Australian Open 2026 R16 Review & Quarterfinal Preview

Best of Three Podcast – Australian Open 2026 R16 Review & QF Preview
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PART 1 – WOMEN'S DRAW

Alvin Owusu (00:01.224)
And welcome to another edition of the best of three podcast. I'm Alvin that's still Tory. th we are, we're just putting a bow on the round of 16 here at the Australian open. So it's a good time for us to, for us to catch up. haven't talked in a few days. how's your, how was your, how was your tennis viewing experience going right now?

Torrey (00:15.851)
Yeah!

Torrey (00:20.897)
You know what, it's going well, Alvin. The weather outside, most of us here in the States, I'm sure many of our viewers and listeners are experiencing the same cold front that we are. So I haven't been outside the house except to walk the dogs about two or three times. It's been a great time to catch up on some football and on some tennis. I was a little torn last night between matches because I had to watch the rest of that crazy Seahawks Rams game. But it's been going well.

Alvin Owusu (00:46.744)
Yep.

Torrey (00:50.443)
Good chances to watch a lot of the tennis last night, pretty much all the matches that were left for today. I guess it's day nine. was that really, really, really like what I saw, Alvin, really like what I saw as far as everything's concerned. So this should be looking forward to this episode.

Alvin Owusu (01:07.618)
Yeah, this is, feel like when we look at, know, continually evaluate how we, how we choose to talk about tennis and when we choose to talk about tennis, Grand Slams for me personally are a little tricky because, you know, we are both avid fans and we're watching a lot of matches and it's, but this, in this particular space, our podcast is one of depth, not necessarily breadth of commentary, if you will. So with a lot of matches, it makes it tough for us to really do what I think what we do, what I think we do well, which is to

Torrey (01:30.4)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:37.39)
You know, really, really break down some individual matches. But as we close the round of 16, go into the quarterfinals, I feel like this is a really good time for us to slow down a little bit, get into some of these matchups and talk about, you know, what we've been seeing as we get, I guess, officially into the business end of this event. And with that being said, let's, let's start with the women and we'll just go from top to bottom.

Torrey (01:49.665)
Right. Right.

Torrey (01:56.713)
Bye.

Alvin Owusu (02:03.758)
We can start with the world number one arena, Sabalinka. She Had a she's playing against Eva Jovich in the quarterfinals top half of the draw and I feel like the match she played against Victoria Mboko Right up until that wiggle when she was trying to serve out the match. She was playing almost perfect tennis She she was not allowing Victoria to really get into points Victoria does an extremely job of you

Torrey (02:22.976)
Yep. Yep. I agree with that.

Alvin Owusu (02:33.58)
running around defending, absorbing pace, bringing pace off of your big ball, especially when she's in the corners. But Arena was doing a fantastic job of one, serving lights out, screaming a high percentage on the first serve, and then doing what a lot of the other women don't do is coming forward, using those spins when she's coming forward, being very aggressive off the first ball. What did you see in that match? then kind of walk me through what we're thinking about with Ms. Jovich.

Torrey (03:01.908)
Number one, and I saw this with several matches and day nine, day eight as well for that matter. You better start sharp, Alvin. You better start sharp. And I don't think Vicky planned on not starting as well. Clearly she's made it this far and has won some tour level events. Very, very good player. You just can't afford to stub your toe early in a tournament like this, especially if it's a player like this. Had she had started, right?

Alvin Owusu (03:11.715)
Yeah.

Torrey (03:31.423)
I saw something very similar against Yannick Center and Dardari. I know we're going to get to him, but it was very, if they played that level of tennis, Chilich against Ruth, there's so many players that could have started so much better and the match was very competitive and the third, obviously second for the women, it just didn't start that way. And that was the biggest thing that I saw from Vicki and Boko.

I was a little bit, forget which round it was, I'm trying to remember who Vicky played second or third round. I may have to look it up. She had a bit of a, I wanna say it was the first seed she ran into. It was second round. I'm looking at the match, but I can't place the player. Vicky has the tendency to force herself to go for bigger shots at a certain time. I think her backhand's actually very, very solid. And I her forehand, as clean as it is,

Alvin Owusu (04:26.785)
Yeah, agreed.

Torrey (04:28.381)
right, the forehand still has a little bit of a, I'm not gonna call it a technical thing, at this point it's just what she does. She's done way too well with it for me to call it a flaw. It's not like a Coco's forehand or serve. It's just not as aesthetically clean as I would like. that's, you know, that, that.

Alvin Owusu (04:48.013)
Well, what does that mean? What does that mean? Because I think I know what you mean when you say not as aesthetically clean and what the downfalls of that are. I want you to explain that.

Torrey (05:00.51)
I will expound on it with the most humility because she's doing great with it as it is. Let's put that out there. I feel like on her forehand, she doesn't quite get the extension and quite get the full arm and racket all the way through the shot. I feel like she pulls a little bit. feel like right at impact, it brings it to the inside a little bit and the ball has a little bit of sidespin. She catches it extremely clean, but it's not necessarily the cleanest of shots.

That being said, I feel like when she forces herself to go for shots that require you to, as we all say in the tennis jargon, snap off a forehand with that hard cross-court topspin angle or with just a big clean inside in, I feel like that's not a ball that she possesses as well. Her inside out ironically hits better because it's going that direction anyway. Right? So with that said,

Alvin Owusu (05:45.845)
Inside of him, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (05:53.581)
Hit it late, hit it great.

Torrey (05:58.622)
And I want to be very clear that she has a great timing. So she makes up for any, uh, I'm gonna say insufficiency, but I also see that to say anytime the matchup goes for in a foreign big, while I worry about her being late on the foreign to catch line, I'm not worried about her going through somebody with her for inside per se, unless she's given the right kind of ball. So I wasn't as worried about this matchup with, with, with arena. If any, I was kind of happy. Arena actually got some.

another tie breaking in her belt. The part of Hove of Match was the only other match that I thought that she really got pushed in. And besides that, she's pretty much playing the tournament like the number one seed should, which is pretty much being unscathed. And I don't think she's dropped a set yet, Alvin. So she's playing pretty clean ball right now, as you would expect from Marina Sabalinka.

Alvin Owusu (06:46.219)
Yeah, she hasn't dropped a set. I mean the Potipova match, feel like you saw the, mean, Anastasia played fantastic in that match. And you saw the reflection of that match in the first set of Semmelinka versus Mvoko. Like I was texting with some friends and I'm like, Arena looks so sharp because she came out of that match sharpened. You played two back to back tiebreak sets against another top 40 player. You're gonna be ready to roll.

Torrey (06:55.429)
Excellent.

Torrey (07:08.669)
100%. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (07:15.625)
She looked ready to roll. mean, she was, she was, like I said, almost perfect until that little, that little wiggle. I think she was serving it to five three in the, or maybe something like that five three in the, in the second set to close it out. But, I mean, this is typical Sabalinka, right? You, she gets better as the tournament goes on. we know what to expect. We expect her here in the fourth, in the main part of the quarterfinals. And that's where she is. I think the story about is more so the surprising part is her.

Torrey (07:31.888)
Yeah, he does.

Alvin Owusu (07:45.218)
Her opponent, Iva Jovic, which I guess if you go back to our, you know, our draw preview, it's not all that surprising. We were, we had our eyes on her much like a lot of people did. She is, she's right, it feels like she's arriving early, but actually it feels like she's right on time. She's right on time. The match that she, that she kind of popped through, she's had some,

Torrey (07:45.341)
Right. Right.

Torrey (08:05.053)
Right on time. Agree.

Alvin Owusu (08:13.739)
I mean, think I should let you speak on it because we were talking about this before we got started and how the matchup she's had have been almost perfect for her to Open up her her toolbox a little bit. So I'm gonna let you I'm gonna let you roll speak on that

Torrey (08:27.517)
Yep. Anytime you have, you know, and I've spoken at length about the rock, paper, scissors of things, the rock, the paper, the scissors, doesn't matter which one you want to call which, it's just you're one, right? And your opponent typically is the other, one of the other two. And in the analogy, right, paper tends to smother rock and rock crushes scissors. So if she is rock, she has always

in this tournament so far has had scissors a lot of these matches up until the point in time. I don't think she has faced a better paper yet and she hasn't faced a bigger rock. She will face a bigger rock here pretty soon in Arena Sabalinka. So, but I say that to say, and as I was saying, she can only play who's in front of her. So that's not her fault. But as she goes through this whole process, we just haven't, and it's weird to say she's played four matches and hasn't been

quote unquote, tested. But she hasn't been tested with different styles. Her top seed was Jasmine Paolini, who no, no, no slide on Jasmine. Jasmine may be one of the underpowered, you know, of the top eight seats. Everyone else she's played. I she played a qualifier first round and she played some other, again, as she should as a seeded player. Nothing about that. We're talking about the types of matches and the types of matchups that she's had. Her serve, album, her fore and back end, very clean. I was impressed with anything.

how routine she's made this all look when I got to think this is her first real slam and her first, certainly her first Australian to go with the steep and her first quarterfinals. So she's handled all this not only with grace and with very good composure, she has handled it with her shot selection has been sharp. She looks calm, Alvin. She looks like she deserves, like she expects to be there. Even in some of those strong rounds against Putin Seva, she did not look like she was the underdog at all. If anything, Putin Seva kept looking over like, is this for real?

And at this point, it was like, this is for real. I do this all the time. And I was very happy to see that the only question, and I put in my, and as you were asking me about some of my thoughts, as far as what I have seen, What I have seen, I like a lot. And when I see her playing hard balls down the middle, resetting with that, you that drill we used to do with the.

Alvin Owusu (10:28.523)
Yeah. Yep.

