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It was the second set and Monica Seles sat down for a break between games.
The video recounts the shocking stabbing of Monica Seles and her rise to tennis stardom with a unique two-handed technique.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Monica Seles revolutionized tennis with her two-handed forehand and backhand technique.
- Her rise to stardom was marked by overcoming significant personal and cultural challenges.
- The stabbing incident was a pivotal and tragic moment in tennis history.
- Seles' rivalry with Steffi Graf defined an era in women's tennis.
- External pressures, including media criticism, impacted her playing style and career.
What the video covers
- Monica Seles was stabbed during a match by a man who claimed to act for her rival Steffi Graf.
- Seles grew up in Yugoslavia with limited tennis resources, training with improvised equipment.
- Her father coached her using creative methods, including hitting with two hands on both forehand and backhand.
- She became the top junior player in Yugoslavia by age eight and won the Junior Orange Bowl at 11.
- Monica moved to the US at 12 to train under Nick Bollettieri but faced loneliness and cultural challenges.
- Her family reunited in Florida when her father became her full-time coach.
- Seles quickly rose in professional tennis, defeating Steffi Graf at the 1990 French Open final at age 16.
- She became the youngest world number one in 1991 and won multiple Grand Slam titles including three consecutive French Opens.
- Her unique two-handed technique influenced tennis coaching worldwide.
- Despite her success, she faced criticism for her loud grunting, which affected her performance against Graf.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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She didn't see the man climbing down from the stands behind her.
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The tennis broadcast cut away to the scoreboard as an ear-piercing scream rang out through the stadium.
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When the cameras came back to Monica, she was clutching at her back and wincing in pain.
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She stumbled away from the stands and her water hit the ground as she collapsed.
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A hero in the crowd tackled the man seconds later, trying desperately to take the knife from his hand.
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Monica Seles had been stabbed.
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Security dragged the attacker out of the stands as Monica was put on a stretcher and rushed off to hospital.
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But when the police later questioned the man about why he did it, his answer only created more questions.
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The man admitted he had done it for Monica's biggest rival, Steffi Graf.
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Monica Seles had spent her childhood watching Steffi on TV, she was the blonde German champion with the unstoppable golden forehand.
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The world number one who seemed untouchable.
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She used to be a hero to Monica, but now Steffi Graf had seemingly become the reason that Monica Seles was bleeding in the back of an ambulance.
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Before the attack that changed everything, Monica Seles had already defied the odds, just getting to the top of the sport was a miracle in itself.
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She was born in December 1973 in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, a city where tennis barely existed, there were only four public clay courts in the entire area, and getting time on any of them was pretty much impossible.
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So, the Seles family would improvise, they strung a net between two parked cars in their apartment complex parking lot, and that was where Monica trained.
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Her father, Karoly, was a professional cartoonist at the local newspaper, he had no formal coaching background.
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But he knew how to keep his kids engaged.
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He would draw Jerry from the cartoon Tom and Jerry on tennis balls.
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And told six-year-old Monica to imagine herself as Tom chasing Jerry across the court.
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It was his way of making training feel more like play.
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But even though he could keep her engaged, there was still a problem.
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The adult rackets were too heavy for Monica's small frame.
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So, Karoly got creative with that too.
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He taught her to hit with two hands on both sides, forehand and backhand.
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In the professional game, a two-handed forehand was virtually unheard of.
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Players would use two hands on the backhand for stability, but the forehand had always typically been a one-handed shot.
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That's simply how the game was played.
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But with two hands on both sides, Monica generated power that was totally unexpected at that age.
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And using this technique, by age eight, she was the number one junior player in Yugoslavia.
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At 11 years old, she won the prestigious Junior Orange Bowl tournament in Miami, Florida.
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And watching from the stands that day was Nick Bollettieri, the legendary American coach who ran a tennis academy in Bradenton, Florida.
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Nick was absolutely blown away by Monica's ability and her unique technique, and he offered her a scholarship.
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But unfortunately, even with the scholarship, Monica's parents couldn't afford to just pick up their entire lives and move to a different country at the drop of a hat.
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So, for Monica to pursue her dreams, the family had to split up.
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In early 1986, Monica and her older brother Zoltán moved to the United States.
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At the time, Zoltán was 20 years old and Monica was only 12.
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Their parents stayed behind in Yugoslavia.
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Monica knew maybe 20 words in English.
