and as a professional he reached the semifinal of Wimbledon in 2000 he reached the fourth step of the rankings in August 2002 and won six individual titles. All while she was living an ordeal from the physical and emotional abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. Almost ten years after her retirement, the Australian continues to suffer verbal abuse, this time through social networks, where many users criticize her weight.

Dokic, who works as a commentator for a channel in his country during the official broadcasts of Australian Open and usually also takes care of doing the interviews on the pitch with the protagonists after the games, denounced in his report of instagram the negative messages about his body that he has received in recent days.

“The ‘shameful body’ (Ed: Shaming someone for their body) and the ‘fat shameful’ (Too bad for being overweight) of the last 24 hours has been crazy. From all parts of the world, and especially from Serbia,” he said in the publication, in which he shared some screenshots of the uploaded comments that came his way.

“Disgusting. People should be ashamed,” he continued. “The most common comment is “What happened to him, is he so big?”. I’ll tell you what happened, I’m finding a way to survive and fight. And it doesn’t matter what I’m doing and what happened, because size shouldn’t matter. Kindness and being a good person is what is important. Something those who abuse me and others are clearly not. What matters is the abuse in the networks and bullying, because whoever does it is mean, bad, petty and ignorant.

And he assured: “I can and will get in shape for myself and for my health, but you will not be a better person. The weight will change, but bad people will continue to be bad.”

“I really don’t think it’s right for a whale like Jelena Dokic to deprive herself of the pleasure of watching tennis.”, was one of the messages that Dokic made public. Most of the others were amazed at her weight and advised her to “cut out” sweets and snacks. snacks.

This Tuesday, the newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald published an Australian-written column entitled “It’s time to declare game, set and match against online trolls.”

In the text, the former player – who confessed last year to having been close to suicide – said that, since the start of the competition in Melbourne, she has found herself making many hateful comments on social media.

“I’ve been working at the Australian Open for two weeks and I woke up to the kind of insults that, no matter how many times I go through them, they’re never easy for me to read. ‘Now that the Australian Open is back, will Jelena try to commit suicide like every year?’. That was accompanied by a laughing emoji. “You were lucky that your father abused you because it was good for your career”. It’s hard for me to understand how anyone could even think that, let alone say it, write it, send it and post it,” she wrote.

“However I try in my comments, my interviews, my tennis reports, for many trolls my weight renders me incapable of commenting: I should just stop eating and be a free target for their dark and evil abuse. It’s not Gonna pass. I’m not like that. I’m stronger than all of that. I’m a survivor,” she added.

And closed: “Please let me do my job in peace.”

The turbulent life of Dokic

Jelena Dokic was born on April 12, 1983 in osijekCroatia, but in 1991, following the Balkan war, his parents emigrated to Serbia and later settled in Australia.

There he held up a racket for the first time and, taking advantage of the fact that the Australian government has decided to promote young athletes due to the proximity of the sydney olympicshe began to develop in tennis and had a promising start.

After his great junior career, he shined professionally. In the Wimbledon 1999Aged 16 and out of qualification, he beat the Swiss 6-2 and 6-0 Martina Hingisseeded first, and also left another top ten as the incoming Frenchwoman Maria Pierce before falling in the quarterfinals against Alexandra Stevenson. He continued his ascent and became world No. 4 in 2002, his best all-time ranking.

However, long-standing issues with his father soon came to light, damir, which stopped their growth. “It hit me really hard. It started from the first day I played tennis and then it just spiraled out of control,” she said in her memoir. Unbreakablewhere he confessed that at that moment he considered, for the first time, suicide.

She also said that her father – who shortly after starred in an embarrassing episode in the U.S. Open 2000, was sentenced to prison for threats and illegal possession of weapons: he spat in her face, pulled her hair and even beat her unconscious. Consequently, logically, his career was not as bright as expected and he retired at the age of 29.

Everything that accumulated was reflected in his body. She found a way to hide her suffering in food and weighed 120 kilos. An important call to which she was able to react. In 11 months she lost 57 kilos.

After the publication of her biography in 2017 and that weight loss, she seemed to be starting to find the happiness she had been looking for for years, but more importantly, she is plunged into enormous instability.

In June last year he confessed, in a raw and shocking letter on Instagram, the martyrdom he experienced in the previous months, which almost had a fatal outcome.

“On April 28, 2022, I was about to jump off the 26th floor balcony and take my own life,” the story began. “I pulled myself off the edge, I don’t even know how I did it. Seeking professional help saved my life.”

Although he also brought up a hopeful scenario: “Some days are better than others and sometimes I take a step forward and then I take a step back, but I’m fighting and I think I can get through this. I’ll come back stronger than ever.”