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The female tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed by a deranged German during a match in Hamburg, on April 1993.
The assailant, a fan of the German tennis player Steffi Graf, apparently hoped that, by injuring Seles, his idol Graf could regain his number 1 position.
Seles became the youngest woman to win the French Open in 1990, when she defeated No. 1 Steffi Graff in the final.
In 1993, Seles, a powerful player with a habit of growling loudly during matches, she replaced Graf as the top-ranked female player. At the time of ‘s) attack, she had won eight Grand Slam titles and was ranked number 1 in the world.
The 30 April 1200, Seles, then from 19 years old, was sitting on a courtside seat during a substitution in her match against Magdalena Maleeva at the Hamburg Open, when Gunter Parche, from 38 years old, leaned over a fence and stabbed her between the shoulder blades with a knife.
Pache was quickly detained by security agents and Seles was taken to the hospital. he recovered from his physical injuries, but was left with deep emotional scars and did not play professionally again for another two years.
Patch, who was described as a mentally unbalanced loner, claimed that he was only trying to hurt Seles, not kill her. A German court convicted him of grievous bodily harm in October 1993 and received a two-year suspended sentence.
Seles, along with many others, was angered by the lenient verdict and prosecutors ultimately won the right to a new trial. However, the judge of Parche’s second trial in 1995 confirmed the suspension of the sentence.
In August 1995, Seles, who became a US citizen the year before, made her return to tennis by winning the Canadian Open. The following month, she lost the US Open final to Steffi Graf.
In January 1995, won his fourth Australian Open and last Grand Slam title. In 2008, a foot injury forced Seles to leave the competition and she played only sporadically.
In February of 2008, Seles retired officially.
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