Amid accusations from her father that the Australian open draw was rigged, Jelena Dokic has said that she no longer wants to be considered Australian.
Four months after representing them in the Olympics in Sydney - she was one victory away from winning a medal - Dokic has asked to be counted as a Yugoslav from now on. And the request has been granted. A four-line statement today read, "Jelena Dokic has officially requested her listing on the Sanex WTA rankings, and subsequently the Australian Open 2001 Draw, be updated with her country reading Yugoslavia." Geoff Pollard, president of Tennis Australia, commented, "We've received this advice from the WTA Tour. We will accept this and amend the Australian Open 2001 Draw accordingly."
Australian fans are now trying to come to terms with the fact that the player they thought was their best woman player was not their player at all any more. Dokic, born in Yugoslavia, but an Australian citizen since 1996, is no stranger to controversy - and nor is her father Damir. He is currently serving a ban from watching her games on the WTA circuit. He was arrested in Birmingham for abusive, drunken behaviour just before her famous victory over Martina Hingis at Wimbledon two years ago. He created headlines around the world by calling tournament officials "Nazis" and was slung out of the US Open last year after an outburst about the price of fish in one of the dining rooms at Flushing Meadow.
His daughter, still to grow up even if she is the world No 25 and a tournament winner already this year, ungraciously labelled the player who beat her in the first round in Melbourne last year - Hungarian Rita Kuti Kis - a no-hoper who "never was a player and never will be". In the furore following that incident Dad entered the scene again, scuffling with a TV crew. Then back at Wimbledon he smashed a television reporter's mobile phone.
Dokic was drawn against defending champion Lindsay Davenport, and the draw was seen as the last straw for the Dokic family, who announced they are leaving Australia immediately after the tournament to live in Florida. Approaching the Davenport match Dokic's father said, "I am scared very much what Australians will do to her. I am afraid there will be an incident if she plays well. Jelena was crying for the first time ever last night. I have never seen her cry about tennis in her life and she was saying she could not believe that she got that kind of draw in Australia. She feels betrayed. She feels that no one here likes her and when you feel like that it means you have no spaces here where you can just go. This is not a lightly taken decision. We were forced to do this and now she will always play for Yugoslavia. We are all very sad."
Filed by Pat Nugent
