BBC ON THIS DAY | 30 | 1993: Tennis star stabbed About This Site | Text Only 1993: Tennis star stabbed The world number one women's tennis player, Monica Seles, has been stabbed in the back during a quarter-final match in Hamburg. The 19-year-old American star was rushed to hospital with a wound half an inch (1.5cm) deep in her upper back. Doctors said her injuries were serious, but not life-threatening. "She was very lucky," said the tournament doctor, Peter Wind. "Neither the lungs nor the shoulder blades were affected. Monica is still suffering from shock, and will stay overnight for observation." There was immediate speculation that the attack was politically motivated because of Monica Seles's Serbian roots. She is known to have received death threats in connection with the Yugoslav conflict. But Hamburg police were quick to rule this out. They described her attacker as a 38-year-old man from East Germany, and said he appeared confused and may be mentally disturbed. Later reports suggested he may have been a fan of tennis rival Steffi Graf. In full view of crowd The attack happened during the rest break in the match, against Bulgarian player Maggie Maleeva.

Miss Seles was leading 6-4, 4-3 when she took a rest on her courtside seat during the changeover. A man described as stocky and balding leaned over the three-feet-high (91 cm) barrier and stabbed her from behind. Miss Seles let out a scream, clutched her back and stumbled on to the court. The attack took place in full view of the 6,000-strong crowd watching the match. "He held the knife with both hands as he stabbed her in the back," said one eyewitness. The umpire, Stefan Voss, ran from his chair for ice and a towel. "Nobody saw him coming," he said. He described the 10-inch (25cm) long knife, which fell on the floor following the attack, as "a kitchen knife, like the sort you cut meat with. It was very sharp." Monica Seles is expected to be out of action for about four weeks, missing the Italian Open, which begins on Monday, and the French Open on 24 May, in which she was to have been the defending champion. Her participation in Wimbledon in June is also in question.

Stabbed: Monica Seles attacked by Steffi Graf fan in Germany - NY Daily News Tennis star Monica Seles knifed in the back by Steffi Graf fan at 1993 tournament in Germany Stabbed: Monica Seles attacked by Steffi Graf fan in Germany NEW YORK DAILY NEWS (New York Daily News Archives) NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, April 30, 2015, 9:00 AM (Originally published by the Daily News on Saturday, May 1, 1993; written by Blanca M. Quintanilla) Reigning tennis queen Monica Seles was knifed in the back yesterday at a tournament in Germany by a man who told police he did it to help German Steffi Graf regain her top ranking. The 19-year-old Seles has been ranked No. 1 in the world since September 1991, when she wrested the crown from Graf. Seles screamed in agony after the attacker reached out from the stands during a break in the tournament in Hamburg. She was not seriously injured.

As she was wheeled from the stadium, her 38-year-old German assailant, later identified as a lathe operator from Thuringia state in the former East Germany, was subdued and arrested. "The man said quite clearly that he did not want to kill Monica Seles," police spokesman Dankmar Lundt told reporters. "He only wanted to injure her and make her unable to play so that Steffi Graf could become number one again." 'No political motive' "According to our information there was no political motive for the attack," Lundt said when asked about possible links between the conflict in former Yugoslavia and Serbian born Seles. "The motive apparently stems alone from the personality of the man," he said. The Women's Tennis Association said Seles received death threats related to the ongoing ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Seles had returned to international competition early this week after being sidelined by a viral infection since Feb. 21. Seles suffered a gash in her upper back that narrowly missed her spinal cord. (New York Daily News Archives) The wound was stitched at the University Clinic in nearly Eppendorf, and she was expected to leave the hospital today after an overnight stay.

"She is not in pain and can speak," the doctors said in a statement. "She does not have problems breathing, the lungs are not affected." Raymond Green, who said he was a spectator at the match, told Cable News Network he heard Seles scream and saw the attacker hanging over the railing. "She jumped up and walked over to the net," Green said. "As someone came to her, she collapsed to the ground." The attack occurred when Seles was on a break during the second set of a quarterfinal match of the Citizens Cup against Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria. The stocky, knife-wielding attacker, balding and wearing a blue shirt, leaned out from the first row of the stands and lunged at Seles as she sat on a courtside bench between games. She was leading Maleeva 6-4, 4-3 at the time. The German sports news agency SID quoted a tournament doctor as saying Seles "had a lot of luck." He said the wound would heal in two weeks and Seles would be able to play again in one to three months. This called into question whether she can defend her title in the French Open starting May 24.

