What was the name of the man who stabbed Monica Seles?

The man who stabbed Monica Seles was Guenther Parche, also spelled Günter Parche. He attacked the world’s No. 1 women’s tennis player during a changeover at the Citizen Cup tournament in Hamburg, Germany, on April 30, 1993.

Parche was an obsessive fan of Seles’s chief rival, Steffi Graf. He later said he wanted to remove Seles from competition so Graf could regain the top ranking. Seles was playing Magdalena Maleeva when Parche came from the crowd and stabbed her in the back with a knife. The physical wound was not life-threatening, but the psychological impact was severe.

Seles did not return to competitive tennis for more than two years. Parche was convicted in Germany, but the court found him psychologically abnormal and gave him a suspended sentence rather than sending him to prison. That outcome caused widespread criticism, especially because the attack abruptly interrupted Seles’s extraordinary career.

The spelling varies because German uses the umlaut in Günter; “Guenther” is the conventional English transliteration.