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And she was surrounded by kids whose families could afford to pay while she was essentially there on charity.
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She ate alone in the cafeteria.
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And cried herself to sleep most nights.
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She was only allowed to call home once a month.
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But every morning, she woke up and walked to the courts.
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She hit thousands of balls, ran the drills.
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And with a racket in her hand, no translation was needed.
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Tennis was a language she deeply understood.
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Nine months later, her parents finally arrived in Florida.
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Karoly quit his job as a cartoonist and he took over as Monica's coach full-time.
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The family was finally together again.
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The nightmare of being alone in a foreign country was over.
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And now, the real work could begin.
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At 14, Monica played her first professional tournament and defeated the world number 31 in straight sets.
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At 15, she turned professional.
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And at 16, she walked onto the clay at the French Open and did something that no one that young had ever done before.
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She beat the world number one, Steffi Graf.
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In the final.
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The same player Monica had watched on television back in Yugoslavia, studying her every move.
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The best female tennis player in the world.
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Monica dismantled her in straight sets.
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And from that moment on, it had seemed like Monica was unstoppable.
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In 1991, she became the youngest world number one in tennis history at that time.
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She swept the Australian, French, and US Opens crushing Martina Navratilova in the US final.
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Unfortunately, she had to sit out Wimbledon in that year due to an injury, but by the end of 1991, Monica Seles had already won three Grand Slams.
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In 1992, she won the Australian Open.
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Then she defended her French Open title beating Graf once again in another epic battle.
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The third set alone was a marathon of 18 games, ending 10-8.
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It was the third consecutive year Monica had won at Roland Garros, making her the first woman in the Open era to win three straight French Open titles.
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Karoly watched on with a smile.
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As his daughter demolished opponents with the two-handed technique that he'd helped her master.
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Around him, spectators marveled at the power she was able to generate.
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The angles, the precision.
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No one had seen anything quite like it.
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Coaches around the world started taking note and began teaching the two-handed technique to junior players.
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The unconventional approach that Karoly invented in a parking lot, it started to prove itself as a legitimate weapon in modern tennis.
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Karoly loved the attention and acknowledgement.
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He bowed from the stands.
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Blowing kisses to the crowd.
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It was his way of reminding Monica to enjoy it, to smile, to stay silly.
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And to never let the pressure take away the joy.
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And that would turn out to be a very important lesson.
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Because by that point, tennis commentators were starting to wonder if they were watching the greatest career in women's tennis history unfold in real time.
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It seems like the only person who had any chance of threatening Monica's total dominance was Steffi Graf.
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The now former world number one, who wasn't quite ready to surrender her throne just yet.
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Steffi Graf had been the world number one since 1987.
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She'd already won eight Grand Slam titles by the time Monica Seles burst onto the scene in 1990.
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But she'd been forced to watch as the teenager from Yugoslavia dismantled everything she had built.
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The way Monica played was different, she took the ball early, stepping inside the baseline.
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And redirecting the pace with insane angles.
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And with every shot came her signature grunt.
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A loud two-tone shriek that started when she was seven.
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It was a natural expression of the effort it took to swing a racket too heavy for her frame.
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But unfortunately, that sound.
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Made her a target.
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At Wimbledon in 1992, British tabloids started shaming Monica.
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With front page stories and mocking headlines.
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They even used electronic gruntometers to measure the decibel level of her grunts.
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And the players started to complain too.
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In the semi-final, Martina Navratilova told the chair umpire that she couldn't hear the ball off Monica's racket over the sound of her grunts.
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The pressure mounted.
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And when Monica walked into center court to face Steffi Graf in the final, she caved.
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She went silent.
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She suppressed the grunt that had been part of her game since she was a child.
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Monica had surrendered a part of herself.
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And she paid for it.
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Graf completely demolished her in the final within 58 minutes.
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Monica would later say this moment was one of her biggest regrets.
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She had abandoned her natural game to appease critics and it cost her Wimbledon, the one major title that she hadn't yet secured.
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But at the US Open two months later, she didn't make that same mistake.
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And she went on to dominate the tournament once again.
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The grunt was back.
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And so was her power.
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By early 1993, at age 19, Monica Seles had now won eight Grand Slam titles.
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She reached the final in 33 of 34 tournaments.
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And won 22 of them.
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In Grand Slams during that stretch, she lost only once.
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But while most of the world admired Monica's rise, not everyone was celebrating.