Known for unleashing torments of unprovoked giggles and screeching []when returning tennis balls, Seles has won eight grand slam titles since turning pro in 1989. (New York Daily News Archives) She also has amassed a sizeable fortune and likes to travel to tennis tournaments around the world accompanied by her family. Seles seldom talks about Yugoslavia and avoids controversial subjects. But at a tennis tournament in New Jersey last year, she reflected on the horrors of her homeland. She said, "I've always said peace is the biggest thing; I do hope there will be peace." Letter from Dave Talking about the difficulty of being from Yugoslavia and playing in the U.S., she said. "When I go out on the court I play for Monica and I don't like to think it's fair that a lot of people try to even bring politics into sports because they just don't mix." Mayor Dinkins, an avid tennis fan and player, wrote Seles a letter wishing her a speedy recovery. "I'm deeply disturbed and sad about your attack at the Citizens Cup in Hamburg. My thoughts and prayers are with you," he wrote. The United States Tennis Association issued a written statement condemning the attack.

It said that because of the incident, it will reexamine security measures and, if necessary, tighten security for the U.S. Open, which starts in late August in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens. Ella Musolino-Albert, tournament director of the Virginia Slims Championships at Madison Square Garden, said security at the Garden is strict. "New York City is a huge place, and we do take a number of precautions with our players," she said, adding that players are escorted by security personnel. With News Wire Services Monica Seles Stabbing: Steffi Graf’s Legacy | Tennis Frontier Home / Blogs / Britbox Tennis / Monica Seles Stabbing: Steffi Graf’s Legacy Monica Seles Stabbing: Steffi Graf’s Legacy Monica Seles On April 20th 1993, during a Quarter Final with Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, the World Number 1 of Ladies Tennis, Monica Seles was stabbed between the shoulders with a boning knife by Gunther Parche, a crazed fan of Seles’s main rival Steffi Graf.

The incident shocked the tennis world, as did the leniency shown to Parche who bizarrely did not end up in prison, instead receiving probation and a psychology treatment course as punishment. The knife wound healed within a couple of weeks, but it would take a further two years before Seles was able to overcome the psychological impact of the attack and return to the sport. It is now 20 years since Parche’s crazed attack, and in line with the 20th anniversary of the attack, there have been a numerous articles and commentaries reflecting back on the episode. Many of those have queried what Monica Seles would have achieved if the attack had never taken place, reassessing her place in the game and the major tournaments she may have won. The flip side is that much of the commentary has also focused on what Steffi Graf would or indeed wouldn’t have won, together with a reassessment of her open-era record slam count of 22 major titles. Two particular quotes stood out.

One attributed to Pam Shriver – “She [Seles] was dominating Steffi Graf, who, prior to Seles, dominated everyone else.” A second quote, regurgitated from back in 2001 courtesy of Sports Ilustrated’s Frank Deford, questioned, “Was Graf the best female player of all time? She wasn’t even the best in the heart of her career.“ So how secure is Steffi Graf’s legacy? Other commentators, bloggers, and fans have tried to analyse Monica Seles’s career trajectory had the frenzied attack by Parche never occurred, thus sizing up the impact it would have made on the contents of the Graf trophy cabinet. So let’s take a look at the match-up between these two greats and analyze with a little more rigour, the major titles that Steffi Graf actually won during the course of her career. Step 1: Breaking Down the Graf/Seles Head-to-Head Let’s break it down and take a look at how Monica and Steffi fared in their individual head to head matchup. Is Pam Shriver right? Was Seles the dominant player in this category?

Lifetime: Graf 10 v Seles 5 Before the stabbing: Graf 6 v Seles 4 After the stabbing: Graf 4 v Seles 1 During Seles years where she was year end #1 (91 & 92): Graf 3 v Seles 1 During Seles entire reign as World #1: (91,92, part 93): Graf 3 v Seles 2 Matches in Majors prior to the stabbing: Graf 3 v Seles 3 Steffi Graf Pam Shriver and the Urban Myth However you analyse this match-up, Shriver’s analysis that Graf was being dominated by Seles is clearly inaccurate. On the contrary, Graf had the edge in the Head to Head, before and after the stabbing, before and during Seles tenure as World Number 1 and over the course of their careers. Monica Seles ascended to the top by dominating the rest of the field. No question. However, she did not dominate Steffi Graf. There are similar parallels with the period where Roger Federer dominated the entire field but failed to dominate arch-rival Rafael Nadal.

