For years, Jelena Dokic suffered unimaginable abuse by her father. She just announced his passing.

Content warning: This story details domestic violence.

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.

Now, the former tennis star has announced his death with a raw statement acknowledging the "difficult and painful" relationship they shared.

"My father passed away in the late hours on 16.05.2025," Dokic shared on social media with a photo of the pair from her childhood.

"As you know my relationship with my father has been difficult and painful with a lot of history. Despite everything and no matter how hard, difficult and in the last 10 years even non existent our relationship and communication was, it is never easy losing a parent and a father even one you are estranged from."

The news comes just months after the release of her documentary Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story, which detailed the horrific abuse she suffered during her tennis career.

Damir was believed to be 67 years old at the time of his death.

Now facing his death, Dokic describes experiencing "conflicting and complex emotions."

"The loss of an estranged parent comes with a difficult and complicated grief," she wrote. "It's an end of a chapter and life as I know it."

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For years, rumours swirled about her father's 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 the documentary.

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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A shattering heartbreak.

After being plagued by injuries, Jelena eventually retired in 2014, and went on to channel her experiences into two books.

In the second, Fearless: Finding the Power to Thrive, she detailed her devastating breakup from her partner of 19 years, Tin Bikic.

Jelana met Tin when they were both 20 years old on a tennis tour in 2003.

It wasn't love at first sight, but when they reconnected a few months later, he quickly became her greatest supporter at a time when she was navigating life without her family.

"I remember feeling almost instantly comfortable with him — he was so calm and would hear people attentively," she wrote in Fearless.

"I think that's the thing I was most struck by — his respectfulness. His calmness in the chaos of my life, and his kindness."

Over their 19 years, Tin's kindness never changed. It bolstered her to believe in herself just as he did.

"He thought the world of me and he believed in me a lot more than I believed in myself," Jelena wrote.

When she hit rock bottom and became suicidal in 2005, Tin was there. He helped save her life.

For years, he was her champion. Her rock. Her best friend.

In 2021, everything came undone. They didn't fight. There was nothing rocky about their relationship. But slowly things started to change.

Jelana Dokic and Tin Bikic in 2011. Image: Getty.

Tin went home to Croatia to visit his father on the eve of Melbourne lockdown that July.

But as she suffered through the long, awful days of lockdown alone, Jelena missed Tin. Still, she never saw the break-up coming.

In early October 2021, she started to sense a slight change in her partner. He felt quieter. Sad.

"In Croatia, his dad was still dealing with the grief of losing Slava, his wife and Tin's mother. Tin too was still dealing with this loss — he was in deep mourning," she said.

Then came a FaceTime call two days before Christmas. It had been five months of uncertainty about when Tin would return, but he promised he was coming back.

But when she answered the call, he broke down.

"Tin started to cry, so much so that it was really hard for him to talk… I could see he couldn't quite even say the words, and feeling sick it dawned on me what those words were. But I found the courage to ask, 'Look, are we done here? Are you ever coming back?'"

Things were done.

Jelena's life now.

The breakup led her into one of the hardest times of her life.

For years, she closed herself off to the idea of love. In December, she candidly opened up to her followers about her fear of being alone forever.

"'I put up walls four years ago and I said they are never coming down," she wrote.

But ever-a-fighter, Jelena is still hopeful.

"I will never give up and one day those walls will come down again and hopefully the wait, pain, hurt and disappointment will be worth it and I will find that amazing love," she said.

Last week, she discussed the possibility of starting a family, saying she would love to be a mum.

Appearing on the podcast Mental As Anyone with J.MO, Jelena said at 42, she didn't think pregnancy would happen for her but she would love to adopt.

"I was in a relationship for almost 19 years from the age of 20 and right when we split up, we were about to start trying for a family," she said.

"Maybe one day. One day will I adopt? Possibly. It's something I would love to do because I love kids."

Aryna Sabalenka celebrates victory with on-court presenter Jelena Dokic. Image: Getty.

There's one thing she knows for certain: she will not be anything like her father.

"I love kids and I know even if I was a single mum to be honest and I adopted one day, it would have all the love in the world," she said.

"I would love it to have a father as well, but I know I can give it absolutely everything and (it) would have all the love and support and I would be completely different."

Jelena 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 in Unbreakable.

Damir declined to be interviewed for Unbreakable.

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

Feature image: Roadshow Films, Getty.

This article was originally published in January 2025 and has since been updated with new information.