On April 30, 1993, then-world number one Monica Seles was stabbed by a fan whilst playing Magdalena Maleeva in the Citizen Cup, Germany. It was as shocking for Seles to witness, as it was for the spectators. <\/p>\n\n\n
They saw, a man run from the middle of the crowd to the edge of the court during the break between the game and stab Seles with a boning knife between her shoulder blades, to a depth of 1.5 cm (0.59 inches). <\/p>\n\n\n In her autobiography, \u201cGetting A Grip: On My Body, My Mind, My Self<\/em> \u201d she recalls<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cI remember sitting there, towelling off, and then I leaned forward to take a sip of water, our time was almost up and my mouth was dry. The cup had barely touched my lips when I felt a horrible pain in my back,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n Monica Seles was just a kid trying to make it big in the sport. The incident was pretty traumatic for her as she descriptively writes about it<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cMy head whipped around towards where it hurt and I saw a man wearing a baseball cap, a sneer across his face. His arms were raised above his head and his hands were clutching a long knife. He started to lunge at me again. I didn\u2019t understand what was happening.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n As Monica Seles was a Yugoslavian, she was known to have received death threats in relation to the Yugoslav Wars. However, German authorities were quick to rule this out, describing her attacker as confused and possibly mentally disturbed. <\/p>\n\n\n It is easy to assume in the light of the current global scenarios, that such an attack would be politically motivated. However, the real reason as claimed by the culprit sounded insane. The maniac only wanted to hurt Seles enough so she\u2019d be away from tennis and Steffi Graff would become the world no.1. The culprit, G\u00fcnter Parche was an obsessed fan of Graff. <\/p>\n\n\n \u201cThe man said quite clearly that he did not want to kill Monica Seles,\u201d <\/em>the police told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cHe only wanted to injure her and make her unable to play so that Steffi Graf could become number one again.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n The man was an obsessed fan of Graff and thus took things in his hands to make his idol no.1; sounds like a silver screen drama, doesn\u2019t it? Unfortunately, it was more than just an incident as Seles could never escape its captivity. She had a hard time trying to get back to tennis.<\/p>\n\n\nWas there a political agenda behind?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
Recovering from the glitch<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
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