Damir turns over new leaf
^{By AAP - December, 2000}

Controversial tennis father Damir Dokic today declared he had turned over a new leaf and promised he would not be involved in any more scuffles and disagreements over his talented daughter Jelena.

Dokic also said Jelena would continue to play for Australia despite recently obtaining a Yugoslav passport and planning to live in Yugoslavia and Florida to cut down on travel.

He said he was happy with everything he had done during Jelena's career but admitted to one mistake - dumping coach Tony Roche.

A relaxed Dokic said while he was happy with his actions in the past, he was to change his ways.

"For future, is new image and stop with everything, with fight. A new man," he told the Nine Network's A Current Affair.

"I think everything what I do is good for Jelena but fighting with media, with WTA, everything is good until now. But now is enough."

He denied that his daughter was frightened of him.

"She is not scared. Everything what I do about Jelena, about tennis I think is very good for Jelena, but now everything must be stopped."

Dokic has been tagged a tennis Dad from hell after his antics.

He is banned from the Women's Tennis Association tour until March next year after exhibiting bizarre and drunken behaviour at three of the four majors in the last two years.

Dokic said he didn't agree with his punishment, but would continue to be Jelena's coach and manager after the ban was lifted.

He said he wanted to protect his daughter, who came to prominence when she thrashed world No.1 Martina Hingis in straight sets in the first round of Wimbledon in 1999.

"Tennis is not sport, it is big business, sometime can be big money," he said.

"Tennis is one jungle, if you are not careful you can be dead very quickly."

Dokic said sacking successful Davis Cup coach Roche was his only mistake when managing Jelena.

"I make just one mistake, it is when we stopped practising with Mr Tony Roche," he said.

"I think he's the best coach in the world, but after Jelena lost one match 6-0 6-0 he's told her `don't worry, bad luck'.

"After that I was very very angry."

Dokic then made a strange analysis of Roche.

"I think Mr Tony Roche can't be Aussie man. He has big big heart. He is a good man," he said.

When asked if Australians didn't have big hearts, Dokic replied: "Not like Mr Tony".

Dokic was thrown off the tour after he was forcibly removed from US Open venue Flushing Meadows after an obscenity-laced tirade, which started with his complaint over the price of fish in the players' lounge.

Dokic said Jelena was not embarrassed.

"On the US Open when we sit in the car back to the hotel, I ask her you didn't leave me," he said.

"She told me if you must go to the prison, I will go with you."

And Dokic denied he was drunk when he lay down in the middle of the road during last year's Birmingham tournament after being ejected.

"It's not true, not too much," he said.

"Maybe too much for driving, but not for walking."

At this year's Australian Open, police were called in when Dokic tangled with a cameraman and took a microphone while walking in a Melbourne park.

In June, he was questioned by police at Wimbledon after smashing a British reporter's mobile phone and making obscene gestures at an American female reporter.

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