Jelena 2001 Year in Review, Pt.I -- A Quick (and controversial) Start

by Todd Spiker

Jelena Dokic had ended the 2000 season at a career-high ranking of #26, and the 17-year old Australian entered the new year with her usual fire-in-the-eyes demeanor intact.  With a game striving to unearth greater successes beyond her well-known exploits on the lawn courts of the All England Club the previous two years, 2001 was poised to be her personal proving ground.  It was precisely what she'd been waiting for.

In April, she'd finally be released from the shackles of the WTA's age restrictions... and hopes were high that the far greater things she'd dreamed of were on the immediate horizon.  Accordingly, she set a personal goal of a Top 15 singles ranking and went about preparations for the Australian Open, her only official WTA event in the first three months of the year.  The tournament would open a nearly eleven-month odyssey filled with big moments, both on and off the court for Jelena. But the road from January to November wasn't a smooth, nor quiet, one. Typical of her young career, things got off to a quick (and controversial) start in January.

The year began with reports that Damir Dokic had admitted he'd made a mistake with his poorly-received firing of Australian tennis champion Tony Roche as his daughter's coach in 2000 because he'd overreacted when Roche wasn't "tough enough" after a bad loss.  That news was followed by the announcement that Jelena still planned to represent Australia in Fed Cup play (an unresolved question after her comments following the Sydney Olympics about never playing for the country again due to a harsh article about Damir that had been printed in an Australian tennis magazine).  The combination of stories made it appear as if the
difficulties and squabbles the Dokic family had with the Aussie tennis establishment leading up to Sydney had at least been temporarily smoothed over.  Prior to the beginning of the new tennis season, the family stated an intention to spend more time in Florida and Belgrade in the near future in order to better avoid the increasingly harsh -- and what they believed to be unfair -- spotlight in Australia.  At the time, it seemed a fairly innocuous announcement.  But it would soon prove to be a warning sign of still more controversy to come.

Meanwhile, Jelena opened her season by participating in an exhibition in Hong Kong.  She was in superb form, too, winning the event by knocking off #12 Elena Dementieva (coming from a set down to avenge an Olympic SF loss) before defeating #8 Anna Kournikova in the final to earn her first (unofficial) singles title as a professional.  All in all, things were looking decidedly positive.

Then came Melbourne.

One year earlier, draw-rigging claims and a frustrated, ill-advised denigration of the talent of her surprise 1st Round conqueror, Hungarian Rita Kuti Kis, had brought down a hail of criticism directly on Jelena's head (rather than only Damir's) for the first time.  In 2001, yet another Melbourne firestorm was ignited on the eve of the Open.

In the singles draw, #24-ranked Jelena drew #2-seeded and defending champion Lindsay Davenport in the opening round.  Despite still being under a six-month ban from the WTA tour since September '00, Damir
dusted off the draw-rigging charges and then upped the ante ten-fold by declaring that Jelena would represent her native Yugoslavia -- not her adopted home of Australia -- at the Open and then pack up and leave Sydney for Florida immediately after the tournament.  All this happening at such a late date generated tremendous negative press coverage, creating a mini-hurricane right in the middle of Jelena's preparation for the match.  As usual, she defended her father and went along with the decision... then went out and nearly upset Davenport.

The Yugoslav announcement had short-circuited the tremendous crowd backing that would have greeted Jelena -- fresh off her Olympic SF run in Sydney a few months earlier -- in the opening night's feature match at Rod Laver Arena.  The catcalls were held to a minimum (due to a thankfully-restrained Aussie crowd), but Davenport got a decidedly warmer welcome when the two were introduced (with Jelena receiving a smattering of boos amidst a general unease)... not that it seemed to matter to Dokic at all.  As has ususally been her wont in such situations (far too many to recount now), one would never have guessed the controversy surrounding this girl by the way she played.  Her focus under such a harsh spotlight has been a hallmark since Wimbledon 1999, and it had not waned in the intervening eighteen months.