In fact, Graf actually has a better winning percentage over Seles than Nadal has over Federer. Inspecting the numbers exposes Pam Shriver’s take on the rivalry to little more than reaffirming an urban myth. Step 2: The Steffi Graf Major Count Steffi Graf finished with 22 majors, an open era record and second only to the great Australian Margaret Court when factoring in all eras. Monica finished her career with 9 major titles. In discussions online and offline a popular pastime among tennis fans and observers is to undertake some fictional re-assessment and revised slam counts for both players based on the What if… theory. Typically, these discussions can attract wild assessments – often revising Graf’s major count down significantly and awarding Monica hypothetical titles she never won on court. So let’s take a look at each of Graf’s major successes and see if the count bears merit… Steffi Graf had already won 11 grand slam titles before the stabbing including a golden grand slam (all 4 majors and the Olympic title) in 1988. She had also completed a career grand slam twice over (winning all four majors at least twice). These successes alone put her among the greatest players ever.

Banked: 11 Majors So we are secure that at this stage, Graf already has 11 majors in the bank. After the stabbing incident, she won an addititional 3 Wimbledon titles (1993, 1995 1996). I’d suggest these should be added to our bank without further question. Seles was not a top grass court player and in her two grass court meetings with Graf she had been trounced 6-0, 6-1 and 6-2, 6-1. The latter drubbing occurred while Seles was ranked #1. There is no relevant argument to be made in suggesting those titles would have been banked by Seles if the stabbing had never occurred. Banked: 14 Majors We now have a further 8 majors to dissect, so let’s continue with the least likely ones where a case to be made in favor of Monica Seles. In my opinion, this begins with the 1999 French Open. Graf faced off against Seles in the semi-final and prevailed 6-7 6-3 6-4.

This was six years after the stabbing and a match Seles went into as not only favorite, but carrying a higher ranking than Graf. Steffi was playing out her last year on the tour and made history by becoming the first player in the open era to defeat the first, second, and third ranked players in the same Grand Slam tournament. This one belongs to Graf who defeated her younger rival during her WTA swansong. Banked: 15 Majors. 1993: Monica Seles' Stabbing | TENNIS.com 1993: Monica Seles' Stabbing Tags: 50th Anniversary Moments , Monica Seles , Steffi Graf AP Photo This year marks the 50th anniversary of TENNIS Magazine's founding in 1965. To commemorate the occasion, we'll look back each Thursday at one of the 50 moments that have defined the last half-century in our sport. No story in tennis has been as big, or as hard to fathom. Who would stab a tennis player? More than that, who would stab a 19-year-old girl in the back with a nine-inch knife while she was playing in front of a capacity audience?

That person was Gunter Parche, forever known in the tabloids as a “deranged Steffi Graf fan,” an overweight and disheveled man who wanted to help his favorite player overcome her younger rival and take back the No. 1 ranking. Mission—horribly—accomplished: His act of violence in Hamburg would force Seles to leave the tour for two years, and when she returned she would be a shadow of her formerly indomitable self. Graf would indeed regain No. 1 and win 11 more Grand Slams. As for Parche, he was deemed mentally unstable and never saw jail time. Because of that, Seles hasn't set foot in Germany since. Maybe the worst thing about the whole sad story is that in April 1993, there really wasn’t much else that could stop Monica Seles. She had won seven of the previous nine majors and, after her title at the 1993 Australian Open, she looked like she might just tear through the season and win a calendar-year Grand Slam. Her father, Karolj, said that from a young age she had wanted nothing more than to hit a tennis ball.

Seles at her early-’90s peak played in what can only be described as a trance. Nothing, it seemed, could wake her from it. Before Seles arrived on tour in the late 1980s, as a 99-pound 15-year-old, it had been hard to imagine a fiercer fighter than Graf, but Monica matched her. There was nothing ladylike or elegant about her roundhouse swings—Seles slugged with two hands from both sides—or the pioneering grunt that she brought with them. In terms of both power and willpower, Seles upped the ante and pointed the way ahead. It’s no surprise that so many of today's players, including Serena Williams and Ana Ivanovic, cite her as an inspiration. If there’s a moral or a lesson to Seles’ story, it may be that having the stuff to be a warrior in tennis, or any sport, is a more delicate proposition than we think. At first, Seles was tentative about walking back on a tennis court. By the time she became a fixture again on tour, she had lost the edge, the hunger, the youthful gusto—as well as the wiry physique—that had once made her unstoppable.