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Behind the scenes, jealousy and resentment was brewing.
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And would eventually manifest into something much darker.
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And it had all started when Steffi Graf lost her crown.
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In a quiet town in Eastern Germany, a man named Günter Parche was coming undone.
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He was 38.
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Living in his aunt's attic in Gorbach.
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Stocky, balding, disheveled.
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The kind of man no one really noticed.
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But step into his room and you'd know exactly who he was.
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The walls were plastered with photos of Steffi Graf.
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Posters, magazine covers.
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Newspaper clippings.
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Her matches played on repeat.
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He owned dozens of VHS tapes and he watched them obsessively.
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He'd study the way she moved, the way she smiled.
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The way she held the trophy above her head.
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He wrote to her four or five times a year.
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Anonymous letters filled with devotion.
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Once he even sent $185 in cash and asked her to buy a necklace to wear during tournaments.
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In his letters, he'd describe Steffi Graf as a dream whose eyes radiate like diamonds.
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Whose hair shines like silk.
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He said he would walk through fire for her.
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But then, Monica Seles showed up.
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And she stole the world number one ranking from his angel.
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And something in Günter Parche broke.
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Parche quit his job shortly after Steffi fell to number two.
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He wandered Western Germany for months, unemployed and aimless, before finally retreating back to his aunt's attic.
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Every Monica victory felt like a betrayal.
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To him, every trophy she held should have been Steffi's.
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Monica's success devastated him to the point where he sometimes lost the will to live.
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But this deranged parasocial pain curdled into a different kind of obsession about Monica.
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He began stalking Monica's schedule.
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Tracking her matches, studying her habits.
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Watching every tournament.
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And he started to convince himself that if Monica disappeared, his beloved Steffi would rise again.
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So, in April 1993, Parche traveled to Hamburg for the Citizen Cup.
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And he brought with him a sharpened 9-inch boning knife.
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It was a cool spring evening at the Rothenbaum Tennis Club in Hamburg.
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6,000 spectators had filled the stadium for the Citizen Cup quarterfinal.
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Monica Seles was leading Magdalena Maleeva, 6-4, 4-3.
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Just one break away from closing out the match.
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This was only her third match back after nearly two months away.
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She'd been battling a severe viral illness since February.
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Steffi Graf was breathing down her neck, close to reclaiming the number one ranking.
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And in three weeks, the French Open would begin.
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The tournament Monica owned.
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Roland Garros, the place where she'd defeated Graf twice in those legendary finals.
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Hamburg was supposed to be her comeback, her chance to rebuild match fitness.
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To protect her ranking, to prove that she was still the dominant force in women's tennis.
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However, as the changeover began.
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Monica sat courtside.
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She towered off.
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Leaned forward to sip from her cup.
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Her back was to the crowd.
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The same crowd that Günter Parche was sitting in.
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Watching.
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And waiting.
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The barrier behind Monica was barely waist high.
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Security was minimal.
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And that's when she felt it.
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The sudden sharp pain right between her shoulder blades.
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Monica's head whipped around as she saw Parche standing there gripping the 9-inch blade.
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And before Monica could react, he raised the knife again.
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A hero in the crowd acted quickly, putting Parche in a choke hold and taking him down while the other crowd members restrained him.
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The limited security there leapt into action and they tore the weapon from Parche's hand.
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Monica clutched her back as blood soaked her shirt.
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And in the stands, there was chaos.
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Günter Parche didn't even try to escape.
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In his mind, he had completed his task.
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Steffi Graf had never asked for help.
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But in his twisted fantasy, he had just saved her.
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Monica stood for a moment, dazed.
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And then collapsed on the court.
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And was rushed to hospital.
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Within hours, Günter Parche confessed everything to the police.
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His motive was hauntingly simple.
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He wanted to hurt Monica Seles badly enough that she couldn't play tennis, so that Steffi Graf could reclaim the world number one ranking.
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And to him, taking out Monica was the only way to make that happen.
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However, as Monica arrived at the hospital, it was discovered that the knife had narrowly missed her spine and vital organs by millimeters.
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Doctors stitched the wound.
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Steffi Graf visited Monica in the hospital to show her support.
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And Monica headed home in the weeks after.
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The physical pain inflicted was lasting.
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It would take months of rehab before she could even lift a racket again.
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But the psychological trauma is what would really tear Monica apart.
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And with the absolute farce that followed in the sentencing of her attacker, she'd soon discover that the worst was yet to come.
