"Everyone benefited from the stabbing except me, they just wanted me to go away" - When Monica Seles opened up about her brutal stabbing by Steffi Graf fan
Monica Seles soared to incredible heights in her teenage years and at one point, threatened to write her name into the record books as an undisputed GOAT contender by beating some of the biggest names in the sport at the time.
The Yugoslavia-born player became the then youngest Grand Slam winner aged just 16 years and 189 days after winning the 1990 French Open against the then World No. 1 Steffi Graf. She went on to collect seven more Grand Slams by the age of 19.
However, disaster struck Monica Seles when an obsessed Steffi Graf fan stabbed the teenager in the back in the hopes of derailing her career and aid Graf to World No. 1 again. The horrifying incident happened while Seles was playing against Magdalena Maleeva at the Citizen Cup in Hamburg, Germany.
Monica Seles was quickly escorted to the hospital, but in an interview from 2009, the player disclosed her displeasure about the organizer’s decision to carry on with the tournament.
"In terms of the game itself, it was like the stabbing never occurred. One problem was that it happened in Germany and was 'because' of a German player. The German federation decided to continue the tournament as if nothing had happened, and everyone else seemed to follow on from that," she remembered, as per the Guardian.
The young tennis icon noted that Steffi Graf paid her a brief visit at the hospital. However, she felt it was more of a moral obligation than genuine concern on the German's part. The World No. 1 of the time, who had to be sidelined due to the injury, further lamented that everyone benefited from her agony except herself.
"(Steffi Graf visited) for a minute or two. It was one of those things. But it felt like everyone benefited from the stabbing except me. They just wanted me to go away, it felt like. I was 19 years old. Their money was tied up to the ranking system, and that was obviously an issue," she revealed.
"It did not feel like justice to me" - Monica Seles on mismanagement of the stabbing attack by Steffi Graf fan
Monica Seles recalled the details of the of the prolonged trial and conveyed that justice was never served, pointing out how her attacker was never even sent to prison.
"The trial kept going on and on. One trial after another. Later I tried to sue the German Tennis Federation for lack of security and lost income, and I lost those cases, too. It was hard to cope with the fact that the guy was not even sent to prison. It did not feel like justice to me," she remarked.
The nine-time Grand Slam champion also divulged how she lost everything due to the horrifying incident, all while her father, who was her biggest support, was battling terminal stomach cancer, making things much worse for her.
"I had grown up on a tennis court - it was where I felt most safe, most secure - and that day in Hamburg everything was taken away from me. My innocence. My rankings, all my income, endorsements - they were all cancelled. And the one person who could have comforted me really, who understood what it meant, my father, was of course facing this awful illness," she said.