Günter Parche, the man who exactly 30 years ago stabbed tennis player Monica Seles in the back, has died.

The death dates back to August 2022 but Bild has only released the news now: Parche would have spent the last years of his life in a nursing home for mental illness in Nordhausen, Germany.

It was April 30, 1993 and the Serbian tennis player was playing a quarter-final match against the Bulgarian Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, when Parche, a 38-year-old German, struck her in the back.

The reason? He was obsessed with Seles' number one rival Steffi Graffe   he did not tolerate that Seles had ousted Graf from first place in the women's world rankings. He wanted to hurt her "so much that he couldn't afford to play tennis for a long time," he admitted in court.

Fortunately, he gave her a very slight wound but Seles, 19 years old and already eight Grand Slam titles on his curriculum, in shock, decided to retire for a long time. Steffi Graf thus returned to the top of the world rankings.

Seles resumed playing only in 1995 : "That attack - he wrote in his autobiography - changed my career and irreparably damaged my soul".

Parche, after two trials, was judged not to be socially dangerous and sentenced to two years of probation for "serious injuries" and not for attempted murder. He spent only six months in prison.

(Unioneonline/D)