(April 30, 2012) -- Twenty years ago, Monica Seles' life and career were nearly put to an untimely end after a crazed fan stabbed her on April 30, 1993 in Germany.
Seles may have played professionally until 2002, even winning another Grand Slam, but the career she could have had was cut short that day.
Gunther Parche disliked the fact that that Seles had knocked his favorite player, Steffi Graf, down to No. 2 in the world, so he stabbed Seles in Hamburg while she sat on court during a changeover. She was 19 years old at the time and had eight Grand Slam titles to her credit. At the same age, Chris Evert had two Slams; Martina Navratilova didn't have any; Steffi Graf had six and Serena Williams had one.
Seles was over the injury physically in a matter of weeks. You can argue that she never recovered emotionally, even though she returned to professional tennis 27 months later and won an additional 21 titles, including a Grand Slam, between 1995-2002.
The future could have played out in a million different ways had Seles not been stabbed. She might have torn an ACL the next day or blown out a knee; she may have fallen in love along the way and retired early like Kim Clijsters to have a family. She might have peaked as a teenager and left fans speculating how she burned out so fast like Martina Hingis.
The heartbreak and insult of it all is that she never got the chance to do any of those things. One man's lunacy took all of those possibilities away from this breathtaking talent and put her through months of torturous living where she was terrified of crowds, couldn't sleep, and barely considered lifting a racket.
Adding insult to injury, the tournament in Hamburg wasn't even canceled after the attack, and Parche received only a two-year suspended sentence. The tennis tournaments themselves also seemed to react in underwhelming fashion. The 1993 French Open took its trophy presentations from the stands to the court, and Wimbledon players turned their chairs around to face the crowd, but that was about it. To her credit, Seles never set foot in Germany again.
Seles is able to talk about the incident now, albeit sparingly. She's found love, written an autobiography (with a work of fiction on the way) and even spent a few minutes back in the spotlight, appearing on a season of Dancing with the Stars.
She survived the attack and the aftermath, but even after two decades have gone, the pain of what that single terrible act cost both her and the game she loved still lingers
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(Photo Credit: Bob Martin/Getty Images) |