On April 30,1993 During a quarter final match with magdelena maleeva in hamburg,a 38 year old fan of graf,gunter parche,ran from the middle of the crowd to the edge of the court during a break between games and plunged a boning knife between seles's shoulder blades.she let out a piercing scream and was quickly rushed to a hospital.

Parche was charged following the incident but was not jailed because he was found to be psychologically abnormal and was instead sentenced to two years' probation and psychological treatment.