If her stabbing shocked people around the world, imagine what it did to her, and imagine how hard that shock must have been to forget. After the incident, Monica knew that there was more to life than smashing a tennis ball. She had been jolted, in the most frightening and permanent way, out of her trance. But in that brief, blazing, invincible period when she was in it, she changed the women’s game and set the bar higher for its future champions. Monica Seles was stabbed 20 years ago, forever affecting her and tennis alike Monica Seles was stabbed 20 years ago, forever affecting her and tennis alike Jay Busbee Pin it Share On April 30, 1993, then-world No. 1 Monica Seles was playing Magdalena Maleeva in the Citizen Cup, an undistinguished event in Germany. Seles was up 4-3 in the second set after having won the first, and appeared to be within minutes of taking the match and moving onward. And then, during the changeover, the entire world of tennis changed in an instant. Gunter Parche, an unemployed 38-year-old, leaned over and stabbed at Seles with a nine-inch blade.

Parche later admitted an obsession with Steffi Graf, Seles' rival, and sought to end the rivalry himself. "I remember sitting there, toweling off, and then I leaned forward to take a sip of water, our time was almost up and my mouth was dry. The cup had barely touched my lips when I felt a horrible pain in my back," Seles would later write in her 2009 autobiography "Getting a Grip." "My head whipped around towards where it hurt and I saw a man wearing a baseball cap, a sneer across his face. His arms were raised above his head and his hands were clutching a long knife. He started to lunge at me again. I didn't understand what was happening." Here is video of the aftermath: Security and spectators restrained Parche before he could stab again. Seles was fortunate; the incision was only about an inch and a half deep, and Parche just missed her spinal cord or other organs. Seles was only slightly injured physically, but one could argue that the psychological scars never healed.

It's impossible to overstate how the Seles stabbing affected not just her career, but the entire game of tennis and, to some extent, pro sports as a whole. Seles was, in both ranking and demeanor, atop the world. At age 19, she was coming off a run of 22 straight singles titles, and held eight Grand Slam tournaments. She and Graf appeared poised to give tennis fans a rivalry to echo Evert-Navratilova and Sampras-Agassi. But in the wake of the incident, Seles would stay away from the game for more than two years. While Seles would win one more major, as well as an Olympic bronze medal in 2000, Graf, without a true rival, completely destroyed the women's game, winning a total of 22 majors in her career. Astonishingly, Parche received only a suspended sentence and probation, as the German court charged with rendering judgment dismissed an attempted murder charge. A later court upheld the verdict, in part because Seles did not want to come back to Hamburg and sit in a courtroom with Parche.

"I think that [got to me] more than anything, that there was no kind of punishment," Martina Navratilova told ESPN . "The judge was like, 'Oh, he won't do it again so I'll let him go so he can really kill someone.' It was insane and so nationality driven. If someone had done that to Steffi so Monica would win, they'd have thrown away the key." Seles would eventually retire in 2008, although she hadn't played her last competitive match in five years. She would be elected to tennis' Hall of Fame the next year. Fortunately, there have been few cases of fans getting onto the field and directly assaulting athletes since then. Perhaps the most notable was an incident in 2002 when a father and a son ran onto the field during a White Sox game and tackled Kansas City Royals coach Tom Gamboa; a pocketknife was found at the scene of the incident. But the players' vulnerability remains. And even in tennis, the players are not completely safe.

A fan charged Roger Federer at the 2009 French Open , prompting NBC's Ted Robinson to remark , "there should be zero tolerance for that, and of all sports, this one is the one that experienced the absolute worst with the nightmare of Monica Seles." Seles remains in the public eye, having appeared on "Dancing With the Stars" and penned both an autobiography and an upcoming children's book. Still, her every move is haunted by what might have been. "She was dominating Steffi Graf, who, prior to Seles, dominated everyone else," Pam Shriver told ESPN . "The sad thing about the whole thing to me was that besides the physical and emotional harm that was done to Monica, one of our great champions, is that this guy, in the end, got exactly what he wanted." Reblog espnW -- Stabbing stole Monica Seles' tennis career By Melissa Isaacson | May 1, 2013 The blade used to stab Monica Seles missed her spinal column by mere centimeters, but caused enough psychological damage to steal her career.