Torrey (10:47.437)
middle third and the outer third, right? You had to kind of go hard middle and then before you could take a ball back wide, one of my favorite drills, especially for high tempo and for matchup situations. Her middle third to outer third combination is so good. She knows if she's catching a ball late to go line, she knows how to go big almost always, at least up to this point in time, takes that open stance backhand hard middle first, but she doesn't get herself rammed, which I like. She knew to go line. She went back cross several times when she had the chance. Her feet.

Alvin Owusu (10:48.993)
Yep.

Torrey (11:16.782)
are just almost always in the right position. So, so good over footwork and not slapping, which I feel like at some point, I feel like, not to slide on Vicky, Vicky's, I feel, much faster player in terms of just all out court speed and coverage, but she gets there so fast that she's early sometimes, she's late sometimes, and she's kind of justing on the fly. I feel like Eva's much more surgical.

Alvin Owusu (11:19.159)
Fantastic footwork.

Torrey (11:44.155)
much more specific with her targets and what she wants to do with the ball. So therefore she controls the court a lot to a higher degree. So that's what I have seen and what I have seen I like a lot. What I haven't seen as I said, how will she do against a better version of herself? How will she do when she has to now return that serve of Irina Sablevna, which most players struggle with. That's why she's number one in the world. But how will she over the course of phases, she may come into a bit of a, she may have a bit of a buzz off, hope she doesn't, but that's, you know, let's, that's.

what we're expecting. How will she handle it the next time she plays it? How will she handle it the fourth time? How will she, where will she be a year from now? As far as I'm concerned, this has been a phenomenal breakout tournament for her. I feel like in the, the, in the sequence of a player moving forward, she's done everything you've asked her to do, right? She's, she's more than beat her seed. She's had a great run. No different than Ben Sheldon, right? His, one of his first Australians out about three or four years ago, right? Got to the quarters and had a, and had a, had won Novak Djokovic.

kind of put his nascent run on ice. But as you see, Ben's been the better player as a result of it. And while he's still catching Mr. Novak in terms of that kind of a matchup, feel like he was the recipient of a quality, I'm gonna say experience for having understood, okay, played well. Now I've got to be that good.

Alvin Owusu (13:08.3)
Okay, so I like the Ben and Novak comparison here because if you look at Eva's results over the last year, take that Jasmine-Powellini match from a couple days ago. Jasmine a little under the weather, that's fine. We'll take that, that happens. Eva did what she needed to do, but you look at the fact that Eva has played Jasmine twice this year, took a set off her, I think it was Indian Wells, but lost to Jasmine, and then lost to Jasmine again, I believe, at the US Open maybe.

but then came back in the third iteration of their little rivalry there and took her down, right? I'm gonna use that as a facsimile for, no, I'm gonna use her two matches against Rebacca this year. She played Rebacca at the Australian Open, sorry, last year. Rebacca versus Jovic Australian Open last year. Rebacca beat her 0-3, right? I think Rebacca is probably the

Torrey (13:43.992)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (14:06.06)
closest facsimile you're gonna get to arena when it comes to big serve, big ground strokes, large, like someone who's gonna dominate from the baseline. Okay, you move forward, she played Rebecca again at Roland Garros, lost to her again, but it was a little bit closer this time, I believe it was like three and three, don't quote me on that one. So now you take those two different instances in which she's played a top 10 player twice. Played Paolini twice, played Rebecca twice.

Torrey (14:14.074)
Sure. Bye.

Alvin Owusu (14:34.572)
took the learning from the Paulini matches and then was able to elevate her game enough to win the match the third time. I'm not saying that she's going to that when we're back in it is just like playing Sabalenka, but it's pretty close. So I don't think she's going to come into this match feeling like I've never seen this level before. She has seen this before. She's seen this before. Now, whether or not she'll be able to adjust to it is a different thing. Whether or not the moment she hasn't seen it in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam, right? With four matches in her legs already.

Torrey (14:51.583)
Right, this level of ball. Right. Sure, sure.

Torrey (15:02.093)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (15:04.126)
Right? So that's interesting, but I think it's the perfect litmus. The only thing, I mean, within the first four games, I think you might have mentioned this earlier, we'll know exactly where she is. And if she can handle this as a player, she's never gonna get any bigger, right? So, she might, she's pretty young, she might. But yeah, I think I'm excited for this one. I think it's gonna be fun. I feel like we were just talking about who's gonna fill the void on the American side, like.

Torrey (15:15.545)
Exactly. Exactly.

Torrey (15:20.448)
Got that right. Got that right.

Alvin Owusu (15:32.759)
Who's next, who's coming? one Eva Jovich has raised her hand and says, I'm right here, homie. I'm right here. What's up, you call? yeah. and speaking of speaking of Americans and one last thing, between Vicky Mboko and Eva Jovich, it's really cool to see these two women kind of arrive at the same time when I would say 11 months ago, they were playing in a one, two, five against each other in Rome, Georgia.

Torrey (15:37.154)
Right. Knock, knock. That's right. That's right. Exactly.

Torrey (16:00.876)
But yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (16:01.52)
And then they also play doubles together in the Australian open this year, lost a six and the third, something like that in their first or second round match. but it's again, again, it speaks to the pedigree, right? We always talk about those who can do it at the highest level in any level who perform and when, tend to move that along to the next level and to the next level, to the next level. so when you see players like

Torrey (16:23.82)
Right. Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (16:26.91)
Like you go back and look at these one, two, fives and one hundreds from last year and you see players like Jovic and you see players like Mboko. You also see some players like Maya Joint and you also see some players, the young lady who beat Bencic. I'm losing her name. No, no, no. Yeah.

Torrey (16:46.284)
Giacomo. is it not Giacomo? I know you're talking about. Baran Tukava.

Alvin Owusu (16:54.654)
Yeah, there you go. There you go. also playing in those same events. And now you see them, like they're playing each other in the semi finals and finals of these events. We can week out, we can week out. then, all of a sudden, all of a sudden the ESPN, the ESPN consumption crowd is like, who are these players? And if you've been paying attention, they they've, they've been there. They've been, they've been coming. but moving along from, from one up and coming American to one stalwart American, Coco golf is matching up with, Alina Svetlana.

Torrey (16:56.025)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (17:01.75)
Right.

Torrey (17:09.26)
Right, right, right, right.

Torrey (17:13.88)
100%.

Torrey (17:19.576)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (17:24.732)
in the next quarterfinal. It's almost like, mean, I want to take the Svitolina path here quickly. She came into this event hot, won the warmup event. She's playing solid tennis. She is, has been, I mean, not to take this direction, but obviously she's Ukrainian player. Ever since the conflict in the Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, she is,

Torrey (17:42.347)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (17:54.132)
She has overperformed against Russian players. think winning something like 85 % of her matches against Russian players. she really brings some, for her there seems to be a lot of purpose in those matchups. Took down Miria Andreeva pretty, I mean pretty solidly. That was a...

Torrey (17:56.833)
Yeah. Right. Right.

Torrey (18:04.373)
That right.

Torrey (18:11.477)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:13.772)
I'm not, are you worried about Mira by any chance? Like I feel like there seem to be certain matches where she maybe just doesn't fully show up and it looks like, oddly enough, late night matches in Grand Slams, feel like she, it's just not there for her. Maybe it's nothing, maybe it's something.

Torrey (18:15.928)
No, at all.

Torrey (18:31.384)
So this is a great segue to talk about the progressions of a breakout player. You have Ivo Jovic who is breaking out now. You have Vicky Mboko who broke out last year, right? And now you've got Amir Andreeva who broke out give or take two years ago, right? All at that give or take, right? So.

Alvin Owusu (18:39.756)
Hmm?

Torrey (18:59.083)
You have, if you look at the rocket model, right, you've got, at some point you lose the bottom, the base of that rocket ship, right? It falls back to whatever and splashed down into somewhere in the Atlantic or Pacific, what have you, right? Now you have the next stage of the rocket that starts to fire and move forward. I feel like Mira's rocket, her Titan V, has now, she's lost that bottom. She's now trying to push to the upper echelons.

And she's really trying to push through and I feel like it's time for Mira to retool. She's now going off of the thrust off of that second stage of her rocket, which unfortunately isn't as much as the first. The first was enough to get her close to, if not just past top 10 status, which is great. She's doing great. think her whole game, everything is solid. are no weaknesses. Everything can only get better. But now we're at a point where we have to continue to get better.

with our tools. Her transition game to me, Alvin, still could be not only done more and her get more confidence in it, it could be a lot. She simply doesn't take as many step ups as I would like. She doesn't flatten the ball out as much as I would like. And she doesn't convert that to coming in as much as I would like. There are players that are bigger and stronger than she is that do this better, Arena being one of the best. And there are players that counter a little better.

Alvin Owusu (20:20.715)
Mm.

Torrey (20:23.43)
with like the Mojavas of the world. And then there's players that don't come in as much and pass you like you're standing still like the Eva's, like the Eagas and the Cocos. And ironically, one of the skills that each of these players, I just mentioned, each of these players has continued to retool, right? Cocoa with her servant forehand, Eagas forehand is the best I've seen it ever. And Arena, the reigning number one, is still retooling her game and working on different

nuances and continue to do things. What Mira hasn't done, and I'm sure Conchita Martinez in the camp are gonna address this, if not, someone else will, they have not continued to retool Mira's game. She's still kind of, I'm gonna say polishing, in my opinion, she should be retooling and starting to work, okay, I know I'm this good, can I start to challenge the true top 10 and top five? And up to this point, she has not done that. That's where she's at. Am I worried about her? Absolutely not. She's got way too much time.

way too many things to continue to develop. And I feel like the fact that she's there off of the first stage of the rocket is a pretty good sign. I think we'll be talking about this for three years about how impressed we are with how much she's continued to improve much more than we will be looking at this saying. know, Mira just fell off, she didn't do anything. There's just too many things to continue to get better at physically as well as with her game and when she does not.

