SYDNEY, Australia -- Jelena Dokic, Australia's highest
ranked women's tennis player, plans to play under the Yugoslav
flag at the Australian Open before leaving her adopted country
for good, a Sydney newspaper reported.
|  | | Jelena Dokic is looking to put Australia behind her. |
The 17-year-old, whose father Damir is banned from attending
her matches until March after a series of run-ins with women's
tennis officials, told the Sun-Herald she and her family would
leave Australia to live in Florida as soon as the tournament
ended.
"I am playing under the Yugoslavian flag, not for
Australia," she was quoted telling the newspaper. The tournament
starts Monday.
"It is a decision we have come up with and we have talked
about it.
"If anybody has been attacked the way I am in the media they
would feel the same way."
Dokic was born in Yugoslavia but moved to Australia with her
family in 1994. She received a Yugoslav passport in Belgrade
last November.
Australian Open officials did not return calls from Reuters
but the official order of play for Monday listed Dokic as representing
Australia.
Her father said he had decided to move the family to the
United States because of the way they had been treated by the
media but was worried about how the crowd would react to the
news.
"I am scared very much what Australians will do to her, I am
afraid there will be an incident if she plays well," he said.
He also suggested that the draw for the Australian Open had
been rigged against his daughter after she was drawn to play
No. 2-ranked Lindsay Davenport in the first round, a claim
Jelena also made last year.
"I think the draw is fixed just for her. If it is not, the
country should protect its own player," he said.
"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 that 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.
"After this draw we don't have anything left here. We will
move to Florida straightaway in one or two weeks. Now I must
sell everything and leave this country. We are all very sad."
Damir was banned from the women's tour after he was forcibly
removed from the U.S. Open in August for verbally abusing staff
in the players' lounge.
In announcing the ban, the WTA Tour said his behavior was
detrimental to the game of tennis, its tour staff and events.
The Dokic family moved to Sydney from Belgrade in 1994 and
Jelena quickly attracted interest from senior Australian tennis
coaches because of her talent.
But the family has endured a rocky relationship with the
Australian public because of Damir's repeated run-ins with
authorities.
Before the ugly U.S. Open incident, sparked by a dispute
over the price of a plate of salmon, Damir Dokic was barred from
Wimbledon last June after causing disturbances and breaking a
journalist's mobile phone.
He was also involved in a scuffle with a television crew at
the Australian Open last year.
Last November, he vowed to moderate his behavior in the
interests of his daughter's career before creating more
headlines when he flew to Belgrade to apply for a Yugoslav
passport, vowing to turn his back on Australia one day.
In the wake of the latest controversy involving the family,
Davenport expressed sympathy for her first-round opponent.
"That's a little bit of a shame," Davenport said. "I don't
think it has a lot to do with her, though. She seems like really
nice girl, and maybe there are some unfortunate circumstances
there."
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