Before an unemployed sicko changed tennis history and got away with it; before he walked down through the stands in Hamburg, Germany, and past a crowd distracted by a changeover; before he leaned over a 3-foot barrier and plunged a 9-inch knife between her shoulders, Monica Seles was not only the best women's tennis player in the world. She was also the toughest. No one knew from where the toughness sprung except Seles herself; she once explained that she so dearly loved the game from such a young age that it never occurred to her to be nervous, or care about who was winning, or even understand how to keep score. "Mentally she was just so tough, she was right up there with Chris [Evert]," Martina Navratilova said of Seles in a recent phone interview. "You couldn't crack her, you never got the feeling she was panicked or pissed off. Nothing. You could not read her body language. Up 6-4, 4-0 or down 6-4, 4-0, she was immaculate, and she lost a little bit of that, not hardness, but supreme confidence. … She lost her edge." Monica Seles lost a lot more than that.

Once a legitimate threat to break Margaret Court's record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles; once a source of constant frustration to Steffi Graf, who is No. 2 with 22 Slam wins; once one of the toughest competitors in all of sports, Seles didn't just have her career altered on that awful day 20 years ago. It was stolen from her. "I can't say whatever was meant to be, was meant to be," Seles told me in a 2004 interview with the Chicago Tribune. "When I look back, I'm sure my career, in terms of achievement, would've been different if I hadn't been stabbed, and I'll always wonder why I'm the only one in history who that ever happened to. "But that was the course my life took, it was beyond my control, and I have to let it go. I don't want to think what could have been, what would have been." And so, short of a few pages in her 2009 book "Getting a Grip," in which she wrote about the attack, she has slowly stopped talking about it altogether.

And a publicist promoting her upcoming book, part of a teen series Seles has written for Bloomsbury Children's Publishing, politely turned down an interview on behalf of Seles because of the subject matter. You can hardly blame her. Ahead of her time Turning 40 this year -- a hard fact to absorb for those of us who remember her so well at 15, the year she turned pro, and at 16, when she won her first Grand Slam title -- Seles was always ahead of her time. Possessing the most recognized and successful double-fisted forehand in tennis, along with a top-flight two-handed backhand, she was also the original grunter -- though tame by today's standards. But that was how Seles used to be defined before becoming the only known professional athlete to be stabbed in the arena of play. The most shocking events in my 35 years-plus of playing tennis was the day Vitas Gerulaitis died; the day it came out that Arthur Ashe was HIV positive and the day he died; and the day Monica was stabbed. Those were all days where I very clearly remember where I was. ... What happened to Monica was almost unthinkable.

longtime pro Pam Shriver "The most shocking events in my 35 years-plus of playing tennis was the day Vitas Gerulaitis died; the day it came out that Arthur Ashe was HIV positive and the day he died; and the day Monica was stabbed," said longtime pro and Seles opponent Pam Shriver, an ESPN analyst. "Those were all days where I very clearly remember where I was. ... What happened to Monica was almost unthinkable." On April 30, 1993, Seles was playing in the quarterfinals of the Citizen Cup, a tour event in Germany, on an otherwise perfect day. After winning the previous four games, Seles was leading Magdalena Maleeva 6-4, 4-3 and seemingly poised to close out the match. At 19, Seles was the top-ranked player in the world and in the prime of her career. She had reached the finals in 33 of 34 tournaments from January 1991 to February 1993, winning 22 singles titles. More astounding?

She had won eight Grand Slam tournaments from 1990 to that point, with a match record of 55-1 in Slams. At 23, Graf had won 10 Grand Slam titles by April 1993, and until '91 had had a four-year stranglehold on the No. 1 ranking. But in '91 and '92, Seles had surged ahead, and she defeated Graf in a dramatic three-setter in the '93 Australian Open final, three months before Hamburg. With Evert having retired and Navratilova nearing the end of her career, Seles and Graf had clearly separated themselves from the rest of the pack and were primed, it seemed, to develop a rivalry on the level of Navratilova-Evert, Jimmy Connors-John McEnroe and Pete Sampras-Andre Agassi. "We got cheated, Monica got cheated, everyone got cheated," Navratilova said.

The stabbing Gunter Parche, an out-of-work, 38-year-old German factory worker obsessed with the German-born Graf, would have stabbed Seles a second time that day in Hamburg but was wrestled away by fans and officials before he could inflict further damage. His motive? Parche admitted he wanted to keep Seles from playing at a high level so Graf would be No. 1. AP Photo Gunter Parche was given only a suspended sentence and probation despite stabbing Monica Seles in the back during a match in 1993. At first, many in the crowd were unaware of what had occurred. Seles gave out a yelp as the blade plunged a full inch and a half into her upper back, but she stayed on her feet for several seconds before slumping, with the help of officials, to the court. "I remember sitting there, toweling off, and then I leaned forward to take a sip of water, our time was almost up and my mouth was dry. The cup had barely touched my lips when I felt a horrible pain in my back," Seles wrote in her book. "My head whipped around towards where it hurt and I saw a man wearing a baseball cap, a sneer across his face.