When she does it, I feel like she'll be in a real good place. She's in a good place now. It's just now, now is the time. Let's not wait any longer.

Alvin Owusu (21:59.508)
I understood. Looking forward into the actual quarterfinal matchup, Coco taking on Svetlina. Coco is, know, from my perspective, it's, you know, same song, different verse. Like, it's never really pretty, but it's always, but it seems always important towards W's, right? She's serving well enough, hitting the forehand well enough, moving as well as ever, fighting as hard as ever.

Torrey (22:14.453)
Yep, a little bit.

Torrey (22:19.477)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:29.001)
being as calm and poised in these weird situations as ever, and you put that recipe together and that ends up with Tokokoff and the quarterfinals of Grand Slam. Rinse, repeat. Routinely taking the long way. But yeah, here we are.

Torrey (22:34.261)
Yeah, all right.

Torrey (22:41.398)
That's right. Routinely. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, Alvin, and it's funny you mentioned that. Let's be honest, right? Cocoa, precarious, I think was the word you were looking for. She finds herself in these precarious moments a lot. And she's very good at it. That was the old fable.

Alvin Owusu (23:00.767)
Yes.

Torrey (23:06.389)
Briar Rabbit and the Briar Patch, right? please, whatever you do, don't throw me in the Briar Patch, right? That's Coco, please, whatever you do, don't run me. Please don't run me. I hate getting ran, know? Nod, nod, wink, wink. And so at the end of the day, she's perfected the Briar Patch, right? What I feel like she's done better than most, and again, I mentioned this just a few minutes ago, she is getting her all-court game back into her singles game.

Alvin Owusu (23:09.641)
Yeah, there you go.

Alvin Owusu (23:15.306)
You

Torrey (23:34.785)
And I feel like we all know how good of a player she was. was actually a pretty good doubles player and doubles champion before she became a Grand Slam champion on that side of things. So I feel like coming forward has been big for her. Her slice has only gotten better. Her feeling on the net was always good. Only starting to show more. I feel like if you're waiting for Coco Gough to step up and wow you with phenomenal this, that, and the third, you know, get the check now.

Because you're probably not going to see that, dare I say ever. In fact, that's not where it really, to me, where her mutant ability lies. Coco has a mutant ability to take whatever your best is and use it against you. She can grind, she can slap, she can slide, she can dink, she can do a lot of things that in reality can just have a way of, of, of just taking what you do well against you.

And it's funny, the Haley-Baptiste match was one that I really enjoyed watching because Haley actually out hit Coco. And for those, I know you probably saw some matches as well. Haley actually out hit and hits a bigger ball than Coco. Make no mistake. Haley's unfortunate, I'm gonna say her burden, and I've said this before on this podcast, ball speed and foot speed. Haley out hits herself, right? And at the end of the day, as big as Haley hit,

Alvin Owusu (24:42.453)
Yep, she sure did. Yep.

Torrey (25:04.447)
Coco has the speed to handle it. One of the best parts of Coco's game is not just her speed, it's the fact that her ball speed isn't as big. So when you crank up the notches a little bit on the MPH, Coco's right at home. She's not rarely out hitting herself. Other players, when they go bigger, this goes from arena down to the Haley Baptista of the world, you do so at your own peril because the bigger you go,

Coco's gonna be there, I promise you that. So that's to me is one of the things you have to really kind of understand about her game style is that she actually enjoys not only being ran, she prefers the pace. And as long as the pace is the main thing you have, you will always have a counter because her speed is the weapon, not her ball. And the fact that her ball's getting better when she gets there is a one-two punch. You don't think it'll come back. It comes back with interest and guess what?

you might be on the run from your own ball. And isn't that the whole definition, Alvin, of counterpunish? Isn't that the whole, hurt somebody when they least expect it, when they think they're the one hurting you? And that to me is what Coco does better than anybody. So is it gonna be pretty? Not necessarily. It's gonna get prettier, it's gonna get cleaner. But I feel like, you know, Venus did this a lot when she was coming up. She was so tall and so long, especially on the grass. You had Venus stretched out.

You thought you had her, she hit some of the most amazing passing shots, some of the best open stance shots. Her returns are almost better than her service. She was serving 125, know, tall, six foot two. She's just, she got so comfortable. You quit running Venus. You started at both the middle of Venus. Cause you realize, don't run Venus, please. You'll get crushed. And I think Coco is that way. The difference is Coco might be faster than Venus. And you're in a situation now where I feel like that's maybe the under.

written or the underrated part of her game is that she is more comfortable in that moment than you are. You who have spent years being an attacking player, you've never seen a speedster with the tool set that that Coco Golf has.

Alvin Owusu (27:15.06)
So I think that's an interesting way to look at this upcoming matchup though, because I want to come back to the foot speed and ball speed paradigm a little bit later when we start talking about Carlos and his path right now. But Svitolina in the majority of her career has been a counter puncher, a true counter puncher. And post childbirth and coming back onto the tour, becoming a more effective player as a counter punisher,

Torrey (27:34.323)
So.

Alvin Owusu (27:44.523)
and oftentimes being a dictator. I feel like, you know, these two ladies haven't played since like 2024 US Open, but in their last two matchups, think both in 2024, both with three sets. Now, Coco won both of those, but I feel like this matchup, I feel like right now, Svitolina is playing sharper tennis. Not that she's, yeah, she's playing sharper tennis.

Torrey (28:07.515)
I agree.

Alvin Owusu (28:12.244)
I don't know what that means going against Coco Golf. Comparatively speaking, but then I say that, also like Coco, her sharp tennis, it's kind of hard to define. If she's in the tournament, she's playing sharp enough. Like she could play this tennis all the way through and win the Grand Slam, right? yeah, but I feel like Svendelina is not a straightforward matchup. I feel like she's not going to out hit herself, but she will take her opportunities to pressure.

Torrey (28:25.315)
Yeah.

And Wednesday, for sure.

Alvin Owusu (28:42.324)
Coco and is not afraid to come forward to the net and finish off points either. this isn't the matchup that jumps off the page as much as maybe the other three do actually. But I feel like this is the one where, it's fiddly anywhere to win this match, like four and four. I actually wouldn't be all that surprised to be honest with you. But then also Coco won it seven five in the third, I wouldn't be surprised either.

Torrey (28:42.834)
Yep.

Torrey (28:51.206)
Right. Right. Right.

Torrey (28:59.922)
I'm with you on, wouldn't be surprised. Right, right. I would never, it will certainly be a tough contested match. can certainly see it going the distance with a few tiebreakers as well. I think the best thing that happened to Alanis Vidalina was watching Gael lose in the first second round and just kind of getting motivated. that was sad. She made a comment on one of the...

I don't know it was a post or if it was one of the articles about how sad it was to watch him play one of his last matches there. And I think that deep down, as sentimental as it may have been, and obviously Gale is a little older than she is, I think it helped her to realize, I'm not ready to go out yet. I think that's kind of fired her up a little bit on a personal note. I also think that she also has been the recipient of a pretty good draw for her game style.

much like like Eviovich has. And again, that there's never that that never happens on purpose. That just the luck of the draw as they say, but I think that this would be a good match for Coco. She'll be tempted to try to out hit. Alana's little enough, but I think that if she if she stays true to what she does, it's very difficult for that. I'll to create and go bigger and that tends to be what they do because you feel like you're not doing enough or the ball sitting there enough. You almost have to.

And neither player is a huge big striker off the rip. So it'll be fun to see who takes the bait, right? And then who obviously counters who in that matchup.

Alvin Owusu (30:35.274)
Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's bounce forward. JPEG versus Anisimova. Wanna take the Anisimova path first before we come back to Jessica. She is, as you kind of alluded to earlier, she's on the right trajectory in this tournament, like working her way into the event, getting better match after match after match. The first...

The first set against Wang was, that was fun tennis. Like both women serving big, playing big tennis. I'm excited to see what Wang is able to put together the rest of this year. know, China's got another really good one here. And I felt that it was even right down to the tiebreaker, just the one mini break, was a game of tug of war until one player blinked first. And...

Torrey (31:17.723)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:29.328)
Amanda really drawing on the experiences that she's built over the last, you know, 18 months as a top end player, especially in the last nine months, really showed up in that tiebreaker. And then the thing I was also most impressed with was like, okay, she wins a tight tiebreaker. I mean, seven four, I think it wasn't the breaker, no breaks to serve in that set. And then breaks weighing in the very first game of the next set. And you could kind of see.

Torrey (31:38.8)
Yup.

Torrey (31:50.427)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (31:55.08)
I saw a very small similarity in that game versus what I saw in the, I'm gonna say third set of Rude versus Shelton that finished up early this morning. Once you can kind of break their will, just a little bit, right? When you work that hard just to be down two sets to one, or work that hard to be down a set and now a break, it's like that can almost be it. That can almost be it. And that one break was all that Amanda needed to get a hold of that.

Torrey (32:04.89)
Thanks.

Torrey (32:10.852)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (32:24.073)
with that second set and then march her way through. But I've been extremely impressed with not only the way she's playing, but her composure. You've seen fewer of those outbursts from her little pieces of disappointment throughout the match where she would usually emote to her box. She seems very focused on not wasting the energy because it's pretty hot out there.

Torrey (32:34.982)
Good.

Torrey (32:46.144)
Yeah, yeah, think she was pretty vocal, especially in this one here early on. think Wang, or Wong, however I say her name, did a great job. Phenomenal player, by the way. Just a great serve, good returns. Paul Alvin, I think she's 183 centimeters. That looks, it's right at six feet or a little over him. And with my math, she's taller than Amanda, which is sneaky tall, right? And she's...

