Knife in the back: The injured Monica Seles receives medical care on April 30, 1993, shortly after the attack on the Center Court in Rothenbaum, Hamburg
April 30 marks the 30th anniversary of one of the most bizarre and disturbing events in sports history: the assassination of Monica Seles during the WTA tournament at the Tennisstadion am Rothenbaum in Hamburg.
Monica Seles was born in 1973 in what was then Yugoslavia and moved to the USA with her family at the age of 12 in order to fine-tune her talent at Nick Bollettieri’s famous tennis school. Seles played both forehand and backhand HT. Four years later, in May 1990, she defeated the then world number one Steffi Graf for the first time, in Berlin of all places. In March 1991, she replaced Graf as number one in the world rankings.
As number one, Seles also served in April 1993 at the WTA tournament in Hamburg. Now 19 years old, she has already owned eight Grand Slam titles. The future of women’s tennis was hers.
Goddess Steffi
Not everyone liked that. Neither did Günter Parche, a 38-year-old lathe operator from the town of Nordhausen in Thuringia. Parche was diagnosed with various personality disorders, he lived with his aunt and had never been in a relationship. He adored Steffi Graf for that. When it became increasingly clear that Seles would outstrip her, he grabbed a plastic bag on April 27, 1993, put pajamas, a sausage and a kitchen knife in it and headed to Hamburg. It was the first time he left his hometown. The intent was to halt Monica Seles’ seemingly unstoppable rise and ensure Steffi Graf continued years at the top of women’s tennis.
On April 30, Seles played her quarter-final match against Bulgarian Magdalena Maleewa in Hamburg. Seles led 6: 4 and 4: 3 when Parche approached her from behind during what was possibly the last change of sides and rammed the knife she had brought with her in the back. He tried to stab him a second time, but was overpowered by a security guard.
Seles was admitted to the University Hospital Eppendorf, the injuries were not life-threatening. However, the psychological aftermath of the assassination proved severe. Seles did not play on the WTA tour for more than two years, had post-traumatic stress disorder, could not sleep, gained 30 kilograms.
When she returned to the tour in August 1995, she immediately managed to win a tournament at the Canadian Open in Toronto. However, she never regained her former form. She was able to add a Grand Slam title to her collection, in 1996 she defeated Anke Huber from Baden-Württemberg in the final of the Australian Open. After a first-round defeat at the French Open in 2003, she ended her career.
lawsuit dismissed
The assassination attempt on Seles has some perfidious components. The first is that Günter Parche’s plan worked out perfectly. He always emphasized that he didn’t want to kill Seles, but that he wanted to knock her off the women’s tennis throne, since that place belonged to Steffi Graf. He had succeeded. After Seles’ injury, Steffi Graf remained number one in the world rankings for another 187 weeks. In addition, the tournament was played to the end in Hamburg. Steffi Graf lost in the final against the Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. The organizer, the German Tennis Association, talked its way out of the players: The continuation of the tournament took place in consultation with them. Magdalena Maleewa said later in Hamburg evening paper: “I was just 18 years old then, someone who didn’t have the courage to stand up and say: ‘What we’re doing here isn’t normal!'” Seles himself hadn’t expected the tournament to continue. In her 2009 autobiography, Standing Up Again, she wrote, “That was a tough lesson about the tennis business: It’s really all about the money.”
Her colleagues did not cover themselves in glory a few days later when, at the WTA tournament in Rome, 17 of the top 25 players voted on whether Seles should keep the first place in the world rankings until her return. 16 were against, only Argentina’s Gabriela Sabatini abstained. Steffi Graf was not present.
On October 13, 1993, Günter Parche was sentenced to a two-year suspended prison sentence by the Hamburg District Court. The verdict was upheld by the district court after an appeal. Parche’s lawyer, Otmar Kury, stated in one NDR-Documentation from 2013 that the verdict was »free of legal errors« and »correct«. Seles and her family didn’t see it that way. They also turned down a lawsuit worth millions against the German Tennis Association. There was little sympathy from the DTB. The then DTB press spokesman Jens-Peter Hecht said in the NDR-Document that just a few hours after the assassination it was clear that “the first American lawyer pointed out to the family that there might be money to be made from it.”
Günter Parche died in August 2022 in a nursing home in Nordhausen. Monica Seles now lives in seclusion in Florida. She never returned to Germany after the events in Hamburg.