His arms were raised above his head and his hands were clutching a long knife. He started to lunge at me again. I didn't understand what was happening." Physically, Seles was incredibly lucky, as the knife barely missed her lungs, spinal cord and other major organs. Miraculously, she needed only a few stitches to close the wound and a short hospital stay. But the pain, she said, remained for months. And the torment? Depression in aftermath In her book, Seles said she spiraled into a deep depression that manifested itself in an overeating disorder she had never before experienced. Describing her attempts at rehab, Seles wrote, "Even 10 minutes of walking was torture. I just didn't want to do it. What was wrong with me? There was a problem that no CAT scan or MRI readout could diagnose. Darkness had descended into my head. No matter how many ways I analyzed the situation, I couldn't find a bright side." Seles would end up being out of tennis for nearly 28 months. During that period, the WTA, the governing body of women's tennis, consulted with its top 25 players and refused to freeze her ranking points.

"As I remember it, in the short history of the rankings to that point, they had never been manipulated to freeze anybody's or take someone off," Shriver, then-president of the WTA Players Association, said by phone. "They were what they were. But this was a precedent-setting event and we needed to have some different thinking and consider new options." Graf went on to win the next four Grand Slam tournaments -- the '93 French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open and the '94 Australian Open -- and also agreed to an endorsement deal Seles said she was close to signing before the attack and regained the No. 1 ranking five weeks after the stabbing. Fall from glory Seles would never be No. 1 again. "She had won seven of eight Grand Slams [from '91 to '93] and was on her way to doing even greater things," recalled Mary Joe Fernandez, a 15-year veteran of the tour, ESPN analyst and Seles' closest friend to this day. "She was robbed.

It was one of the most tragic things to happen in all of sports." Jean-Loup Gautreau/AFP/Getty Images Monica Seles defeated Martina Navratilova in this women's semifinal at Wimbledon on July 2, 1992, when Seles was at the height of her success. "She was dominating Steffi Graf, who, prior to Seles, dominated everyone else," Shriver said. "The sad thing about the whole thing to me was that besides the physical and emotional harm that was done to Monica, one of our great champions, is that this guy, in the end, got exactly what he wanted." Further hindering Seles' recovery was her beloved father Karolj's cancer diagnosis (the disease led to his death in May of '98) shortly after Hamburg and, less than five months after the stabbing, the trial of Parche. Despite Parche's confession and the hundreds of eyewitnesses who saw him stab Seles, an attempted murder charge was dismissed. He was found guilty of the lesser charge of committing grievous bodily harm and was given a suspended sentence and probation.

The judge believed a psychiatrist who testified to Parche's diminished capacity and also credited Parche for his full confession and ultimate show of remorse. Unable emotionally to attend the trial -- "How could they have expected me to go back [to Hamburg]," Seles said later. "I mean, I would have had to sit in the courtroom with my back to him" -- she instead sent a letter that was read in open court. "I only want proper justice," it read in part. "This attack irreparably damaged my life and stopped my tennis career. . . . He has not been successful in his attempt to kill me, but he has destroyed my life." Nineteen months later, a new judge upheld the verdict, citing Seles' refusal to testify as a determining factor. The WTA released a statement strongly condemning the German court for sending "a terrible message with wide-ranging impact." Seles collapsed in tears in front of reporters when being told of the verdict and later said she could not stop crying for days. "I think that [got to me] more than anything, that there was no kind of punishment," Navratilova said.

"The judge was like, 'Oh, he won't do it again so I'll let him go so he can really kill someone.' It was insane and so nationality driven. If someone had done that to Steffi so Monica would win, they'd have thrown away the key." The repercussions It was theorized at first that the crime was political in origin because of what many misidentified as Seles' Serbian roots (in fact, her family, which had lived in Florida since 1986, was Hungarian but came from a village near Bosnia, controlled by Serbs). In the end, however, it was simply a tragic case of a deranged fan wanting to hurt his favorite's rival. Seles never played in Germany again. As for Graf, who has attracted her own share of crazy fans, she went to visit Seles in the hospital days after the attack and hours before winning the Citizen Cup singles title. Graf has seldom spoken of the incident publicly and did not respond to interview requests. "The whole thing must have been, and still must be, a huge burden to carry [for Graf]," Shriver said. Navratilova was not quite as understanding.