Alvin Owusu (33:03.326)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (33:09.353)
sneaky tall.

Torrey (33:12.345)
She didn't look like it until I'm like, man, this girl seems tall, but they passed by at the net once and I was like, wow, she actually taller than Amanda. Amanda's tall. Anyway, so I say that to say, what I was impressed within that match was two things. Number one, she wasn't playing her best tennis, she Amanda. And number two, she won that breaker after a flurry of errors after trying to go bigger. Wong did a nice job of not giving her too much pace.

Alvin Owusu (33:19.241)
She's six foot.

Torrey (33:40.303)
Tons of rolls, lots of good balls, just kind of almost baited her to take that shot, but without a lot of high tempo. And I'm seeing this a lot now. The players around the tour starting to realize, if you roll a little bit more early, these big hitters don't like to create pace off that high flapper. It's just a tough ball to handle. Especially balls in middle. And the players like going a little more on the rise, they're going to have ball a little early, a little more out, a little more, a little more cross than they want to be. And they're just not going to generate the same clear pace.

And we all know that, you know, Amanda's backhand is world-class, if not best in the world right now. The forehand can be a little erratic from time to time. Alvin, she clutched that tiebreaker on one of the biggest forehands of her whole match, as if to say, I'm gonna hit my ball regardless. That's what I do. Much like a Madison Keys. And she nailed the back of the line on a forehand that kind of took, and I think that gave her the, excuse me, the confidence.

of landing that ball. Wasn't like she wasn't hitting the ball. She just wasn't landing them before that. And I think that confidence of her making that shot really gave her the confidence to kind of push forward. And then you start sawing, as you said, you start to see a little chink in the armor from Jing Yu. But I'm gonna tell you, that was a good match. And you gotta watch out for this young Chinese girl, Alvin. She beat JPEG last year, Wimby. She beat Coco, think, last year as well. She's starting to notch her belt. A lot of good singles wins and has already won.

I want to say they said multiple slams already in doubles and in mixed. she is certainly, while we don't, well, we haven't heard a lot from her yet in singles. She is certainly a force to reckon with on the double side of things. So this is, this is not a fluke.

Alvin Owusu (35:24.765)
Yeah, she took out Noskovita in the round prior, which is, know, I've been very high on Linda Noskovita and I think a lot of other people will have as well. And she took it out pretty, pretty cleanly. Like it was a match she expected to win. So I'm right, I'm with you right there. Definitely one to keep an eye on. And she's 24 years old. So she's like, she's starting to, starting to come into her, her, her prime here. So this could be, you know, all, all signs pointing towards a player to watch and someone you expect to be seated.

Torrey (35:35.618)
Yep. Right.

Alvin Owusu (35:52.49)
Um, in the, in the coming slams, uh, you know, coming slams, geez, we won't have another slam till, uh, June at this point, but, um, her, so Amanda's opponent, uh, Jessica Pagula, they have met, they've met three times, but not since 2024. So I think the 2025 version of Amanda and some of us, the one that we're, is the one that we should be focusing on, not necessarily 2024. So I'm going to call this a relatively fresh matchup, but, um, JPEG hats off to her, man. She's playing.

Torrey (35:55.032)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (36:22.185)
clean tennis right now. She took down Maddie.

That's a very interesting matchup to me personally. Madison, if it's not there, it's not necessarily the prettiest thing. The distance between Maddie's A game and her B game is, it's a pretty long walk. But the high end of her A game is what we all fall in love with, right? And that's the one that won the Grand Slam last year. Madison didn't serve as well as she would have liked.

Torrey (36:45.772)
Right. 100%. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (36:59.675)
I think that was one part, both ladies struggled serving on the far end, far end from the camera side. And two, Jessica was returning lights out, lights out, forcing Maddie to go bigger and bigger on second serves as well. So I think just Jessica's ability to hold the middle of the court, move Maddie from side to side and force Maddie to go for broke a little more often than she probably wanted to.

Torrey (37:03.874)
Right, with the sun. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (37:28.583)
just kind of, I think it's more of a testament to how smart of a player Jessica is and how well she's playing right

Torrey (37:35.501)
I would add, would not only would I do I see you and I'll raise you one. Yes, on all points. I also felt like Maddie lost more than Jessica beat her. Maddie wanting to get that first strike, wanting to make up for what the serve didn't do because she didn't make enough firsts. I felt overplayed quite a bit. And Jessica, ironically, who can be a little more aggressive with her returns from time to time.

She wasn't as aggressive Alvin as she was penetrating and hit a lot of balls deep right at Maddie off that return of serve. Jessica is known to take that back and inside in herself on that due side and the backhand line or and be a little more aggressive at times. She was laser focused on every rip I had or the majority are going to go right at you. I'm going to take that tall six foot frame and I want to bundle you up. I'm going to just absolutely jam you and I thought that was a smart way to play an old coach.

that I knew had this great comment. He says, there's two ways to win. You can beat someone and you can let them lose. And I felt like she did a nice mix of both, but she let Maddie beat herself with some of those errors that Maddie's prone to make. We're just not playing as clean and as sharp. There was about, I counted, 10 points, three or four, that were just classic vintage Mads and Keys.

Big strike corner, big strike backhand, inside in. Wow, mean, you know, 100 mile an hour, 400 in the corner that you were like, yeah, it's still there. And Jessica, don't get into it. Don't get into a side to side, you know, showdown with this. You're gonna let Maddie get right back into this thing. And Maddie, and then Jessica went right back, hard metal, couple of little slices. Like, let's slow this thing down a bit, shall we? Let's get this thing back on my terms. And I see that to say, I thought it was as much of.

Jessica chose to play her as much as it was Madison being a little off and maybe not on her game. And again, a lot of that was missing some first serves that she's normally pretty good at making and feeling the pressure to have to make up for it somewhere else. So hats off to both of great match. They've been good friends and been on tour for long time together. Madison obviously shot out to the top and was at the finals of Grand Slams, darn near 10 years ago.

Torrey (39:53.303)
where Jessica's now on the tail end of her career, kind of catching up their leg, they've all, in the end they all get there, don't they? The great ones. So it was great to see and I was happy to see, if anybody had to beat her, was happy to see another American, you know, and a good friend of hers take her out, if it had to be a loss.

Alvin Owusu (40:12.732)
Yeah, and they do have the podcast together. So you've got, I think first time podcast co-hosts have met each other in a Grand Slam, right? So that's a little fun angle. A little fun angle, but yeah, it's interesting. feel like, let's imagine they finish out their careers at this particular trajectory. And I wonder whose career you take if Jesse never wins a Grand Slam. And let's say Madison never wins another one.

Torrey (40:21.024)
Right, right, right. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (40:40.104)
Madison has seen the highest of the high, but I feel like Jessica with her, the body of work of the last five years, being consistently in quarterfinals, semifinals of Grand Slams, it's even making a final there. It's an interesting one. I don't know, maybe it's a little early for that conversation, but it's definitely, what am I gonna say? Jessica Bula is just making me look dumb again. So that'll be a fun match.

Torrey (41:01.236)
Yeah. Good match, though. Good match.

Alvin Owusu (41:08.136)
That'll be a fun match, her matchup with Amanda and some of American tennis is looking pretty good right now. Okay, last matchup on the women's side here. Rebacca versus Suyatec and I feel like both women right now are just kind of quietly, minus one weird set that Iga had against Kalinskaya. Both women are just kind of quietly getting the job done, matriculating through the draw and.

Holy hell do we have a match on our hands coming up in two days time.

Torrey (41:39.308)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I don't think I don't think we're back in as has even had has even been pushed. I was trying to look back to the matches that she has she had anything closer than a six preset. I mean, from what I'm looking at, maybe I missed one, but. Well. For sure. For sure, for sure, but to my point, like not at all, I would say the same with.

Alvin Owusu (41:56.102)
No, but like who's gonna push her? She only gets pushed by like four women in the world and she hadn't played any of them yet.

Torrey (42:08.627)
Sabalenka and she's been in three tire breaks. I'm just saying, she hasn't jumped that either, but she's seen three tire breaks in short order. I'm just saying, don't think she's even, has even been pushed that much. I was wondering if the jet stream of last year would peter out, so to speak, and Rebecca would kind of come back to earth a little bit. She had a chip on her shoulder. She finished the last, in the year.

Alvin Owusu (42:15.292)
That's true

Torrey (42:35.861)
phenomenal, could not have played better tennis, especially knocking off all the players, including Iga, including Arena, all of them back to back to back, it seemed like. And it's almost like who couldn't she beat? And so I was curious to see, can she maintain that level though, going into next year? Up to this point, Alvin, she's done so. I would like to say Iga's forehand is as best as I've ever seen it. She looks confident, she's going for it. The serve is better.

But more importantly, she's returning the ball off of the crunch return back better as well. She's not, I'm going to say not smothering it like she used to and trying to take it back on the rise so quickly, which often called for another short ball, getting her on the run. She's striking the ball quite a lot, but a lot better, a lot deeper. And of course, doing the same, like she always has done with her good returns. I feel like she's improved as much as anybody.

We talk about other improvements, Coco and Arena. I think Ega's worked a lot in her game and went back to retool. And I've been really impressed with what she's done. This match will be a very good one to see where the rivalry goes forward. But it's a bigger one to me for Alana Rabakina. Is this the year she breaks out to become the number one player in the world? I think beating Ega, that would set up a huge possible final.

with what should sample and could get there as well. And to be honest, the I see that matchup with everything going on right now, I that matchup being more in Rebecca's favor, even at this early stage. And I don't want to look too far ahead, but just on the matchup. He's just a better mover for as far as big of a hitter as she is. And when you have everything else that's equal, as far as pace and serve and returns and weapons, and you add in Oh, by the way,

move better than most, you know, and I move better than all, you know, at my height and size. And I am that clean off the ground as well. That's a lot to defend.

