Thirty-year-old Jelena Dokic has been trying to make a comeback, not having played since retiring at Charleston 2012 with right wrist injury and a subsequent surgery, but her ambitions crumbled at the first hurdle, as her first opponent at the Australian Open wildcard play-offs was hard-hitting Jarmila Gajdosova who took her out 6-2 6-4.
Regarding fashion, while Dokic was wearing tracksuit pants during the match, Gajdosova worked Venus Williams’ EleVen clothing line, in particular the white EleVen Women’s Autumn Grand Slam Dress with print insets at the shoulders and skirt. Australian Gajdosova and Australian-born Brit Johanna Konta are, besides Venus, EleVen’s signature athletes. (source: Fox Sports, photo: Ralf Reinecke)
Should have played some ITF leading in as Gajdosova did . Could get a WC into Aus Open qualifying.
A bigger question- does she really want to play?
JE, I suppose she does still want to play. She’s been trying for years to make a real comeback.
“A bigger question- does she really want to play?” Well, the answer is, obviously: No, she doesn’t – and that’s the very reason why she plays. P.S. If there be an even bigger, let alone the biggest question, I’ll be all too glad to provide the appropriate answer.
Tulp, you must be having superhuman powers to know the answer to the big question! 🙂 Thank you for sharing it with us! 🙂
These comments were very selfish, arrogant and insensitive–especially the one by a “TULP” person. Jelena Dokic started the tour very young and she was very much a target of ridicule, hate and manufactured controversy from the WTA, Tennis Australia and the media. Jelena Dokic became a media target and was often unfairly, criticized and made into the villainess. Many unfair things were done to her heaped upon her career in the tennis world. So she couldn’t express herself or her feelings. All the bad media coverage about her father and family certainly damaged her. She had no real friends, only acquaintances, competitors and enemies. All of it fractured her mentality and she now suffers from a mental illness. Depression is a psychoneurosis and it will affect this woman for the rest of her life in every area. Jelena Dokic was never some delicate rose she was strong and the no. 1 Jr. player of her era, when she entered the tour. But she was still a girl–not an adult and they went after her all the time. Sabotage & battles w/ her former managers, tennis Australia, her family and the media proved she too much. She couldn’t endure culture of scapegoating and targeting she came to live as a tennis player without damage. This is one of the reasons for the age eligibility rules. Jelena suffers from a mental illness, she lives everyday with a psychoneurosis. Jelena feels bad, all of the time or, most of the time, about letting people down, not being successful enough. She feels bad and has become unnaturally miserable about everything including the career success she wanted. She can’t snap out of these bad feelings or easily let t go of them like the rest of us. Read about depression before you attack. Jelena never had the support and protection she needed from her family, the tour, her manager or tennis Australia. It took its toll. Women like Mirjana Lucic, Virginie Razzano suffer from this mental illness as well. But their stories are NOT identical to what Jelena endured. But all 3 of these ladies were prodigies and I can’t help believing that they were badly abused by the sport of tennis and so a tennis. Tennis will never talk about these things because it hurts the image it seeks to create. The best thing for Jelena Dokic is peace & rest–away from tennis. I pray the Lord will bless her, protect & guide her to complete healing and that one day she’ll find her voice. Ms. Dokic gave all she had to tennis she needs to live the rest of her life–for herself on her own terms. I wish her well.