From _The Washington Times_
Written by Dick Heller
Translated by Andrew Broad

[N.B. The views in this article do not necessarily represent the
views of the Selesian Church]


The opponents sat in their chairs during the changeover, towelling
off and planning tactics. One of them, Monica Seles, was the world's
top-ranked female player, and deservedly so.

Spectators turned their eyes away from the court, discussing the
match. The scene was peaceful at Rothenbaum Tennis Club in Hamburg,
Germany, a genteel, tree-lined venue. Then, without warning, disaster
struck.

A stocky, balding man wearing a plaid shirt and jeans and
carrying a green plastic bag slipped down an aisle onto the court,
paused behind Seles and from the bag withdrew a 9-inch boning knife.
A fan nearby screamed, and Seles twisted around slightly. Too late!
The man plunged his knife into her upper back at an angle.

Seles shrieked, leaped from her chair and stood with her hand
clasped to the back of her neck as blood spread over her white tennis
shirt. Another man jumped over the barricade and attempted to aid
her. Sobbing, she collapsed against him, and he lowered her gently to
the ground while police collared her assailant.

The date was 30th April 1993, and Seles had been playing
Magdalena Maleeva in a quarter-final match of the Citizen Cup
tournament, winning the first set 6-4 and leading the second 4-3.
At 19, Seles was Steffi Graf's only rival as the best women's player
in the world. Grunting loudly on nearly every return, Monica had
collected 32 singles titles in four years, including seven of the
last eight Grand Slam events she had entered, and her tennis future
appeared limitless.

Until, that is, an unemployed German lathe operator named
Günther Parche appeared on the scene with his knife. One thrust and a
marvellous tennis career was virtually over.

Seles spent two days at Hamburg Hospital though she could have
left sooner. That Saturday, she received an emotional visit from
Graf, who told reporters, "I would say she is very depressed...
This hurts me, too. It hurts me to know that it happened in Germany,
that guy is German and that apparently he's a fan of mine."

More than two years later, with Seles absent from the court for
27 months, her father, Karolj, stated the sad truth candidly: "[Until
the stabbing,] Monica was a girl who was laughing all the time,
having fun. All that is now gone."

The crime brought into the open a fear that haunts all famous
people: Will someone try to gain notoriety at my expense? Sometimes
celebrities are stalked. Sometimes they receive anonymous death
threats. But rarely has an athlete suffered as much as Seles.

At first, the attack seemed political in nature given the ethnic
wars in Seles' homeland, the former Yugoslavia, although she had
lived in Florida since 1986 and became a naturalized American
citizen. She and her family are ethnically Hungarian but often are
mistaken for Serbs because they come from Novi Sad, a village near
Bosnia controlled by Serbs.

But, no, Parche had a much different reason: He was indeed a huge
fan of Graf and wanted to "help" her regain the No. 1 ranking. And
for Seles, the aftermath was nearly as painful as the assault.

Parche was charged merely with "causing grievous bodily harm"
rather than a more serious charge, such as attempted manslaughter.
When his first trial ended on 13th October 1993, Parche received
only a two-year suspended sentence because judge Elke Bosse found
his promise not to hurt anyone again "absolutely believable." One
German press report indicated the judge had shown "disturbing
sympathy toward Parche and his orgiastic fantasies about Graf."

After 19 months, there was a new trial and Judge Gertraut Goring
upheld the verdict, saying Seles' refusal to testify was a
determining factor.

In 1995, Seles was attending the opening of a tennis centre in
Williamsburg, one of her very few public appearances since the
stabbing, when she was told Parche had been released. Falling into
the arms of her mother, Esther, she began sobbing uncontrollably.

"How can anyone say it's OK to do what this man did to another
human being?" she said.

Why hadn't she testified against Parche?

"How can they have expected me to go back [to Hamburg]?" Seles
said. "I mean, I would have had to sit in the courtroom with my back
to him."

Parche's obsession with Graf did not lessen after he returned to
his hometown of Gorsbach, in the former East Germany. He continued to
write her letters and send her money on her birthday. He later
admitted sending a threatening letter to German track star Heike
Dreschler but added, "I'm not nearly as fanatical as I used to be."

For Seles, that was small consolation.

After two years as a virtual recluse, Seles tried to resume her
tennis career during the summer of 1995. She won an exhibition
against Martina Navrátilová in Atlantic City, N.J., then captured the
Canadian Open in Toronto without losing a set. In the US Open, she
reached the final - against Graf - before losing. Then she won her
fourth Australian Open in 1996, and people started saying the old
Seles was back.

She wasn't, of course. Monica started to experience multiple
injuries from shoulder to knee. Worst of all, the memories never left
her.

"There are flashbacks [to Hamburg]," she once said. "I tell
myself, 'You're in a match -- just go out and play great tennis.' But
the reality is still there, and I can't forget it. The reality is
that it happened. It will always be there."

When Parche went on trial, she sent a letter to be read in
court: "I only want proper justice. This attack tremendously and
irreparably damaged my life and stopped my tennis career... He has
not been successful in his attempt to kill me, but he has destroyed
my life."

At 31, Seles is a tennis has-been today, but many wonder just how
good she might have been.

Navrátilová, one of the greatest female players ever, put it this
way: "Never mind the life-altering event it was - the stabbing
changed the course of tennis history. We'll never know how many more
tournaments, how many more Grand Slams she would have won."

Surely unfulfilled promise is the saddest spectre in sports -
especially when it is caused by someone else.