Alvin Owusu (44:44.39)
Yeah, agreed. And you know, last year, I think the overall record's something like, it's pretty close to 500. I think maybe EGLE's up six five or down five six, not quite sure. But they played four times, five times last year? Five times last year. And EGLE won the first four of those matchups until Rebecca was able to turn the tide in Riyadh in the World Tour finals. it's...

Yeah, it's an interesting one. Like you mentioned, Rebecca and his momentum coming out of last year. I think we were both on the same page of like, this looks like top in one in the world type tennis. it a right now thing or has she hit that level that she's ready to sustain? She's had, she's showed it in this event this far, looked extremely efficient and dominant against Mertens.

Torrey (45:27.805)
Ride.

Alvin Owusu (45:40.232)
Yeah, well, think it's I mean, we're right where we want to be, not just with this particular matchup, but with the draw right now, we've got all the we've got all the major players here. Quarterfinals on out, it's going to be a shootout. There are no bad matches. There are no there are no scrubs. There are no surprises. There are professionals everywhere. mean, Jovich is a surprise, right? But it's but I feel like she this will this will be the first of many quarterfinals for her most likely. So this is this is a

This is women's tennis in a nutshell right now. It's so good. It's so good. It's so good. Let's do this. Let's take a break and then, yep, let's take a break and then we'll come back and we'll tackle the men's half of this tournament.

Torrey (46:12.553)
It is, it is, it is so good. That's not a bad match. Yep.




PART 2 – MEN'S DRAW

Alvin Owusu (00:00.962)
And we're back. All right. So in part one, we talked about the women's the women's quarterfinal matchups in part two here. We're going to cover them in. We'll start from the very top. Waste no time. Carlos Ocaraz against Alex de Menor. Carlos is, you know, his match against Tommy was what I would consider the true shift in the tournament for him, right? As he didn't play any warm up events, comes in the tournament, kind of get himself collected, acclimated.

playing decent tennis, but he was able to, as a term that's come up a lot, a phrase that's come up a lot in this last week, is he has found another gear. He has shifted gears, right? Before, I wanna talk about what shifting gears actually means, but first I wanna talk about one thing I've noticed in this Tommy Paul versus Carlos Ocaraz matchup, and get your perspective on it as well. Tommy Paul, by the numbers, is one of the most athletic players on tour. Fantastic mover.

Extremely extremely quick agile top-end speed all the stuff you're looking for in a in an athletic tennis player It goes without saying Carlos Alcaraz is is right there if not a little bit above and I always consider Tommy Paul to be somewhat of a Carlos light He does a lot of Carlos type things just not at that level and I mean there's you can take or leave that but the the thing that I noticed in that match and one of the commentators started to

to tip on it just a little bit was Tommy can move with Carlos, but Tommy's ball can't hurt Carlos. He doesn't actually hit it hard enough to ever catch Carlos out of position. And where some players might be out of position and not able to get set and then drive traffic in the way that they want to, Carlos is going to get there and he always has enough time

to deliver the amount of pace that he wants to deliver against Tommy. Where you look at the other side of that coin, Tommy's gonna be a little bit behind in most rallies there. And it'll show up by about ball six, ball seven. Like I said, he can move with Carlos. Like he can move with him. And I think it shows up a little less on clay. But when you start getting onto hardcore, he just, I'm gonna say he just doesn't hit it hard enough, but he just doesn't hit it hard enough.

Torrey (02:27.265)
Sure

Alvin Owusu (02:27.923)
most players don't, right? That's why Yannick Senna's only person giving Carlos any damn trouble these days, and Novak has to kinda close up all the corners and make Carlos play through the middle for that same reason. But, I wanna get one, what's your take on that, and then two, also, how do you define changing gears for a player?

Torrey (02:50.442)
The first one first, ball speed and foot speed. We were talking about it in the previous podcast, in the previous part of the same podcast. I'm me Paul, and I've known Tommy since he was 10, 11 years old. He's from Southern section, North Carolina, even played a few tournaments with one of my players. Shout out to my boy, Jay Chimpham. I used to be a top in 12s and 14s and whatnot, before Tommy moved to the USCA down there. And I don't if it was still Boca then or if it was Orlando. I think it was still Boca back then.

Bottom line, I've seen this young man grow up. I've seen him and his sister. They're good players, good athletes. Tommy just continues to do some nice things. I've known him for a long time. The foot speed and ball speed is a bit of an enigma. As you know, you were a fast player, you know, and could almost hit better on the run. When you were playing your best, moving you to either way.

I think you got a little bit more greedy with your forehand from time to time, but your on one backhand was pretty, was pretty solid. And it hurt when people decided to run you, they did so at their own peril. I feel like that's what Tommy has perfected. The problem is though, at a certain point you have a certain amount of ball speed that you're comfortable with when you find that groove. Tommy is a much different player than Ben, a much different player than Fritz. Fritz is on the other end of that spectrum. He's...

more power than he has speed. That might be his Achilles heel. He can out hit himself. He cannot hit you, but same time when the ball comes back, he's a step slow. And I think those are the, that's just the cards we're dealt with to some degree. And to some level we continue to play that hand that we're dealt. We were talking about with the players earlier, and we don't have to talk too much about the ladies anymore since we covered them already, but that same equivalent, you see it more in the women's game, right?

Alvin Owusu (04:16.493)
Mm.

Torrey (04:43.356)
Ladies that can flat out just move and cover the court and almost better on the run. We mentioned Cocoa Golf being the poster child of this. Tommy is that person. I think Alex de Menor is someone very similar. He's just got an Australian address versus Florida or North Carolina address. They're both very similar players. Fast, incredibly good on the move on the run. So much so that they extend the court so much that you don't really, you think you have on the run, they're just on the move. But.

When you have that ability, that extra gear you're talking about like Carlos to hurt somebody. That means, so now I'm going behind you. I can actually hurt you more than you hurt me when you ran me. And Carlos has the ability to do it on both sides. That produces a little bit of occasionally errant behavior out of Carlos and probably a little bit more of a known entity with Tommy. But at the same time, if it's dialed in,

You can't stop it because he has the same speed you have and the ability to take his ball up one more gear. Now your second point about the extra gear. The extra gear is any number of things. It can be a second weapon, sometimes even a third weapon. It can be your comfortability off the other side. It can be your ability to come forward, not just hit from the back. It can be the ability to adjust and really mask

you know, or, or, or should say shut down what you've been doing before and not let you see it again. I think Al Kharaz has a sixth gear. He might even have a seventh gear in there because he has, he's still developing a lot of the things that he can do. And they showed that a lot last year. What's gonna, he can also take pace off the ball now and then still rip the ball big and create his own pace, which I think is something that most, that it's actually a very, a very hard skill. Most players that have

the ability to hit pace through you, tend to be big hitters and they don't necessarily take pace off, they're gonna finish you. And most players that are counter punishers or counter punchers, rarely can counter punish at the highest level. They counter punish against guys that can't hit through them, right? So that they have that ability to do it only when you can't do it, you can't go through them. When they are then hit through, some of them are very comfortable, the demon ors and the Tommy Pauls.

Alvin Owusu (06:42.946)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey (07:07.373)
until they reach a player that's as fast as they are, that can also go through them. And to your point, and one of your great terms that I like, that profile of player is rare, right? Unfortunately, that's one of the players that we have come up with Carlos Alcaraz. I think Yannick is that player. I think Novak is of course the poster child for this style of player, although 38, 39 years old. He's clearly getting a little long in the tooth, but he's still.

Alvin Owusu (07:12.781)
Right, right.

Torrey (07:36.795)
can do that and has that ability very, very well. So that's the issue is it isn't so much about what the gear is. The gear is multiple things. Different players have a few more tools in that with that ability and they have that same speed. And I think that's what Tommy, even Demon kind of struggle with a little bit is not necessarily the true racket speed while on the move or not the racket speed off the standstill to just go through you.

as much as they would like, as much as they needed against these kind of players. They love the consistency of their current pace with 10 through 100, but nine through number one, that's where it starts to show up.

Alvin Owusu (08:20.256)
Yep, and then going from Tommy to Demon as Carlos will, and that's never not funny. We're looking at a very similar matchup for Carlos here, and we've talked kind of ad nauseum about, actually we covered this exact matchup at World Tour Finals, right? This is one that, this is where levels start to meet, right? Carlos is five and a lifetime against Demon, and.

Torrey (08:31.28)
For sure.

Alvin Owusu (08:48.492)
it's kind of for a reason, right? It's not by accident. It is if both players execute, rock beats scissors, right? Rock beats scissors. Like you mentioned, Carlos has found the ability, as he himself is continuing to evolve as a player, I think you called it out, specifically not always blistering that forehand. The ability to add more shape, more spin allows him to then set up.

Torrey (08:56.486)
That's right. That's right.

Alvin Owusu (09:15.532)
for let's say it's the forehand cross court with more spin, it allows him to set up even for that backhand cross or to slide over and then get the next forehand from the middle inside out or take the forehand line heavy, slide over, get the next forehand from the middle of the court and go inside in. He is not just injecting pace and speed and rock and roll all the time. He is now throwing in some jazz and throwing in some classic and really blending out the way he wants to attack a player, player by player.

Torrey (09:16.431)
Yes.

