Getting That Monkey Off The Back!

Everyone's had one or two in their lives...

Tennis players alike:

Novak - winning Wimbledon (winning Olympic gold)
Nadal - winning USO
Federer - breaking Pete's slam record (catching up with that 1 week at being number 1, improving H2H against Nadal)
Murray - winning a slam
Delpo, Nalby winning Davis Cup

Did I get them right?
Can you think of any other both players or milestones/ turning points in their career past or present?

Maybe the true monkey for Rafa - much more significant than capturing a USO title - was in fact finally making it to World Number One

He spent three long years at number two (always the bridesmaid, not yet the bride..... ) before taking the ultimate spot.

Struggling to think of any similar case since the introduction of the ATP Rankings system

Nadal - winning Wimbledon 2008 I'd say was much bigger than USO, his first slam off the dirt after 2 finals.

For players like Tsonga & Soderling the failure to do something else big like win a TMS when they had been a beaten slam finalist was a monkey that they got off.

Federer - Olympic Gold, 7 Wimbledons. Paris was a mini-monkey, as I suspect may be Rome and MC - although the latter two less so now.

Djoko - winning RG

Boggo, going past the WC 1st round at Wimbledon (sorry, couldn't help myself)

Looks like, according to the OP, the more you achieve, the more monkeys you have on your back. You can add holding the 4 at once (Federer was the closest at chieving this 2 or 3 times, winning 2 slams minimum of each 4 GS, winning 6 Masters (still a possibility), Finishing year end 6 times or more like Pete, etc..etc...

So teh less you achieve, the less monkeys you have. Well done Nalbandian! Now we understand!

Tenez wrote:Looks like, according to the OP, the more you achieve, the more monkeys you have on your back. You can add holding the 4 at once (Federer was the closest at chieving this 2 or 3 times, winning 2 slams minimum of each 4 GS, winning 6 Masters (still a possibility), Finishing year end 6 times or more like Pete, etc..etc...

So teh less you achieve, the less monkeys you have. Well done Nalbandian! Now we understand!

Tenez rattled

noleisthebest wrote:

Tenez wrote:Looks like, according to the OP, the more you achieve, the more monkeys you have on your back. You can add holding the 4 at once (Federer was the closest at chieving this 2 or 3 times, winning 2 slams minimum of each 4 GS, winning 6 Masters (still a possibility), Finishing year end 6 times or more like Pete, etc..etc...

So teh less you achieve, the less monkeys you have. Well done Nalbandian! Now we understand!

Tenez rattled

Oh No! I agree with the fact that the more you achieve, the closer you get to many records and therefore the more monkeys you have on your back. It wasn't a go at you.

"Oh No! I agree with the fact that the more you achieve, the closer you get to many records and therefore the more monkeys you have on your back. It wasn't a go at you. angel "

Not sure whether Fed can really be said to have any genuine monkeys left; he has the Slam record, all 4 and so on. I think the only bad thing that could happen to him would be if Nadal got to 16/17 while Federer was still active - it would put him 2nd and he'd have to endure it in public.

I imagine he'd really like to add one or two more just to kill that off for good.

Berdych's just won his first WTF match in the 5th showing.....I suppose that's one monkey off HIS back
His smile of shock and relief at the end certainly said so

But he has yet to win a match versus a top 8 at WTF...so the monkey is still sitting on his shoulder!

So according to the list only Nadal has managed the tricky task of getting the monkey off his back...

Wasn't there a Beatles song about this one?

"Everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey" I think it goes.

hawkeye wrote:So according to the list only Nadal has managed the tricky task of getting the monkey off his back...

I think Nadal has over achieved like no other player in teh history of the game has. With all those close matches he won, he could/should have lost, it's difficult to argue against that.