30 years ago
A man stabs tennis player Monica Seles – because he adores Steffi Graf
Shortly after the assassination, Monica Seles is holding her back in pain
© NDR / DPA / Imago Images
The knife attack on Monica Seles, then number one in women’s tennis, changed the sport of tennis. The security measures are significantly tightened. It was too late for Seles. She struggled with the psychological consequences for a long time.
The sharp scream goes through the bones of all visitors immediately, but the full extent of the tragedy is only slowly revealed. Almost like in slow motion. Because it seems so unreal. Monica Seles drops a drinking cup and grabs her back with her right hand. She staggers and is slowly guided to the sandy bottom. She is breathing heavily and is in shock. Only a few meters away from her, a man is thrown to the ground who destroyed the life of the then 19-year-old Seles with a knife on the center court at Rothenbaum in Hamburg.
The assassination of the then tennis world number one Seles on April 30, 1993 by a fanatical Steffi Graf fan is still difficult to believe 30 years later. Since then, a lot has happened in terms of security in the tennis circus, Alexander Zverev and colleagues feel no fear of a similar attack on the tour. But for Seles, the changes came too late.
Monica Seles no longer wants to comment on the attack
“Something terrible happened to me that irretrievably steered my career in a different direction and seriously hurt my soul. In a split second my personality was permanently changed,” wrote the Yugoslav native in her biography. The nine-time Grand Slam tournament winner no longer wants to comment on the case. The 49-year-old lives largely withdrawn from the public in the USA. “I personally know Monica very well. That’s one thing she doesn’t like to talk about,” said former professional Tommy Haas of the German Press Agency. He could still remember the pictures from back then: “It was scary.”
It happened in the quarterfinals against Bulgarian Magdalena Maleeva. When the score was 4:3 in the second set, there was a break before the break, which the attacker used for his insidious act. The German had hidden the knife in a plastic bag. Almost unnoticed, he approached Seles and stabbed her in the back. His motive? He couldn’t bear the fact that the lively teenager with the strikingly braided braid was number 1 in the tennis world and not the count he adored: “I did it for Steffi.”
Graf was shocked too. The day after the assassination, she visited her sporting rival at the University Hospital in Eppendorf. For Seles it was a “very emotional meeting” and they both “just cried”. And suddenly understood each other better than in all the years before. “I had never seen this side of Steffi and I’m sure Steffi didn’t see me either.”
Folders behind the benches are now standard
Overwhelmed by the events, Graf soon lost the final against the Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. A match that received a lot of attention worldwide, but nobody actually needed it. Seles was shocked that the tournament was not canceled. “That was a tough lesson about the tennis business: Actually, it’s all about the money.”
Immediately after the assassination, the security precautions were tightened; today, security guards behind the benches are standard. Security guards usually accompany the professionals throughout the facility. That was “normal for us,” said Olympic champion Zverev of the dpa. Wimbledon quarter-finalist Jule Niemeier also sits on the bench with her back to the audience without a trace of fear: “I think that today we have the opportunity to prevent what was not the case back then.”
Seles failed with a million dollar lawsuit against the organizers. But her disappointment was much greater about the court verdict against her tormentor: a suspended sentence of two years for assault. “When my brother told me this, I was stunned,” she wrote in her bio. The assassin died last August, as the municipal administration of his hometown confirmed to the German Press Agency.
What is particularly tragic about the story is that the man even achieved his goal with his attack in the end. Seles was “physically and mentally exhausted”, as she once described it herself, and after a two-year break she was no longer in her best form. Graf, on the other hand, won one Grand Slam tournament after the next and became number 1 in the world again.