27 Years On, Monica Seles’ Stabbing Remains a Tennis Tragedy

27 years ago today, 19 year-old Monica Seles, the world’s best woman tennis player, was stabbed in the back by a knife-wielding fan of Seles’ great rival, Steffi Graf. The attack, by Günter Parche, an obsessive fan determined to stop Seles’ dominance of Graf, came during a match in Hamburg, Germany, with Seles seated during a break between games. A winner of 8 Grand Slam titles already—including 3 in finals against Graf—Seles narrowly escaped permanent injury, but Parche got his wish, nevertheless.

Emotionally undone by the crime, Seles would go on to win one more major title, but would never regain her form, paving the way for Graf to amass an astonishing 22 major titles without a worthy rival. Sports is awash in ‘what if’ scenarios, but no recent single event has changed the arc of a sporting rivalry—and the course of tennis history—like Monica Seles’ grievous fate on April 30, 1993.

Image credit: U.S. Open.org