Torrey (09:40.602)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (09:45.831)
set by set, circumstance by circumstance. And I think that's the, not only within a match shifting gears, but even within one's career shifting gears, that's the kind of complexity you're starting to see Carlos work into his game. And I feel like we just talked about this in November, but like one of the reasons why Demon struggles so much with Carlos is Carlos's ability to bring that ball deep at a trajectory that

does not allow Alex to take it off of the rise and hit it cleanly. Alex wants to stand on that baseline, smack flat, not that he's not a really aggressive player, but that's just the way he wants to come through the court. wants to come through on the rise, come through flat, and you're not gonna be able to do that with that ball. Like, if Carlos hits it too hard, too deep, too much spin, it comes off a little squirrely, and then Carlos is on your ass. So what do you think Alex can do?

Torrey (10:22.341)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (10:29.689)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (10:44.79)
to make this matchup look different than the last, the most previous ones, let's it that way.

Torrey (10:52.55)
He can make this match up be a little more of an athletic contest. More drop shots, occasional. Get Carlos in being a little greedy. know, Carlos being such an athlete, He has the tendency to be a showman all the time. He likes showing you up. You almost have to give him enough bait to hurt himself.

A drop shot does that gives you the ability. Now it's going to take you being up 30 love because if you birth that point, you're going to want to have to have the cushion of the score on the right behind you. But he's going to have to not only go behind him more often, he's going to have to throw in a few droppers, convert a lot of returns, not give a lot of easy misses. Carlos will and always will be a little bit. He'll be a little erratic from time to time. And when he is you.

have to take advantage of it. He's got so many options. He's just gonna, he's gonna try something one time, just to see if he can do it. And in those moments, you've got to make Carlos pay. And that's where I feel like that's his own, I see his only shot. That's his best shot is to get Carlos greedy, go behind him, convert a few break points, turn those, turn what would be a 15 all into a love 30 more often and get Carlos to have to earn each one of those, especially to me.

when he's serving, do I find he has has because he so much confidence in the serve. He has that he has the tendency just be a little bit greedy and go for some first strikes when he shouldn't. And it'd be interesting to see if Alex can can really make him play a disciplined match because if he can do that, then he has a shot.

Alvin Owusu (12:33.802)
Yeah, I feel like with all of the variety that Carlos has at his disposal, we sometimes overlook how disciplined he actually is and can be. And I think Holger Runa mentioned it in the podcast of The Anerotic maybe a couple of weeks ago about how disciplined Carlos actually is.

Torrey (12:48.267)
is sure. Right.

Alvin Owusu (13:03.52)
how much he thinks on the court and how fast he is to make changes within matches. I think Carlos is gonna come into this match, obviously let us not forget this is, we're in Alex's house now, right? This is a home match for Alex. I imagine it's gonna be at night. It's gonna be the showtime match of the evening and that is a different scenario. Carlos doesn't come into tennis matches as not the fan favorite, right?

This will be the first time in a Grand Slam that that has happened to him. Very unique situation. And I would imagine if this match is going to get tricky, Alex is gonna actually have to do something different. Like continuing to play the best version or best brand of his own tennis is not going to work. It's not like he loses to Carlos because he just doesn't play well or.

Like he's not executing what he does just doesn't seem to hurt Carlos much. now you extrapolate that over three over five. Like I don't think they played in a grand slam before. So it's been mostly, it's been all two out of three set matches. Give Carlos more space. I don't think Alex wants more space. I he wants less space, right? some of the stuff that we talked about with that Carlos has brought into his game recently, shape, variety.

Torrey (14:21.047)
less.

Alvin Owusu (14:30.632)
I would imagine Alex would be, yeah, Alex would do himself some favors by, you know, taking some backhands high cross court to then kind of sneak over and slap beforehand or, you know, be able to ghost a little bit more because he does it so well. He just doesn't give himself those opportunities against Carlos.

Torrey (14:30.967)
More than that.

Torrey (14:48.983)
He played him pretty close, Alvin, the first set of the match in the ATP final. That first set, I thought, was as good as I've ever seen Alex play Carlos. And I think if he goes back and looks at the tape of that match and what he was doing, he just wasn't able to sustain it. A large part, Carlos, and a large part, maybe he got away from it, didn't have the same opportunities. Not sure, I didn't see all of it. What I will say is that it was as good as I've seen him look against him. And that's why I was saying, go behind him early. Hold serve, body him up, go back behind him.

Alvin Owusu (14:54.944)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey (15:18.019)
Fast players always want to get a jump on the ball. It's part of their nature. It's part of their DNA. They're going to go for that ball. They're going to kind of get a sense you're going to go there and they're going to go there and get low and try to rip that ball to go through you. So you have to keep them on his toes, keep changing direction a lot without, you know, blowing, blowing your own discipline and your own patterns as well. Sneaking in from time to time on a lot of block returns. We've seen a block return be very, very effective.

only if the guy won't come in, right? So if the server won't come in behind it, and if he's not gonna come behind it, Carlos has very good passes. At the same time, Alex has pretty good volleys. So you know, Carlos is gonna come in time or two. So I think he needs to take a little bit of, he needs to kind of give Carlos a taste of his own medicine as often as he can.

Alvin Owusu (16:02.025)
Yeah, fair enough. I will give a quick shout out to to public the public by Shocker has a YouTube special out called I think it's called the ringmaster, which is like I didn't know tennis was so poppin that Alexander public is getting Getting YouTube documentaries made about him. But here we are. Here we are. We've come we've come a long way We've come a long way or maybe I'm just not aware that he's a household name, but we'll find out but he

Torrey (16:15.177)
end.

Torrey (16:19.714)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Alvin Owusu (16:31.275)
I think in his first Grand Slam, since he's become the bublic that we've known over the last nine months or so, played up to a seed, right? He should lose this match. And I think even as much of a well-rounded player as he's become, settled himself down a little bit. I do think this is about his ceiling, right? He's not a top five player. I think Demon is a...

better all around tennis player than him right now, especially in these big moments. I would like to see a little more resistance from him in the match against Demonor, but maybe that's also part of his deficiency.

Torrey (17:09.091)
This came out slow, Yeah, but just came out slow. And I felt the same thing with Dardaria. felt the same thing about a few matches. Just didn't come out sharp. And Demon returns great. Alexander can serve huge. But if he's not serving big, I saw the same thing in Caspar Roode and Chilich. Just didn't come out as sharp as he would like. You know what mean? And sometimes, and you saw it a little bit, and to be honest, Ben dodged a bullet here this match. Same thing with him in that first set against Caspar Roode.

The big server has the burden, They, for years, they just ever lie on that serve. They know they got that big serve to lean on, but when that serve ain't there, a lot of these guys, Casper's one of them, Alex D'Emanor's one of them, they got very underrated big serves. Their serve speed's not that far off, and their returns are better. So to me, I think that's what happened with Bublik, and I think he just came in to a bit of a buzzsaw.

You know the crowd got behind him and never left and and public it took public three sets to play a good set I thought the same thing with with Dar Darian against again. It was just you could not have played He could couldn't hit a bigger ball that Dar Daria was doing it I know we'll talk about him a second But he just took him three sets to play the set that he should have started out with and I thought bullocks match was very similar He just the mat the third cell was the one he should have started with but again a lot of credit to the guy on the other side the other Alex

Alvin Owusu (18:25.909)
You

Torrey (18:36.257)
for making that happen. That was no accident.

Alvin Owusu (18:40.649)
Okay, alright, let's keep bouncing here. The next matchup, think this is the fun one. This is the fun one. We've got Zverev versus Tien, right? One-in-one lifetime. Let's even throw that out because it was a little bit different times, right? Tien beat Alex. I think it was Acapulco, beat him in straight sets. Beginning of last year, but Alex was a little sick. Okay, fast forward. I think French Open, think.

Torrey (18:46.955)
Yeah. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (19:07.837)
Alex beat TN in straight sets, but I think we would all agree that Lerner has added a couple different wrinkles to his game since then. He's evolved as a tennis player, got more three out of five set matches under his belt. He is, mean, we were from, you know, mid 140s, 120s, something like that last year to being seated at this year's event in the quarterfinals. He is carrying that American flag forward. Before we get into the matchup, I want to talk a little bit about

Torrey (19:24.353)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (19:37.708)
the importance of Michael Chang being added to Lerner TN's box. And we all know Michael Chang, the player, but I think his coaching resume is a little underrated as well as what he's actually brought into the TN camp. So what, I guess from, first from a, from a changes that you've noticed in Lerner's game, what are you, what are you seeing in this event that was missing, let's just say three months ago?

Torrey (20:08.896)
first surf speed, number one. So I think his first surf speed might be up 10 to 15 miles an hour. I mean, it's just he's going forward. He's hitting it. It was a huge hole as far as I'm concerned. wasn't a week. It wasn't, you know, underdeveloped. was he's wasn't there. He's got his I saw the next gen championship. He's starting to serve bigger. I still felt he still he still needs to but I feel he's serving better now than he was in the next gen. And that was that was November or early December. So I felt like

Alvin Owusu (20:24.555)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (20:36.767)
December, geez yes.

Torrey (20:37.981)
Right. You know what mean? So how do you, how do you get that much more serve speed two months later? You know what mean? So he's that that's been something that I've liked. I really liked the fact that he is taking, he's adding more shape, not necessarily a bigger forehand. we talked about the ball speed, foot speed thing again. I've watched him play three matches now and, or the better parts of three matches and he is hitting his step up bigger.

but he's rolling more to get more of them. And I think the learner before was all on the rise. I say all, that was his preference, a lot like De Manor, but I feel like he's managing his speed and his ball speed very, very well. If you go bigger, Alvin, the problem is you end up hitting yourself out of your own coverage area. So what ends up happening is I feel like they've made a calculated risk to say, we're gonna go bigger on these few shots.