Dokic came out of the gate like a house afire, erasing an early 1-3 deficit to outserve and outhit Davenport, moving her around the court en route to a 6-4 first set victory.  Ultimately, Jelena's relative big-time grand slam inexperience showed in the end as she dropped the next two sets 4-6,3-6 when errors began to creep into her game, most notably an ill-conceived drop shot at 40-30, 3-5 in the final stanza that was immediately followed by two straight unforced errors to conclude the match.  Impressed by her young opponent, Davenport predicted after the match that Dokic would be a Top 10 player within two years.  Little did the American know how right -- as well as wrong -- her assessment would soon turn out to be.

The 2001 Australian Open, like 2000's, had the potential to be an abject disaster.  But a funny thing happened... it wasn't, and it was all because of the swift progression of Jelena's game, as well as her own
personal maturation process.  As had been the case with her 4th Round US Open loss to Serena Williams the previous season, Dokic seemed to have managed to gain ground with a disappointing defeat.  She was much closer to Davenport in Melbourne than she'd been in a Wimbledon SF six months earlier, and her win in Hong Kong seemed to have emboldened her.  Her tremendous play in Melbourne under such intense scrutiny only made her progress all the more apparent.

She followed this loss not with angry words fueled by frustration, but with the ability to smile and project with confidence the belief that the current state of her tennis was directing her along a straight path to success.  Anyone who hadn't done so before was virtually forced to concede after Melbourne that very few external pressures ever seem to bother Jelena.  Admiration for her ability to at least attempt to stay above the headline-grabbing fray was more in order in Australia than it had ever been before, and with her exit from Down Under the hope that a calmer off-court existence awaited her in the States was something to look forward to.  But any thoughts that the Australia/Yugoslavia controversy was a hot-button issue that would soon fade away were naive ones.  Before the end of 2001, it would rear its head again... and promise to remain a complicated issue that Dokic will have to face well into the near future.

Davenport, too, would prove to be a topic of discussion for Jelena throughout the year.  As she began 2001 with a loss to the American, she would end it with one in November at the WTA Championships in Munich.
Over the course of the nearly ten months in between the two matches, Jelena's personal tennis goals would not only be met but, in many cases, exceeded.  She'd go from an "up-and-coming" Australian to a Yugoslav on the cusp of true stardom on the burgeoning women's tour.  As it turned out, Melbourne was but a prelude to a season that would be quite a wonderful and exciting ride.



**COMING NEXT WEEK**
Jelena 2001 Year in Review, Pt.II:
The Headlines are Finally About the Tennis


*JANUARY-FEBRUARY '01 RESULTS*
-SINGLES-
--JANUARY--
Hong Kong (ex) - Won - def. Kournikova
Australian Open - 1r - lost to Davenport
--FEBRUARY--
Japan (ex) -  0-2 vs. Coetzer

-DOUBLES-
Hong Kong (ex) w/ Barabanschikova
...Won - def. Kournikova/Raymond
Australian Open w/ Capriati
...2r - lost to Hingis/Seles
Australian Open Mixed w/ Zimonjic
...QF - lost to Morariu/E.Ferreira


*End of Month Rankings*
SINGLES
Dec.31 --  #26
Jan.29  --  #24
Feb.26 --  #25
DOUBLES
Dec. 31 --  #50
Jan.29 --  #64
Feb.26 --  #65


*Prize Money*
Jan-Feb. -- $14,430


*** *** ***

WTA 2002 Schedule
Dec.29-Jan.5 - Hopman Cup (Perth, Aus.)
Dec.31-Jan.6 - Gold Coast, Australia
Dec.31-Jan.6 - Auckland, New Zealand
Jan.7-Jan.13 - Sydney, Australia
Jan.7-Jan.13 - Hobart, Australia
Jan.7-Jan.13 - Canberra, Australia
Jan.14-Jan.27 - Australian Open
Jan.28-Feb.3 - Tokyo, Japan