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JELENA CORNER
September 28, 2004

STATE OF JELENA'S GAME REPORT (2004):
Nothing Is Entirely What It Seems... But Everything is Exactly As It Appears

by Todd Spiker

PART 2 (of 3): IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH?

>>"Two Gatorade-scented tears
>>trickled down the sides of her
>>nose.  But it was all right,
>>everything was all right, the
>>the struggle was finished.  She
>>had won victory over herself.
>>She loved Big Brother."
>>[paraphrased from the novel
>>1984]

Nothing is entirely what it seems... but everything is exactly as it appears.

There was a time when attempting to map out the course of Jelena Dokic's career the possibility of a Mary Pierce-like future was discussed.  Pierce was never consistent enough to be a true challenger for #1, but over the span of her career (when healthy) she's been a reliable Top 10-15 player who's pocketed two grand slam titles and has been seen as a threat to emerge as a champion whenever her game was in top form.  Even this season, at age 29, she's managed to reclaim her "dangerous" label as she's managed to generally avoid the trainer's table and put together something of a late-career resurgence.  There seemed every reason to believe a few years ago that Jelena's career could turn out that same way.  But, of late, the possibility of a Barbara Schett-like career is looking more likely:  a player with enough ability to reach the Top 10 who showed early promise in grand slams, won a few WTA titles... then fell away, never dropping completely off the board, but never reclaiming her former heights, either.  Schett has settled into the #25-#45 ranking range, and once in a while pulls an upset that only serves to make one wonder why she was never able to experience the greater career promise she once seemed capable of fulfulling.  Schett's been respected, but was never rightly feared.  Eerily, there's even a slight physical resemblence between Schett and Jelena.

Of course, Jelena and Pierce share some familiar familial backgrounds when it comes to overbearing and scene-making tennis fathers, as well.  Pierce eventually was able to grow beyond her family's troubles.  Jelena may one day get there, too.  But, in 2004, she seems a long way from finding peace.

Even in better times, the Dokic clan existed with a "bunker mentality."  It was the family against the world, whose secret forces were always cooking up new ways to thwart their dreams since arriving in Australia in 1994.  It worked, for a while.  Now we see the lingering after-effects of Damir's paranoia. One gets the feeling that Jelena still sees criticism and "tough love" as instruments of painful memories, rather than as ways to help improve her game and herself.  (An example:  as soon as Gunthardt made things tough for her, he was shown the door.)  It's not surprising that such a very Damir-like trait would be passed down to his first born, and it also might play a part in the explanation of why she inexplicably clings to the Bikices despite very little evidence to show that the partnership works for the good of her tennis, save that aberrational result in Switzerland last October.  In the absence of her own family for daily support, her current setup seems to provide her with friendship, companionship and support.  It would seem to not be a bad thing.  Funny, though, how miserable she often appears on the court these days, isn't it?  Maybe it's because her tennis used to provide her with a measure of immunity from the harsher realities swirling around her.  In 2004, what happens inside the lines only seems to make things worse.  So, in a sense, she's still harboring that old bunker mentality... but there's nothing -- and no one -- offering any real protection from her problems.

Speaking of problems, Jelena has many at the moment. There's the continual war-of-words sideshow with Damir in the worldwide media -- he sees the influence of the Bikices as a plot against his daughter (the old paranoia, mixed with a healthy dose of jealousy), then she charges him with formulating a plot to destroy her... you know the drill.  But, in fact, Jelena seems to create as many of her own unfavorable circumstances as she inherits from Damir's latest tirades in Serbian newspapers.  Aside from the impatience and lack of focus that extinguished the Gunthardt relationship (probably) prematurely, Jelena seemed to quickly burn bridges with the Serbian tennis establishment after her crucial, last-minute walkover in her single Fed Cup appearance for the country this spring.  Include this with the fractured trail of dysfunctional relationships with Australia and her own family, no matter how much actual control Jelena had in inciting the problems that damaged those connections, and the pattern is clear.  Nothing lasts very long in the world of Jelena... which leads us back to her continued association with her current family-by-proxy, the Bikices.

It'd be unfair to place the blame for Jelena's fall from grace solely on Borna Bikic.  Giving him the benefit of the doubt, his coaching relationship with Jelena has existed simultaneously with the extenuating circumstances that go along with her being the only daughter of Damir.  But no one can argue that the pairing has been a success in any tangible way, not with the worst results of Jelena's career having taken place (and getting worse) under the Bikic watch.  Say what you will about Damir's oft-crazed rantings, but Bikic's apparent cutting off of contact with the Dokic family when he first arrived might have led to the worsened relationship that's only served to further devastate Jelena's world.  Following the Bernoldi interlude, the father-daughter dynamic was already strained.  Who wouldn't think that distancing Jelena even more from her father wouldn't rile up Daddy Dokic to a ridiculous extent?  Why poke a stick in the hornet's nest rather than at least attempt some form of diplomacy, considering what the result couldn't help but be if Damir -- always armed with an easy link to someone who will print his tirades -- got it into his head that his daughter saw him as the "enemy" after all he'd legitimately done to get his family out of war-torn Yugoslavia and initiate Jelena's tennis career?  Of course, "finesse" isn't in the Dokic vocabulary.  It never has been.  In some ways, it'swhat's often made Jelena such a fascinating character on the WTA tour.  But, at some point, such exclusively blunt force -- as has been the case in her game, as well -- only serves to create more problems than it solves.

Someone has to take the cursory fall for all that's happened to Jelena in 2004, right?  Unless she wants to shoulder the entire, disproportionate burden herself -- and if she does, one fears she might just go away and never deem herself willing to return -- there's only one person left on which to hang the so-called "blame"... Bikic, for good or for worse.  If he truly is a "friend," how can he not recognize that he's not accomplishing a thing in his official role as coach and that Jelena might be better off working with someone else?  Anyway, sometimes change is good simply for the sake of change.  And, boy, does Jelena's game, preparation, mindset, and psychology need a big change.

To err is human, but to continue to follow the wrong path partly due to a lack of perceived options and/or stubborness, contrary to the evidence, is just plain stupid.  And Jelena is flirting with some wretched stupidity at the moment.  The cycle that might have begun when she decided that her own hand-picked coach, Gunthardt, was too tough to stick around only fueled the cycle that continues to feed on itself with every loss, every dejected refusal to run down a ball and every appearance of disinterest that crops up more often than not these days when Jelena steps onto the court.

Would "Jelena A.B." (After Borna) be any more sound? Surely, not immediately.  But with the right coaching relationship there's no reason to believe things can't  change for the good.  One of a coach's tasks is to find a way to focus his/her player, to discover the key to lighting the fire of inspiration.  For Daniela Hantuchova, it's been Nigel Sears who's prepared her best for success.  Sears was the same long-time coach Hantuchova parted ways with preceding her own tumble from the top of the rankings over the past two seasons, only to welcome him back earlier this year after realizing she'd made a mistake.

Of course, since Jelena's only long-time "coach" is at the root of many of her problems, a similar tactic isn't a likely or shrewd idea.  But there has to be a coach out there somewhere who can unlock the great player within Jelena -- she just has to identify them.

(check back tomorrow for Part 3)