"I'm sure it shook [Graf] up, but she won a lot more than she would have otherwise," Navratilova said. "If it affected her that deeply, she would have forged a stronger bond with Monica instead of ignoring her. It was nice initially [for Graf to see Seles in the hospital, a visit Seles later described in her book as lasting 'a few minutes'], but after that?" Either way, there is no denying the stabbing reverberated through the sport. "She got stabbed in her office," former No. 1 Jim Courier said in a British documentary about the attack a decade later. "Can you imagine being in your office and someone opening the door, coming up behind you and sticking a knife in your [back]?" Though rules changed immediately, with tighter protection around players during matches and their chairs turned to face the umpires and crowd, no one could erase what had happened. Navratilova described a lost sense of security after the attack. "A couple times I had death threats at tournament, so I had to have bodyguards," she said, "but when you play a match, you're out there. Anyone with a rifle can get to you, so you are vulnerable.

But this kind of attack would never occur to you. "To me, the tennis court was an escape from all the good and bad things happening in my life. When things are going well, you're happy, playing the game you love. When things are going badly, it's a great escape to do the thing you love. But either way, you're in a total safe zone in the place you want to be. For this to happen was such a shock. You just felt extremely vulnerable." Seles' return After Seles returned to the tour, the WTA reversed its earlier decision and reinstated her No. 1 ranking, to be shared with Graf for six months. And at first, Seles appeared to have regained her old form, reaching the '95 U.S. Open final against Graf. But Graf won in straight sets, and though Seles won one more Grand Slam title -- the '96 Australian Open -- she would never recapture what she once had. Just as alarming for those who followed her career, she would never again display the same sense of innocence coupled with a steely confidence that so dramatically set her apart. "She would have won so much more," Navratilova lamented.

"We'd be talking about Monica with the most Grand Slam titles [ahead of] Margaret Court or Steffi Graf. Steffi had 22 [Navratilova and Evert have 18 apiece], but she didn't have anyone to play against. This guy changed the course of tennis history, no doubt about that." "People forget," Fernandez said. "If you look at [Seles'] record, she has nine Grand Slams, which is an amazing career. But she would have had double that at least. . . . She took our game to another level." Seles' last competitive match was at the French Open in 2003, but she would not formally announce her retirement until 2008, the same year she became a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars." In 2009, she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Fernandez said that today Seles is "doing great. I don't think I'd have ever played again. The fact that she returned to the court was amazing.

And then to win a major again shows just how strong mentally she was to put that behind her." The woman Fernandez describes is still charitably driven, particularly with causes involving children and animals. She is still very close to her mother, Ester, and her older brother, Zoltan, who rode with her in the ambulance that day in Hamburg and held her hand. And she is a thoughtful friend, never forgetting Fernandez's children's birthdays. "She's a very well-adjusted woman, smart, caring, one of the best women I know," Fernandez said. "She's considerate and a really good person, which shows her character and reflects her upbringing by great parents. "She has been able to move on and create a great life for herself. [The attack] is something that will always be there, unfortunately, but Monica is strong like she always has been." Melissa Isaacson is a columnist for ESPN.com, espnW.com and ESPN Chicago. The award-winning writer has covered Chicago sports for most of her 32-year career, including at the Chicago Tribune, before joining ESPN in 2009, and has also covered tennis since 1986. Related Content Is Serena Williams going to win the Australian Open?

On This Day: Tennis Star Monica Seles Stabbed During Match Monica Seles sits injured on the court after being stabbed by a fan, April 30, 1993. On This Day: Tennis Star Monica Seles Stabbed During Match April 30, 2011 05:00 AM by findingDulcinea Staff On April 30, 1993, top-ranked tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed during a match by a fan of rival player Steffi Graf. Seles Stabbed by Crazed Steffi Graf Fan In spring 1993, 19-year-old Monica Seles was the top women’s tennis player in the world. She had dominated the 1992 Women’s Tennis Association season, winning 10 tournaments and concluding the year with a decisive victory over the legendary Martina Navratilova that for many symbolized a changing of the guard in women’s tennis . She won her eighth career grand slam in January 1993, defeating second-ranked Steffi Graf in the Australian Open final. That April, she was playing in a tournament in Hamburg, Germany, the home country of Graf.