And we're going to go a little thinner on these because we can't get away from our game, which is court coverage and being a lefty, counterpuncher. But we do want to add a little punish when we can. We do want to add that little aggressive base liner and get some freebies. We shouldn't have to always go five. Right. And so I feel like and if that's the change that Chang has made, that is a buddy. That was probably a hard learned career lesson for Michael, you know, from years ago that, hey, I was always good. I was always fast. If I could have been better.

If I could have been Grand Slam worthy after I won the French, it would have been to add these pieces in spots. The problem with Chang back in the day, and I'm old enough to remember when it all happened, the UST at the time was always big on Chang hitting a bigger, hitting a bigger ball, getting stronger, hitting the ball harder. In reality, they got him away from his own game. He was great at the speed and at the level that he was at. He started hitting the ball bigger.

Alvin, got slower. He started getting stronger, he got slower. And so I feel like they've done a great thing with Lerner to get him to add it in spots without sacrificing his identity, right? He's added some wrinkles, he's added a few areas to pop, but he's not lost who he is.

Alvin Owusu (22:53.801)
Yeah, and I think that's a really good call out here with the adding more shape. He looks like he's playing more like a lefty, right? And I say that as a left-handed player. When I sat right behind, damn near court side, watching his match against Rublev in DC last year, and I'm watching them play almost very, very similar styles. Like they're both going extremely flat, hard, corner to corner.

Torrey (23:04.403)
correct.

Torrey (23:15.465)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:23.659)
There was a little bit of missing, where's the shape, where's the leftiness of it all, right? And in his last few matches, especially his match against Mehdi, you can just see Lerner really going almost predominantly open stance from the ad side of the court, leaning heavy on that left leg and getting that traffic up and out, up and out, up and out. Anytime you could see Mehdi with a foot,

Torrey (23:30.407)
Right, right.

Torrey (23:45.727)
Bye.

Alvin Owusu (23:52.811)
into the alley, like at that point you start to see like kind of the lefty bread and butter here. You get that big hook, you slide over just a little bit, wait till you catch one in the middle of the court, and then send that traffic hard to the forehand, and that's where Lerner's able to capitalize, right? Lefty hook, lefty hook, lefty hook, lefty sting inside out. And I think that's the, you as you start to look at his evolution, not only he stinging, he's throwing his weight behind that inside out ball, like.

Torrey (24:06.579)
Yeah.

Torrey (24:20.222)
And the down the line as well. mean, to your point, and I feel like, what are gonna do? Go to his back end, go down the line? He's got a good back end too. So I agree with you. And that was exactly my point. It was almost one dimensional. And then it becomes a shootout. Now he was young enough and fast enough. He took Metty out here last year, right? But this year I thought he actually beat Metty. I thought the years before he outlasted Metty. He was just a younger.

Alvin Owusu (24:21.448)
full left side coming through.

Alvin Owusu (24:45.267)
Right, right.

Torrey (24:49.138)
fitter lefty version that took everything that he had and met he ran a gas, know, met he couldn't go through him. So many lost in that sense. I thought in this iteration, he beat him. He it was on his terms. It wasn't metty losing. It wasn't metty. He allowed many lose. He was he probably had I'll look it up soon. I'm sure he had more winners than that. But that did and it looked like metty was fit to be tied. There was he found no solutions.

to counter or to beat it. Button match.

Alvin Owusu (25:18.826)
Yeah, it was almost like I looked at it briefly. think it was like 33 winners, a 16 or something like that. It was pretty stark. someone will please fact check me in the comments there. as we look forward to that matchup with Zverev, I saw something and as I was going through my notes, I saw yours and it looks like you saw the exact same thing. if Zverev is a better, obviously he's a better, obviously, whatever, a better.

Version of Medi in game style right now, right? There's a lot of they both want to stay on the baseline they both want to kind of outlast you but Sasha has especially that match against Rundle Shown the willingness to step up and tag that forehand Against sir under low it was going it was going line with the forehand I think in this particular matchup if you're gonna see that that kind of ad court that

Torrey (25:51.292)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (26:15.11)
Adcourt exchange that both players want to get into honestly like Zarev wants take that back in cross-grab all day Learner would love to keep Alex pinned in that corner Alex is gonna have to slide around and not not necessarily hit the back end of the line I think the slide around hit that forehand inside in and put and put learner on the run going away to the do side as opposed to You you hit that backhand down the line that kind of wants a tail towards the middle if you miss it a little bit And now you're you're in a bad spot But I saw it

Torrey (26:18.417)
Right.

Torrey (26:39.569)
Yep, Right.

Alvin Owusu (26:43.868)
It looks like, judging by your notes, you saw the same thing. Alex is showing the willingness to hit that inside and forehand. I think he's gonna have to do it in spades against Lerner.

Torrey (26:54.578)
and Alvin and come to the net. He's never come to that this much. I looked at one of the stats against Wendell, 20 of 23 net points. There were tournaments he didn't get to the net 23 times, know, let alone matches. So I feel like he's hitting the foreign bigger. One of the things I noticed was I haven't seen him serve as big or look for his biggest forehand since the Dominic team match in that US Open final from some years ago. And

Alvin Owusu (27:05.214)
Yeah, that'll do it.

Torrey (27:22.493)
haven't seen it since and that's been one of my issues with Sasha is I haven't seen it and it looked like he was finally breaking out of his conservative, let me just make backhands and let you lose type of style. So I was very happy to see that. I was very happy to see him. I was disappointed to be honest with you. I made the comments as such that, know, there was no change. So therefore I was disappointed that he wasn't continuing to get better when the best in the game were getting better.

feel like he heard me, Alvin. feel like he understood. Maybe he tuned into the pod and you know what? These guys are right. I got him beforehand. So bottom line, great to see because he is one of the few players that has the ability within his profile to match up to some of the top guns because of all his weapons and his size and his serve. He just wasn't using them.

as often and as copiously as he should have. So this would be good match. I feel like if it goes to, if everything plays out like it should, this should be a good way for him to fireproof his weapons with Lerner and then have an opportunity to see what he can do against Carlos.

Alvin Owusu (28:39.238)
Yeah. And that's interesting because like he and Carlos like sneaky it's it's six to six, like of all the players like that have been able to, you know, push the top guys. aren't many, but Zverev has beaten, he's beaten Carlos in Grand Slam. Like he beat him in Australia a couple of years ago. he's beat him at world two finals a few times. Like he, every once in a while gets a wild hair and has a match like he did against Serandolo where he's, he is committed to coming forward, serving big coming forward. And he's, he is

Torrey (29:06.427)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (29:09.116)
managed to do that against Carlos a few times and has come up has come up roses and when he's more himself which is a little more of a passive player that's when he gets himself in trouble but I think that's why everyone gets so frustrated with Alex and Azair because it's there it's there it's just not there by default there being the willingness to step up and it be imposing yeah yeah you know not to not to I'm not

Torrey (29:31.291)
Right. It's not as good too. Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (29:38.558)
I'm not even that convinced that this match is that straightforward for him. think Lerner's gonna, if he's gonna beat Lerner, Lerner's gonna make him earn it. That's for sure. But it would be a very interesting matchup if both players were to move forward. Moving forward though, speaking of people who might be listening to this podcast, we're gonna talk about Center versus Shelton. One of our listeners alerted me earlier this week.

Torrey (29:47.013)
Yeah. Yeah. for sure.

Torrey (30:02.245)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (30:06.601)
Ben Shelton has his docu-series out right now and he just they just released the second episode talking about his offseason getting ready for Australia and one of our listeners listeners alerted us that our our voices were in the we're in the YouTube episode looks like you know a couple of audio clips from our podcast was used in there in the opening minute of the of that YouTube episode

Torrey (30:21.583)
Amen.

Alvin Owusu (30:34.409)
I'll link it down below. Pretty awesome, I think. Good for us, I think that's great. And it just kinda goes to show, if you keep doing what you're doing and you do it with conviction and you do it right, people are listening, people are paying attention. So I'm just gonna assume that that was Ben and Brian sitting around the dinner table listening to our podcast. And we'll just pretend that that's the case. But.

Torrey (30:54.427)
Absolutely.

Maybe, maybe killing time in the layover, but maybe not at the dinner table, but I hear you.

Alvin Owusu (31:03.857)
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe so, maybe so, maybe so. But in this, moving forward though, he does have his hands full with one Yannick center. Let's talk about Ben first, and then we'll go over to the center of things. Man does he show up in Grand Slams. He has built himself into a player that is built for the moments, big moments, built for

Torrey (31:16.549)
Dup, dup.

Alvin Owusu (31:34.248)
the demands of three out of five set tennis and also kind of built his game to be, it's not very porous at all. Like all of the holes that we've talked about over the last 12, 15, 18 months, one by one, he's shoring them up. I remember two years ago, I think it was in Miami, I was watching him play and I'm like, that backhand, need, I would just love to see that thing get a little more solid, get a check. Backhand is damn near bulletproof at this point. He can hit it for pace, he can hit it for defense, like he's,

He's taking it he's taking it in line now. Backhand looks solid, okay. You've mentioned not just being a big server, but being a spot server. He came up this morning against Rude, he came up with aces on lines, two spots when he needed it in big moments. Not just slices out wide, but fingers down the T as well on the outside. Okay, check. Returning, his returns were a point of emphasis, I would say, coming out of last year.

Torrey (32:19.972)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (32:34.023)
My man's returning fantastic so far that we've seen in this tournament. with all that being said and kind of routinely beating high level players, showing that he is just a level above them is now the time that we get a chance to turn the tide against Mr. Center.

Torrey (32:56.473)
be an interesting match. First and foremost, both things can be the same at the same time, which is Ben improving massively and center still being better. So this, don't want to, I don't want to confuse those two. Number two, the one thing I think you left out or let me take was don't forget about his transition game, Albert. He is returning. He's getting to the net.

