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In a perverse way, Jelena Dokic believes her desperate plight over the past five years may have freed her to produce the best tennis of her life.
Having overcome depression, weight gain and a short-lived retirement – all stemming from family estrangement brought on by her volatile and overbearing father – Dokic senses she may now be better placed to fulfil her rich potential.
In a wide-ranging and frank interview following her heartwarming run to the Australian Open quarter-finals, Dokic on Wednesday recalled the other life-changing week when her competitive instincts stopped her from putting away the racquet for good two years ago.
“In 2007, I was really in such a bad state,” Dokic said.
“I was talking with the people that were around me about quitting. Actually I made the decision but about four weeks later I changed my mind.
“I was watching a tennis match on the TV and I said to myself I have to try and come back.
“It was mid-year – French Open, Wimbledon time – I mean, it was hard. I’d gained a lot of weight. I was completely out of shape.
“To be able to in less than 18 months come back and play with the best is extraordinary.”
While Dokic always considered her mental toughness her greatest strength, she says her struggles with depression had transformed her into a cold-blooded tennis assassin.
“I dealt with it for a long time. It was a couple of years that I really had to deal with it. It took a long time. Now I’m really enjoying my time on the court, but I’m really cold on the outside,” Dokic said.
“I’m really able to deal with the tough situations out on the court.
“With scorelines like 5-all and 6-all, other girls you can see the emotions. They get scared and nervous. But I don’t have that problem.
“Maybe it’s because I’ve had to deal with so much off the court. For me, at the end of the day, now it’s just a tennis match. There’s a lot worse stuff out there.
“Mentally, before I was a very tough player. I always fought a lot. But now I’ve taken it to another level and maybe this will help me to do well.”
At first, Dokic was in denial about her depression.
“I don’t think it’s like you go to the doctor and get diagnosed with something,” she said.
“It’s something at first that you don’t know what you’re dealing with. People around you see what is going on.
“I knew something was wrong. Obviously tennis was the last thing on my mind.
“It’s just really every day is really not a happy day. It’s down and nothing can make you happy.
“A lot the days it was really even hard to get out of bed. So for me to be in this position right now is amazing.”
Drawing inspiration from Jennifer Capriati and Justine Henin – who both overcame personal struggles to reach world No.1 – Dokic’s fairytale Open campaign featured a succession of wins over top-20 rivals before a narrow loss to the third-ranked Dinara Safina.
“Sometimes maybe one or two matches can change a career and a life and I think this is what happened here,” Dokic said.
The 25-year-old said perhaps her best therapy, though, over the past fortnight had come off court, where she finally managed to go public to reveal the depths of her despair.
“There were a lot of low points,” Dokic said. “It’s been good to talk about.
“A lot of people didn’t know what was going on. Some people just think you go off, that you have three years off and go travelling every day and things are great.
“But it’s not how it was for me because I wanted to continue to play tennis.
“For me, to stop at 21 and have trouble was obviously not easy to do.
“It’s been a lot of hard work off the court. A lot of difficult moments and situations.
“That’s why it’s been so emotional this week to come and play good tennis and have a good result.
“You really go through matches and match points where you remember everything you had to deal with.”
At Melbourne Park, Dokic became the first woman ever to play five consecutive three-set matches at a slam.
Most encouragingly, though, the former Wimbledon semi-finalist cited mental fatigue as the main reason for her 6-4 4-6 6-4 demise against Safina and admitted making a successful comeback to elite tennis hadn’t been as hard as she initially thought it would be.
“Safina’s one of the most powerful players on tour, if not the one that hits the hardest and I was really able to stick with her, which was really a surprise to me,” Dokic said. “It could have gone either way.”
With a projected rankings leap from 187th to inside the world’s top 100 on Monday for the first time since 2004, Dokic said she obviously needed to reassess her goals.
“I’ve played at least like a top-20 player this week. If I can continue that, the world top 10 is not out of the question,” she said.
“There’s still more work to be done, but it’s great to know that I was still able to be there physically and mentally with the girls that play all year round.
“I had months and months at a time when I didn’t train – the longest was about six, eight months in 2007.
“For tennis, for any athlete, it’s pretty much the end of your career because it takes such a long time to come back.
“To do this after three years, to get in the quarter-final of a grand slam is really encouraging for me, knowing that there is so much room for improvement.”
Dokic’s immediate focus now is next week’s Fed Cup in Perth where she will be representing Australia at the teams event for the first time since 2000.
The former world No.4 says she’ll have no trouble staying up for that, but admits she may be prone to a letdown on her return to regular tour events.
Dokic has become accustomed to receiving parochial crowd support this past fortnight and again thanked the Australian public on Wednesday for accepting her back, despite renouncing her citizenship in returning to Serbia after outrageously claiming the 2001 Open draw had been rigged against her.
“Obviously not everybody is going to be on my side and I understand that,” Dokic said.
“It’s very tough to forget what happened seven years ago.
“But, look, I tried my best. Some decisions, actually all of the decisions, I regret that I made.
“And I just tried to do my best with the public and it’s really worked in my favour this tournament.
“I really fought well and they really admired that and it’s been positive how everything has turned around.”
One thing that Dokic can’t reverse is her fractured relationship with her father Damir.
“Like I said earlier in the week, there’s nothing that we can agree on,” Dokic said.
“I’ve tried in the last five years and it’s been impossible. I’ve given up on trying. It’s something I don’t even think about.”
Dokic realises her story is such that she will continue having to answer questions about her troubled past, resurrection and, mostly, her lunatic father.
“I don’t have a problem talking about it,” she said. “It’s not something I’m running away from.
“Obviously, it’s draining and you want to move on and continue playing tournaments and Fed Cup and everything, but I think it’s been good to address everything and to talk about it.
“If it was me or someone else, I think it is nice to see that someone says they’re having a tough time off the court and was able to comeback work hard and it all pays off.”
While Dokic has recently mended her relationship with her mother Liliana – who has divorced Damir and lives in Sydney – and also hopes to reunite with Belgrade-based younger Savo, her surrogate family will continue to be the Bikic brothers – boyfriend of six years, Tin, and coach Borna.
Dokic views Borna as the perfect replacement as tennis mentor to her domineering father.
“I’m a difficult person. I have my own opinions. I think I understand the game well,” she said.
“He’s very stubborn as well like me. In a way, it’s good mix and sometimes we go up against each other; we yell, trust me.
“But we have the right combination. He knows me well. I know him well. It’s important.”
Then, of course, there is also the financial rewards for her Open revival.
Dokic did not even have a racquet sponsor before the tournament, let alone anyone to dress her.
Now she has a $182,500 cheque and sponsors falling at her feet.
“It makes things easier,” she said.
“But I don’t play tennis because of the money. It’s something that comes with it.
“I’m not going to count every cheque that I get but, yes, it makes things easy for the rest of the year. It’s something that pays our bills, which are pretty high.
“But I would trade any money in the world to play in the quarter-final of a grand slam again – or better.”
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