During a break in her match with Magdalena Maleeva, Seles was seated with her back to the crowd when a spectator ran down from the stands and stabbed her with a nine-inch knife . Seles screamed and staggered out onto the court, as authorities rushed to aid her and arrest her assailant. “I remember sitting on the chair and I just remember feeling this very sharp pain ,” said Seles, “I felt something went into my body. And then I looked back, then it hit me what happened.” The Attacker and His Motivation Initially, some linked the attack to death threats that Seles , an ethnic Hungarian born in Serbia, had received from Croatian nationalists. It soon became clear, however, that the attacker, a German man named Gunter Parche, was motivated by a love of Steffi Graf. Parche was a mentally ill, unemployed lathe operator who idolized Graf and wanted to eliminate Seles from competition . While on trial in October 1993, he said, “I didn't want to kill her.

I just wanted to hurt her slightly so that Monica wouldn't be able to play for a couple of weeks.” The court, citing Parche’s psychological problems, remorse and claims that he did not wish to kill Seles, handed down a two-year suspended sentence and let him walk free. Tennis star Monica Seles stabbed - Apr 30, 1993 - HISTORY.com Tennis star Monica Seles stabbed Share this: Tennis star Monica Seles stabbed Author Tennis star Monica Seles stabbed URL Publisher A+E Networks Top women’s tennis player Monica Seles is stabbed by a deranged German man during a match in Hamburg. The assailant, a fan of German tennis star Steffi Graf, apparently hoped that by injuring Seles his idol Graf would be able to regain her No. 1 ranking. Seles became the youngest woman to win the French Open in 1990 when she defeated No. 1-ranked Steffi Graff in the finals. In 1991, Seles, a power player with a habit of grunting loudly during matches, replaced Graf as the top-ranked women’s player. At the time of the 1993 attack, she had won eight Grand Slam titles and was ranked No.

1 in the world. On April 30, 1993, Seles, then 19, was sitting on a courtside seat during a changeover in her match against Magdalena Maleeva at the Hamburg Open when 38-year-old Gunter Parche leaned over a fence and stabbed her between the shoulder blades with a knife. Parche was quickly apprehended by security officials and Seles was taken to the hospital. She recovered from her physical injuries but was left with deep emotional scars and didn’t play again professionally for another two years. Parche, who was described as a mentally unbalanced loner, contended he was only trying to hurt Seles, not kill her. A German court convicted him of grievous bodily harm in October 1993 and he received a two-year suspended sentence. Seles, along with many others, was angered by the lenient verdict and prosecutors eventually won the right to a re-trial. However, the judge at Parche’s second trial in 1995 upheld the suspended sentence. In August 1995, Seles, who became a U.S. citizen the previous year, made her tennis comeback by winning the Canadian Open.

The next month, she lost the U.S. Open finals to Steffi Graf. In January 1996, she won her fourth Australian Open and final Grand Slam title. In 2003, a foot injury forced Seles out of competition and she has played only sporadically since then. Related Videos Quarterfinal: (2) Steffi Graf vs. (7) Monica Seles | TENNIS.com Quarterfinal: (2) Steffi Graf vs. (7) Monica Seles Tags: Tournament of Champions , Monica Seles , Steffi Graf AP Photos Wondering what the Tournament of Champions is, and how we got here? Read more about our 50th Anniversary Celebration and get caught up on all the matches so far . It appeared, in the early 1990s, that this match-up would pick up where Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova had left off a few years earlier. When Graf and Seles began sparring for the top spot, their rivalry had all the makings of a decade-spanning contest for supremacy that would be played out in a long series of Grand Slam finals.

But while Steffi and Monica did face each other 15 times over the course of 10 years, it was tragedy, rather than glory, that tied their careers together: Seles was never the same player after she was stabbed on court in Hamburg in 1993 by a lunatic Graf fan. The German would finish with a 10-5 record in their head to head, but in the early '90s Seles had the edge. “There’s no question that Graf had problems with Seles,” Virginia Wade says, “and the fact that Monica hit the ball early and with such ferocity.” When the two did square off in their primes, Graf’s vaulting speed and knockout forehand were pitted against Seles’ double-sided, double-handed attack—Steffi was the superior athlete, Monica the more relentless ball-striker. Yet even when Seles was at her brutal best, from 1990 to ’92, Graf held her own.

“I thought that just before the unfortunate incident,” Wade says, “which scarred Seles so much and also affected Steffi, that Graf was beginning to get the hang of Monica.” The two finished 3-3 on clay, but Graf led on outdoor hard courts (3-2) and grass (2-0). “Two tight sets,” Brad Gilbert predicts, “and then Steffi rolls her on grass.” Winner: Graf

Question: Which tennis player was stabbed by a Steffi Graf fan while playing in Hamburg 1993?
Answer: Monica Seles