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Six months after the attack, Parche stood trial in Hamburg.
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Prosecutors sought a two-year, nine-month sentence for attempted murder.
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The evidence was overwhelming.
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He had stalked Monica all week, he'd purchased the knife, he'd struck her from behind and attempted to strike again before others intervened.
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But when the judge handed down her verdict.
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Parche received a two-year suspended sentence.
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No prison time.
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He walked free.
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But why?
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Well, a court-appointed psychiatrist testified that Parche has a highly abnormal personality.
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The judge accepted this assessment.
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She ruled that Parche's mental state meant he lacked the full intent required for attempted murder.
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He'd already spent six months in detention awaiting trial.
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That, the judge decided.
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Was enough.
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From her home in Florida, Monica released a statement that captured her confusion and fury.
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She was understandably shocked and horrified.
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The man who admitted to stalking her, who admitted to stabbing her once and attempting to do it again, was going back to his normal life.
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Meanwhile, she was trapped in recovery from the vicious attack that could have killed her.
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What kind of message did this send to the world?
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Then, Martina Navratilova even spoke out.
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The same woman who had complained to the chair umpire about Monica's grunt just a year earlier, the same tennis legend who had helped turn Wimbledon center court against Monica.
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Now, she was furious.
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On Monica's behalf.
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Speaking from a tournament in Germany.
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Navratilova told reporters.
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That the country needed serious help.
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With its laws.
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Making the observation that when one human being can stab another with a clear intent to injure and potentially kill.
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And yet they simply walk away.
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Something is fundamentally broken in the system.
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But she went even further.
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If someone had attacked Steffi Graf to help Monica Seles win, she said, they would have thrown away the key.
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The implication was clear.
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Navratilova felt like the weak sentencing was about nationality, whatever disputes they'd had on the court.
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This transcended tennis entirely.
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Monica filed a huge civil lawsuit against the German Tennis Federation.
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It eventually grew to the point where she was seeking $15.7 million in damages.
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She argued that they had failed to provide adequate security in Hamburg.
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And that their negligence had nearly cost her her life.
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But the judge would later dismiss the case in its entirety.
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And what's more, as another slap in the face.
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Monica was ordered to pay the court's legal costs.
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Weeks after the stabbing, while Monica was recovering in Florida, the World Tennis Association, the WTA, met in Rome.
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And they faced a brutal question.
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Should Monica Seles's world number one ranking be frozen while she recovered from a near-fatal attack?
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Or should her absence simply be treated like an injury?
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17 of the top players voted.
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16 said no.
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Only Gabriela Sabatini abstained.
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And just like that.
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Monica was stripped of her ranking.
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It sent a message she couldn't ignore.
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That the sport she'd given everything to, the sport she'd helped transform, wasn't willing to protect her.
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Just five weeks after the attack, before Monica had even fully recovered physically, Steffi Graf reclaimed the world number one spot.
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It appeared Günter Parche's plan had worked.
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Just as he had intended.
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For the first few months after Hamburg, Monica tried to pretend it had never happened.
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She threw herself into rehabilitation.
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And making plans to return at the US Open just four months later.
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To outsiders, she seemed to be coping.
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But then came Christmas 1993.
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For the first time since the attack, Monica had space to stop.
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Space to think.
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And the memories came flooding back.
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The knife.
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The pain.
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The man's face.
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All the fears she'd buried under hours of practice suddenly surfaced.
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She described it as darkness everywhere.
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A fog of despair that she couldn't escape.
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Monica developed post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.
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She had reoccurring nightmares about the attack and flashbacks to the moment the blade entered her back.
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The thought of returning to a tennis court surrounded by thousands of anonymous faces in the stands terrified her.
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She needed something to distract her.
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Late at night, alone in her room.
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Monica found that relief in food.
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Potato chips, pretzels, cookies.
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Whatever she could find.
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The act of eating became a way to numb the emotional pain.
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To silence the memories and to feel something other than terror.
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For those few minutes, while she binged, she felt okay.
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Ish.
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But over the course of months, the emotional weight never fully lifted.
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And the physical weight started to accumulate.
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The press picked up on it quickly.
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Deliberately choosing the worst photos to use on the front page.
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And all the while, just a short time after the stabbing, Monica's father, Karoly, had been diagnosed with stomach cancer.
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Monica's entire world was falling apart.
