Dokic Thrives Under Scrutiny of Wimbledon

WIMBLEDON, England — There was a slight concern when Jelena Dokic kept saying two words during the Hopman Cup at Perth, Australia, in January.

You know.

Typical teen-speak. But the 16-year-old Australian is no mall rat, always shopping for clothes and chewing gum. Her hobbies? Forehands and backhands.

Dokic’s advisors, concerned about observers tracking those two words instead of winners, quickly went to work. Dokic essentially erased those two words from her vocabulary by the time the Australian Open started later that month.

The speed with which that was accomplished is symbolic of Dokic’s career. In less than a week, Dokic has gone from a promising youngster to the second-most photographed tennis-playing female at Wimbledon--behind Anna Kournikova, of course.

In her Wimbledon debut, she defeated top-seeded and former champion Martina Hingis of Switzerland, and followed with two three-set victories. On Saturday, Dokic beat Anne Kremer of Luxembourg, 6-7 (9-7), 6-3, 6-4, in the third round. She will play ninth-seeded Mary Pierce of France in the round of 16.

She did not have the impeccable form she displayed against Hingis. But Dokic could take solace in winning with a lesser game, fighting through a spate of unforced errors and nine double faults in her first Centre Court appearance.

“Well, it’s just the way I am,” she said. “After I lost the first set, I still tried to fight and come back, you always have to think positive and think you can come back in the match and be determined.”

It’s easy to forget she is only 16, if you concentrate solely on her powerful baseline game. Occasionally, Dokic got rattled when she received a questionable call, but she usually managed to recover after a few shaky shots.

The Wimbledon scrutiny has been overwhelming for two reasons: Dokic’s well-developed game and her father and coach, Damir. Damir was detained at a tournament in Birmingham, England, by authorities for several hours when he became unruly at his daughter’s match earlier this month.

Security guards ushered him out of the premises and he ended up spending some time in a holding cell for his own safety; he nearly got hit by a car when he plopped on the pavement. The incident attracted a great deal of attention in England and increased when Jelena qualified for Wimbledon.

The tabloids immediately dubbed him “Dad From Hell,” delving into the background of the Serb who emigrated from Yugoslavia with his family to Australia in 1994. He responded in another tabloid by saying he couldn’t wait to leave England because of his treatment in Birmingham.

Then a television commentator made a disparaging observation about the family’s living accommodations in the greater London area during the tournament, and a tabloid photographer was duly dispatched and captured a photo of Jelena emerging early in the morning.

It seems as though every member of the Dokic family has been photographed in the last week, including her younger brother, Savo, who has been gathering autographs and taking pictures. Damir has been quiet during her matches with no out-of-the-ordinary behavior.

An example of what Dokic is facing was illustrated after her second-round match. A British reporter, in a polite, carefully worded question, asked her about the birthmark on her face near her mouth. Yes, Dokic said, it was a birthmark.

Dokic has handled the attention with ease, answering questions and revealing little.

“I guess that’s what tennis players have to cope with in the tennis world,” she said. “And I don’t mind doing press and things like that, but sometimes it can get a bit too much. It doesn’t bother me.”

She paused, smiling, and said: “It hasn’t been too much yet.”

The other seeded players remaining in Dokic’s half of the draw are Pierce, third-seeded Lindsay Davenport of Newport Beach, fifth-seeded Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic and 14th-seeded Barbara Schett of Austria.

“I don’t think anyone can expect me to win the tournament,” she said.

There are three qualifiers remaining in final 16, including 18-year-old Alexandra Stevenson of San Diego. Stevenson, making her Wimbledon debut, had 12 aces in her 6-3, 6-3 third-round victory against 11th-seeded Julie Halard-Decugis of France.

Stevenson had a different answer than Dokic when asked whether she can win here.

“Yes, I have a goal to win this tournament,” said Stevenson, who will play Lisa Raymond in the fourth round. “I set the goal when I was nine, to win Wimbledon at the age of 19. So it’ll be really cool if I beat my goal by a year.”