Jelena Dokic’s tennis dad from hell

Few tennis players have risen so fast and fallen so low as the Croatia-born Australian Jelena Dokic. And few have had to contend with a "tennis dad from hell" as hellish as her father, the bushy-bearded Damir Dokic. Now, in an interview with the Observer, she has finally spoken about the damaging - and, she claims, abusive - relationship.

"There was nothing I could ever, ever do to satisfy him, whether it's on the court, off the court," she said. "I realised eventually that I can't do anything good enough that between we could have peace. There's no point. There's no point in trying."

Jelena made her mark on tennis in 1999 when she knocked out Martina Hingis in straight sets in the first round at Wimbledon.

The 16-year-old schoolgirl displayed ferocious shots she had learned at the White City tennis club in Sydney, where her father had taken the family from war-torn Croatia - "it was very difficult, we didn't have anywhere to practise" - in pursuit of Jelena's tennis.

By the age of 20, Jelena was ranked number four in the world. But the bad vibes were already apparent. As the Observer writer Emma John puts it, Damir had become "an increasingly unwelcome distraction, causing scenes, abusing officials and eventually getting himself banned from the tour".

Yet, however drunk or abusive her father became, Jelena found herself defending him. "I was young," she said. "I had to defend his actions and even now I regret them, I cannot apologise for them, because I was so young. You can't expect a 15-year-old not to defend the father of your family but, look, I left home at 18."

She did indeed - but the damage was done. Within a year her ferocious shots were faltering and she was throwing away tournaments too easily. By 2006, the girl who had reached number four in the world was ranked 621.

Early last month, Jelena told the Australian Sport & Style magazine that she had been physically abused by Damir. His response was explosive. He told the Serbian tabloid Blic that he would bomb the car of the Australian ambassador unless Jelena retracted her remarks.

"I don't have rockets yet," he said, "but it is the smallest problem to find them. I would just have to click my fingers to be supplied with a rocket-propelled grenade."

So, Damir is back on form - the question now is, can Jelena, now 26, rediscover hers?

She began her comeback campaign at the Australian Open in January, making it as far as the quarter finals and getting her world ranking up to 80.

Paris was going well until Thursday when she was forced to retire with a back injury when she was one set up against the Russian Elena Dementieva. "I went for a return and I just went down and couldn't get back up," she told reporters.

After treatment and an MRI scan on Friday, doctors in Paris say she should bounce back in time for Wimbledon at the end of the month.

On the same day, in Belgrade, her father went on trial for his threat to blow up the Australian ambassador. He claims he was only joking - but when he was arrested police found bombs as well as hunting rifles at his home and he was taken into custody. The trial was adjourned until June 11. ·