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And she watched helplessly as her dad underwent surgery and chemotherapy.
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The one person who had been by her side, helping her build everything she had was slowly fading.
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And she was losing him at the exact moment that she needed him most.
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But Monica wasn't quite ready for this to be the end of her story.
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After how far she'd already come, she wasn't ready to give it all up just yet.
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She began working with a sports psychologist to address her post-traumatic stress disorder.
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PTSD.
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She had reoccurring nightmares about the attack and flashbacks to the moment the blade entered her back.
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The thought of returning to a tennis court surrounded by thousands of anonymous faces in the stands terrified her.
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But she kept showing up.
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Trying to reclaim a sense of safety.
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The physical rebuilding was just as difficult.
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In the months after the stabbing, Monica couldn't comb her hair without pain.
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The wound between her shoulder blades had healed, but the muscle trauma left her upper back in agony with basic movement.
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Physical therapists worked with her on simple mobility exercises, gentle stretching, and just walking to rebuild her sense of her body in space.
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And by mid-1994, she was able to pick up a racket again.
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Not to play.
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Just to hold it.
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To once again feel its weight in her hand.
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She started by hitting against a wall with no opponent and no pressure.
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Then gentle drills with a coach.
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Short practice rallies, longer rallies, practice sets.
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And through it all, her father, Karoly, never stopped showing up for her.
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Even while undergoing intensive cancer treatment, he coached Monica over the phone during matches and tournaments.
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It was quite the sight.
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A 63-year-old man hooked to IV lines offering tactical guidance to a world-class tennis player from a hospital bed between sets.
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But even though he was by her side in spirit.
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Every match Monica played came with a cruel cost.
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Every city she traveled to.
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Meant more time away from him.
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And every time she came home.
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He was thinner and weaker.
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Monica was racked with guilt, torn between the court and the hospital room.
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Between chasing a comeback and missing her father's final months.
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But Karoly wouldn't have had it any other way.
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He had made tennis joyful for Monica when she was a child.
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And now, even as he was dying, he was helping her reclaim it.
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Monica Seles finally returned to professional tennis 27 months after the stabbing.
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She started off with a small exhibition match.
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Against none other than Martina Navratilova.
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And then, at the US Open, as she stepped onto the court for her first Grand Slam match since the attack, the crowd erupted.
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Thousands rose to their feet.
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Fans held up signs, chanted her name.
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Some even wept.
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Security guards flanked the benches, metal detectors screened every fan.
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It was like the sport was saying to Monica, we failed you once.
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We're sorry.
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We won't do it again.
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In the stands, Karoly watched on with pride.
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Monica tore through the draw.
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Like she'd never left.
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Match after match.
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Vintage Seles.
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And by the end of the tournament.
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She was in the final.
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Again, against none other than Steffi Graf.
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They hadn't faced each other.
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Since before Hamburg.
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And now, in front of 23,000 people, the two best players in the world were finally back on the same court.
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Monica came within points of winning the first set.
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She destroyed Graf in the second.
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Winning six games to zero.
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But in the third set, Graf recovered.
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Experience won out.
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Monica's unbeaten comeback streak ended and Steffi Graf won the tournament.
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After the match.
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Steffi Graf approached the net and embraced Monica.
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Monica had lost.
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But she'd also proven that after everything she'd been through, she was still standing and she could still compete at the very highest level.
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Four months after facing Graf at the US Open, Monica won the Australian Open.
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A ninth Grand Slam.
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She competed through her father's death in 1998 wearing his wedding ring on a chain around her neck.
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As she reached the French Open final just weeks after his funeral.
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Then she won her first Olympic medal.
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Bronze at the Sydney Games in 2000.
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But as the years went on.
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The injuries mounted.
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By 2003, a stress fracture forced her withdrawal at the Italian Open.
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Two weeks later, she lost in the first round of the French Open.
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The first and only time Monica Seles ever lost a first round match at a Grand Slam.
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After that day, she never played professionally again.
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And she never did secure the Wimbledon title.
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And on February 14, 2008, Monica Seles officially retired at the age of 34.
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Monica Seles never chased sympathy.
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She didn't want her story to be about what was taken from her.
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She wanted it to be about everything she reclaimed.
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Her joy.
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Her power.
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And her voice.
Topics:Monica Selestennis historySteffi Graftwo-handed forehandGrand Slamtennis stabbingNick Bollettieriwomen's tennisFrench Opentennis rivalry
