The Australian Open 2000 saw the nadir of Jelena's career, when she lost in the first round to Rita Kuti Kis. In the post-match press conference, Jelena said, "I lost to a player who has never been a player and, I guess, probably never will be". Sadly, Jelena's honest assessment of her opponent caused the media and the tennis world to say some very nasty things about her. My own opinion is that it's not very Selesian to denigrate one's opponent like that, and it was a mistake for Jelena to say it to the world, which scrutinises the words of famous people very closely, and can hold it against them for years. But I think this tiny sin has been blown up by the media, and true Jelena fans such as I would not disown her for that comment, nor for the loss itself.
Jelena's reputation was further damaged when the Herald Sun (an Australian tabloid newspaper) FALSELY reported that she had claimed the WTA had been rigging draws against her in an attempt to stall her career. Basically, she gave an interview to a paper that has never been a paper and probably never will be, but the media didn't even have the decency to spread the story that Jelena denied making the claim as far as it had spread the false story of her making the claims in the first place.
In the British magazine Tennis World, John Parsons wrote a very denigrating article about Jelena, blindly stating that she accused the WTA of draw-rigging, saying that she had played "without much thought or purpose" in Australia, and that if she didn't get help she would basically wind up like Jennifer Capriati.
Andrew Flynn (a regular member of the Jelena Dokic Community center Yahoo! Club) wrote to Tennis World complaining about this article, pointing out that there's no proof whatsoever that Jelena accused the WTA of draw-rigging, and claiming that her remarks about Kuti Kis were taken out of context. But John Parsons responded with an even more outrageous article, saying that an Australian journalist claims he has Jelena's draw-rigging claim on tape - as if that proved it!
As a dedicated Jelena fan myself, I felt I had a duty to defend her reputation, so I wrote the following letter to Tennis World, which will hopefully end this road of retributions and counter-retributions once and for all. My letter was published in the August 2000 issue of Tennis World.
4th June 2000.
Dear Sir,
I am writing in reply to the article about Jelena Dokic in Parsons' Perspective in the June 2000 issue of Tennis World:
As regards the Australian journalist who claims he has Jelena's supposed draw-rigging accusation on tape, that's not proof if he doesn't release the tape. Jelena denied making the draw-rigging claim, and I'll take her word over that of a tabloid journalist any day of the week. She actually asked the Herald Sun to release the tape, and they refused. I wish they would release it, then I'm sure we'd all see that Jelena did not accuse the WTA of draw-rigging.
The article points out that Jelena has not taken any legal action - so far. I don't think the law allows Jelena to sue the Herald Sun because she's under eighteen. You don't always get justice from a court of law anyway - although it appears to be a black-and-white case, it might be complicated by factors we cannot see from the outside. And even if Jelena could sue them, that doesn't mean she has to. It was probably better for her to turn the other cheek and concentrate on her career on court, rather than waste time and money in court for the sake of reprisal.
Jelena's remarks about Rita Kuti Kis may have been ungracious, but Jelena has to live her life in a fishbowl - I don't think she was experienced enough to know that any comment she makes in public can be magnified and scrutinised.
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Broad
Manchester
I am writing in reply to the response by John Parsons about Jelena Dokic in Parsons Perspective in he June issue of Tennis World.
As regards the Australian journalist who claims he has Jelena's supposed draw-rigging accusation on tape, that's not proof if he doesn't release the tape. Jelena denied making the draw-rigging claim and I'll take her word over that of a tabloid journalist any day of the week. She actually asked the Herald Sun to release the tape and it refused. I wish they would release it and then I'm sure that we would all see that Jelena did not accuse the WTA of draw rigging.
The article points out that Jelena has not taken any legal action so far. I don't think that law allows Jelena to sue the Herald Sun because she's under 18. You don't always get justice from a court of law anyway. Although it appears to be a black-and-white case, it might be complicated by factors we cannot see from the outside. And even if Jelena could sue them, that doesn't mean that she has to. It was probably better for her to turn the other cheek and concentrate on her career on court, rather than waste time and money in court for the sake of reprisal.
Jelena's remarks about Kuti Kis may have been outrageous, but Jelena has to live her life in a fishbowl. I don't think she was experienced enough to know that any comment she makes in public can be magnified and scrutinised.
Andrew Broad,
Manchester
Note that Tennis World made several alterations to my letter: the typo in the first sentence is theirs, and they replaced the word "ungracious" with "outrageous" in the final paragraph, which makes the statement considerably stronger than I meant.