Off court action

Tennis dad from hell Damir Dokic is trying to sell his Serbian mansion and make a move towards managing the sport's next generation of stars...

As daughter Jelena shines at the Australian Open in Melbourne, Dokic is planning a comeback of his own. The fiery father is trying to sell his mansion and acreage in the Serbian countryside for £2.8 million.  

He plans to use proceeds from the sale to build a tennis Centre and launch new talent. "I'll return to the successful period when I was working with Jelena and she was the fourth best player in the world,'' he has vowed.

Cut off from his daughter, Dokic lives alone on a sprawling estate at Vrdnik, 70km north of Belgrade.

He tends to 20,000 plum and pear trees and makes his own brandy, but has apparently had enough of the quiet country life.

He wants to relocate to the nearby city of Novi Sad for his return to the world of tennis.

"I've decided to sell the mansion in Vrdnik,'' he said.

"I've created a brand from my brandy but I live on my own and have decided to turn back to tennis. My son lives in Belgrade, Jelena practices on her own, so I'll try to build a club in Novi Sad.

"There are already strong clubs in Belgrade, so it would be good to build one in Novi Sad,'' he recently told Serbian tabloid Alo.

Dokic's outbursts, which included being thrown out of the US Open after abusing staff over the price of a salmon meal, made him one of the sport's most notorious figures.

His daughter has also revealed how his oppressive presence drove her into a deep depression that she is only now emerging from.

As Jelena has been rebuilding her life and reputation with the help of boyfriend Tin Bikic in Australia, Dokic has worked on his property for the last four years.

He collected 80 tonnes of plums last season and also exports apples to Russia and has 3500 quince trees, daily newspaper Politika reported.

"I first wanted to build some tennis courts in Belgrade, but when I arrived in Vrdnik and saw all of this, I stayed,'' he said."People used to say I was insane for growing so much fruit, but I continued.

"You can imagine what it will like here in two years when there will be 50kg of plums from each tree. This will be the job. Leave Australia or Florida, there is nothing better than this.''

But despite the boasts, he has always struggled to deal with rejection from daughter Jelena. "I've got here in Vrdnik an enormous house, 10 pastures, an orchard. And I'm pacing like a lion in a cage. I'm struggling with how to help my child,'' he has said.

Source: Herald Sun