For decades, Jelena Dokic was forced to tell her dad’s version of her story. It was all a lie.

On the court, Jelena Dokic was a force to be reckoned with, training hard and playing harder. But off-court, she was a teenage girl walking on eggshells, terrified of setting her father, Damir, into a violent rage.

Rumours swirled about his abuse, but Jelena maintained a convincing facade.

Behind closed doors, everything unravelled.

"For decades, I was forced to tell his version of the story. Everything I said was a lie," Jelena said in her new documentary, Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story.

Watch the trailer for Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic story. Post continues below.

One memory still rattles her to this day: the beating she received after a first-round loss at the du Maurier Open in Canada in 2000.

"I remember he was so mad he goes into the bathroom with me, he locks the door and he beat the crap out of me," Jelena recalled.

"He slammed my head against the wall multiple times. He was kicking me. My shins were so bruised I couldn't walk. He actually punches me in the head and then I went unconscious."

In a blind rage, Damir stepped on her head and left her there, Jelena explained.

The abuse wasn't just physical. He'd call her a "bitch" and "cow", tell her she was a disappointment and threaten to kill her.

"Every morning I woke up and thought, 'How do I make sure he doesn't hurt me today?' No matter how hard I worked on the court, it was never good enough for him," Jelena said in Unbreakable.

Jelena Dokic with her parents at the 1999 US Open. Image: Getty.

Pressure to perform.

Growing up in poverty, Jelena fell in love with tennis as soon as Damir put a racquet in her hand. For her father, however, it was an opportunity to lift the family out of hardship.

"From a very young age, he would tell me that I was the way out, and that I was the only one that could help the family," she told Mamamia's No Filter podcast in 2018.

"He was very motivated by having a better life and by money… The one thing I don't understand and I don't have an answer to, to this day, is: I did earn all this money, I was playing unbelievably, but his abuse never really stopped."

Her first tennis lesson was also the first day he beat her. Damir slapped her and pulled her hair, even shocking himself. It's something that had never happened until he put her on the court, Jelena said.

She was just six years old.

Jelena Dokic in 2003. Image: Getty.

After arriving in Australia as a refugee at age 11, Jelena quickly emerged as a tennis prodigy.

Her breakthrough came at Wimbledon in 1999, when, at just 16, she achieved one of the most stunning upsets in tennis history by defeating world No. 1 Martina Hingis 6-2, 6-0 — the only time a women's world No. 1 has lost to a qualifier at Wimbledon.

Her early career was marked by incredible potential, but was often overshadowed by her father's violent outbursts. The more her career progressed, the more Damir drank, unravelling before her eyes.

In 2000, Jelena made it to the Wimbledon semi-finals — a major breakthrough at 17. But after losing the first set, she knew her father was going to be enraged.

After the match she searched for hours for her family. When her father finally answered his phone, he told her not to return to the hotel.

"I don't give a sh*t where you go," Jelena recalled him saying. "Then he hung up."

At 11pm, she was still waiting in the players' lounge until a cleaner found her and called management to find her a place to stay.

Jelena Dokic smiles after winning the Women's Singles Final match at the WTA Italian Open Tennis Championship in 2001. Image: Getty.

A forced change of allegiance.

The following year brought more heartbreak. In 2001, just before a crucial Australian Open match against world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport, Damir forced Jelena to switch nationalities to Yugoslavia.

Jelena was Australia's darling, and she loved the country that had welcomed her with open arms. But she did as she was told.

"I loved playing for Australia and I felt completely Australian — he took that away from me. I was only 17. I was made to do that and show that publicly, which was completely not me," she previously told the BBC.

As she walked onto the court, the crowd erupted into boos. It's something she will never forgive her father for.

"This was the very first time that I felt like people hated me because he made this decision, but people obviously saw it as my decision because it went on me," Jelena said.

"I wanted to run out of there, run away, escape somewhere where no one could ever find me again," she said.

Lindsay Davenport of the USA and Jelena Dokic of Yugoslavia shake hands at the net after their match, in the first round of the 2021 Australian Open Tennis Championships. Image: Getty.

The aftermath.

Eventually, Jelena hit breaking point. At 19, she finally broke free, writing her mother a letter and escaping at 3am.

Though physically free, she remained trapped in a spiral of depression. Her father continued to threaten her and anyone close to her. Despite leaving him millions in winnings, his need for control never wavered.

By the time she hit 21, Jelena was struggling with depression, PTSD and anxiety, caught in a cycle of disordered eating as she tried to process her trauma.

"This was the biggest 'match' of my life because I was in serious danger of never being able of living a normal life again," she said in Unbreakable.

"In the end, could I be sure I was not going to commit suicide one day? I wouldn't have put my money on it at the time. No one would've."

It wasn't until 2009 that Jelena revealed the extent of Damir's abuse throughout her childhood. The revelation prompted a furious Damir to threaten to kill Australia's ambassador to Serbia with a hand grenade. He was jailed for his threats.

Jelena returned to tennis having taken nearly three years off between 2005 and 2008.

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After being plagued by injuries, Jelena eventually retired in 2014, and went on to channel her experiences into two books. She now works as a motivational speaker, mental health and family violence spokesperson and tennis commentator for Channel Nine.

These days, her focus is on a different kind of winning.

"If I can leave something behind where I can say it's saved someone's life, that would be a win. That's what I want my legacy to be," she said.

Damir declined to be interviewed for Unbreakable.

Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story is now streaming on 9Now.

Feature image: Roadshow Films, Getty.