In a shocking revelation, Australian Tennis great Jelena Dokic spoke about how she was abused at the hands of her father during her teen years prior to the US Open and the ugly truth of the sporting world that often goes unnoticed. This came after a video of a Chinese man kicking, thrashing and punching his 14-year old daughter on a tennis court in Belgrade, Serbia surfaced online. In the video, the man can be seen throwing his daughter to the ground and kicking her repeatedly.
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In no time, the video caught everyone’s attention and sent shock waves across the tennis world. Reacting to the same, former world’s number 4 Dokic took to her Instagram and strongly condemned the heinous act.
Speaking on a show, Jelena shared her personal experience and said, “As someone who’s been through it, I know what that feels like, I know what that looks like after an assault like this.”
I was actually kicked until I was unconscious a week before the US Open when I was 16 – and it wasn’t the only time.”
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She also expressed disappointment over the fact that such brutal incidents oftentimes go unseen. “Unfortunately, what also happens behind closed doors is even worse, there’s no doubt about that. ‘Unfortunately, you had to get to this – and to be filmed for this long – for us to be able to see what that actually looks like.
Now we actually need to do something about this. This is what I was talking about all along when I came out with my story, that this happens and I’m not the first or the last.
It is about how we deal with it and are we doing enough?”
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The former tennis star also talked about the need of the media to highlight such issues and urged the media to cover them. Further, she vowed to call out people behind such horrific incidents and continue to raise her voice against violence towards young players.
“I’m certainly going to try and drive this change and push for this, that’s what I’ve done all along,” she said.
