Draws rigged, claims Dokic
^{By the ABC - January 19 2000}

AUSTRALIAN tennis star Jelena Dokic believes the draws for her matches are being deliberately changed to stall her career.

Dokic made the bizarre claim yesterday, alleging tennis officials were working against her after her father was arrested at a tournament last year.

She said a run of bad draws since Wimbledon last year had left her convinced something was going wrong.

This is despite each draw being flawlessly monitored and supervised.

Despite this, the 16-year-old, with her father Damir by her side, claimed she was being undermined around the world, but not Australia.

"For all this trouble it's a bit hard to believe getting draws like that," Dokic said. "They say they pull them out (of a hat) but I don't think so."

Dokic and her father launched attacks against the Women's Tennis Association after she was fined $US2500 ($3770) for turning up late to a press conference on Monday night.

This was after being beaten by a rank outsider, Hungarian Rita Kuti Kis, sparking Dokic to ungraciously play down her opponent's skills and future.

Yesterday Dokic refused to back down from her attack on Kis.

Asked if she regretted her comments, Dokic said: "No, I don't think I do."

"I just basically said if you look at where she is and her age you will see you have never heard of her and probably never will," she said. "She beat me but I had a bit of bad luck and lost the match."

Mr Dokic also said the family had no friends on tour except for her coach Tony Roche. He also played down his relationship with Dokic's management company.

With Mr Dokic prompting her, Dokic said much of the family's motivation came from the fact they had been refugees from Serbia before coming to Australia in 1994.

Her father, who speaks broken English, had admitted being hard on his daughter but not in a negative way, he said.

"He (her father) says I have a lot of pressure on me because of where we come from," Dokic said.

"I came to be No.1 junior in the world and ranked No.37 in the world when we had nothing – only social security.

"Now there's a bit of a problem where I've sort of stopped a little bit, I'm struggling a little bit.

"We think about it every day because there is a lot of pressure with my mum, father and brother.

"And there's a lot of pressure on me from the WTA since after Birmingham – they gave the wrong information to police who arrested my dad.

"Now we have this problem, and they gave the wrong information again."

Mr Dokic, who initially spoke to the Herald Sun through his son, Savo, 8, accused the WTA of acting out of order in Birmingham and after Dokic appeared three hours late for the press conference.

"Only the police would fine her the way they have," he said. "They are acting like police."

Mr Dokic, 40, was arrested in Birmingham last year after officials accused him of barracking too loudly at the DFS Classic.

He was escorted from the complex and lay in front of traffic, then jumped on the bonnet of a car.

He had referred to tournament officials as "Nazis" and police said he had been detained until "he sobered up" about two hours later.

But the Dokic family dispute the way the issue was handled by the WTA.

Dokic rose to prominence after defeating Martina Hingis at Wimbledon last year on the way to the last eight.

She is considered the star of Australian women's tennis.

Dokic, who will pair up in the women's doubles with revitalised former US teen star Jennifer Capriati, said she wanted to follow her partner's rise back to the top.

She believed she could make it to the top 10 or 15 this year.

"You want to do the best you can and I want to be better than I am. That's the key to it when you get all those tough draws."

WTA spokesman Jim Fuhse said there was no way the draw could be manipulated. "It just can not be," he said.

Mr Fuhse said a player was chosen at each tournament to draw the names under the supervision of the tournament director, and that it was a random process that was watched.

In Melbourne it had been Capriati.

Mr Fuhse also said the WTA had had a good relationship with Dokic and that the problem over the fine had arisen because Dokic arrived well over three hours after she had said she wanted to be available to the media.

The decision to fine Dokic was made by the Grand Slam committee.

Mr Fuhse supported Dokic's claim that she had organised an interview after her result but said she did not arrive until well into the night.

Martina Hingis said Dokic was young and would learn from her experiences.

"I mean, there's quite a bit of pressure on her because she doesn't want to kind of lose here in the first round and she's been like the talent and she still has nothing to lose," she said.

However she did not believe it was the kind of comment that was suitable after losing.

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