Alvin Owusu (33:04.605)
Absolutely.

Alvin Owusu (33:10.79)
Yeah.

Torrey (33:25.869)
way more than he ever used to. He's no longer just a serve bot. He's coming forward. He's finishing things off. He's serving smarter, not just serving better. He's coming as the, think there's a Ford commercial that said, whoever said work harder and not work smarter weren't, they didn't know you could do both at the same time. You know what I mean? That's, he's serving better, harder, and he's serving smarter. He's throwing in some kicks. He's getting to the net. He's seeing.

Alvin Owusu (33:48.573)
Mmm.

Torrey (33:53.911)
The guys that were blocking his big cannon back and he's getting to the net. I think he got to the net Alvin. I want to say, I got to go back and look at the stats. He got net at least 15 times off his serve alone. Right. And it was great to see. I that that's, that's the first part. I want to kind of piggyback on what you said earlier about all of his improvements and he will only continue to do so. Do I think that he is at a point where he will beat center? That is a hundred percent on centers side of things.

If this match is played outdoors, I say 100 % he's got a chance. I think we realized the other day, we realized last year against Hogaruna, the other day against Sudirri, if it's outdoors, Yannick Center is vulnerable. If it is indoors, climate controlled and everything controlled, there may not be a better player with pace off returns and off the ground than Yannick Center.

It's really a tale of two Yaniks. If Yanik is outside, eat elements, they said it's gonna get 44 degrees Celsius. So I think that's like gotta be a close to the mid to high 120s. That's heat, Alvin. And that's not even including heat index or what the court temp is. But that said, there is a huge chance. I think he has just as good a chance as Paziri did.

because of what he brings to the table, let alone he has a bigger serve. If it goes indoors or if it starts indoors, to me, that's a lot of pressure on Ben because Yannick just doesn't miss returns and all things being equal. I mean, it looked like Yannick stepped out of a hyperbaric chamber. I mean, I swear to God, he looked like whoever that was a few days ago. Yeah, we took him in, we went to the lab and we flushed every toxin out and we

we replaced it with better Nanites. You know what I mean? And he looked like he was on fire, much like he did a little bit last year after he had that scare with Holger Una and came out in the next two of the matches and went on to win the tournament. So he has this level where he tends to pick it up a little bit in midstream, right when you think he's the most vulnerable. He did it at Wimbledon when he almost lost to Dimitrov and then came out and probably played his best match in the final.

Torrey (36:19.544)
Routine Carlos, know, and that max there. you know, bottom line, to me, it's going to depend on the, on the inside or outside slash, you know, I'm controlled or in the heat. think one of the announcers said it was a difference of 15 to 20 degrees difference when that, when, they closed the roof there. And at you're talking about, you're talking about 95 and rising with on-court temps to probably 110, 115 to 75 to 80 degrees. Buddy center.

Alvin Owusu (36:38.525)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (36:49.065)
And Senator got through that obviously when his body turned cool down. Look at how he did the other day when it was normal. So to me, if they close that roof, that's gonna be the difference maker. Is that right there? Not bad, unfortunately.

Alvin Owusu (37:01.312)
Yep, yep, I'm with you. That'll be a tricky, not tricky, that'll be an interesting, it'll be interesting to see how the organizers handle the Tuesday schedule or whatever two days is from now because you've also got Novak versus Musetti. So one of them is going to be the night match on Rod Laver. The other one will be the day match on Laver. I'm guessing, that's tough. You got your back, you got your.

Torrey (37:14.774)
Right.

Torrey (37:21.259)
Right.

Right.

Alvin Owusu (37:29.417)
two time defending champion versus your 10 time champion. Who's getting the upper hand in that one? I'm gonna guess it's Novak is gonna be playing the night match, that's my guess. I, you know, if it's hot enough, they will start with the roof closed in the daytime. So we'll see, that's not nothing.

Torrey (37:31.575)
Right.

Torrey (37:49.749)
Heat rule will come into factor on that. Right.

Alvin Owusu (37:53.969)
Absolutely, it's absolutely. All right. Let's speaking of mr. Mr. Novak. Let's let's swing into that matchup Novak versus Musetti Jesus talk about talk about near misses literally so no fact goes from almost impaling a ball kid and Being kicked out of Australia again the tournament this time not the not the country. I Mean, we're talking inches away, right? to from ending his own tournament to

Torrey (37:58.773)
Yeah.

Torrey (38:14.956)
Right.

Torrey (38:19.127)
So.

Alvin Owusu (38:24.136)
uh, being giving the gift of all gifts by getting a walk over, uh, with Jakub Mincek pulling out. So you go back to Novak, his biggest issue of the last year is getting to the latter ends of these tournaments and not having enough in the tank to, to, battle both, um, center and Alcara as back to back or either or, um, his body not being there. Okay. So now we go from, we go from almost being out of tournament to being 72 hours of rest.

before taking on Lorenzo Mazzetti with hopefully three matches to play for him. So a fortunate turn of events, but here we are. Here we are. So that obviously helps Novak. I think this is probably a good chance to talk about what we've seen from your favorite player in mind, Lorenzo Mazzetti, over the last three days. He's he's.

Torrey (38:53.825)
Right.

Torrey (39:16.375)
That's right. Lorenzo played a great.

Torrey (39:22.821)
played a great match against Taylor.

Alvin Owusu (39:22.92)
Yeah, no, he's, he played a great match. He played a great match against Taylor. Yeah, fantastic match against Taylor. And I think one of the most exciting men's matches of the tournament so far was against Mahatch. Both guys really let it out, you know, honestly opened the tank for four and a half sets. then, and then Lorenzo just showed he had a little more experience in the backend of closing tough matches than Tomas did. And that was, that was just enough to get him through, but.

Torrey (39:32.641)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (39:48.533)
And then going into the match against Taylor, I think you watched it pretty intently. What did you see? Obviously Taylor was a little bit hampered, but then outside of that, what else did you see from Lorenzo that makes you hopeful for his chances against Novak?

Torrey (40:02.838)
He is a smart player. He sliced more. He dropped shot it early. I don't even think he was so much thinking that he was hampered because it wasn't really clear until about mid early in the second that he was getting some treatment on the side. Could be an ad poll could be something, but clearly he was going to make this be an athletic contest knowing that, you know, Taylor's speed isn't his, isn't his weapon, right? There were some points.

Much like the Matty Keys match with JPEG, when Taylor got the forehand that he wanted and got the serve out wide, it was curtains. I mean, it's still, he had one of the biggest forehands on the tour, period. And he can slap that forward with the best of them. It was a great thing to see Lorenzo not let him get many of them. I mean, there were so many floaty deep balls. Unfortunately for Taylor, he wasn't coming in. I felt like...

Lorenzo just played a smarter match knowing the match up, especially coming off of my hatch match where he was okay going with pace. Like I don't mind it. But he was like, no, with you though, you got a little bit bigger pace to me on certain sides. I'm going to see if you can, you're not going to come forward. You don't, you don't come forward that often. So I know you're going to stay back. So let's just see, let's just see how long we can go. And the longer the point goes, it's actually better for me. I'm in, I'm in a little better shape than you are.

Alvin Owusu (41:17.009)
Torrey (41:24.405)
And I think the commentators even made the comment about when they closed the roof on him the other day, he actually wanted to stay in the sun. He felt it was a better matchup for him to be in the elements. So you don't do that in 110, 120 degree heat unless you really feel good about your conditioning. You know what I mean? When you're negotiating to keep the roof open, right? So, and that's where I felt like in this match here, he knew the longer it went, it was gonna be a death of a thousand cuts for Taylor and it was gonna be better for him.

So the longer the points went the better for him and unfortunately Taylor was dinged up and so we won't know the true situation. It really wasn't as an upset today, obviously because of Taylor's health, but I look forward to seeing that match on a day when Taylor's 100%. And obviously Taylor holds the edge slightly on the grass court with most everybody except for the top two. And it was good to see Lorenzo start to make hardcore be.

be as solid as he did and the way he did it showed it was on purpose. It was very intentional what he was trying to do in his tactics. I like seeing that. Alvin, Lorenzo Mocetti is quietly, quietly just earning a place in my head, in my heart. just watched a few of his interviews. I've seen him comment on being the young father and he's got two little boys now.

could not be more impressed with the type of person. I'm not gonna go full on. Some of the commentators will talk about how graceful and smooth, you know, I think the best one-hander is retiring this year and his name is one status Los Blavrinka. And I think his one-hander was just one of the most, you could put his backhand in marble and it'll be up there with the.

with all the best from Da Vinci and to Michelangelo's. just, it's not his backhand or some of this. It's the person, it's the confidence. You know I like about Moussaidi? I like how he's in a moment. He does this little thing where he kind of nods right before a point, whether he's doing it to his box or to himself. He has so much composure that he realizes that, okay,

Torrey (43:43.38)
I am going to do everything I can to win this point. And I'm myself in the mindset and I'm gonna be calm about it. I feel like a couple of years ago, he was a little irrational, a little erratic. He is as mature of a 23 year old as I've seen. And Alvin, I didn't realize he was that young. He's still a young guy. I thought he was 27, 28. He is 23. So I say that to say, Alvin, I take everything I've said about Lorenzo back.

I still stand by my comment that a four or five in the world should look a certain way, should be a certain level of player. It's not his fault that he was four or five in the world. I give him that. I also didn't realize how young he was and how much more he could still improve. So I want to make sure I go on wax and say Lorenzo Musetti, you the man.

Alvin Owusu (44:39.139)
No notes. Best of three. We're out.

Torrey (44:40.798)
Ha ha ha.