Australian Open 2026 Recap: What We Learned About Alcaraz, Rybakina, Zverev & the Tours

=== PART 1 (Approx. 46 minutes) ===

Alvin Owusu (00:00.718)
And welcome to the best three podcasts and the 2026 Australian open recap edition. Th I feel like we've, uh, we've come so far. We've covered so much ground. We've lost so much sleep. Uh, we've watched so many matches, but right now is a really good time to kind of like take a zoom out and take a, what, what is it thousand foot view that you, 10, yeah, 10 30, whatever it is, depending on the plane, I guess.

Torrey Hawkins (00:08.791)
Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (00:14.263)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (00:26.307)
10,000 yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (00:30.49)
a macro view of the tournament, what we learned, what we didn't learn, who impressed us, what our thoughts were coming out of the event. I'll, I'll, I'll put it to you to start with. Did we learn anything different about the current state of I'll start with the women's tour and then we can get to the men's, to the men's store, right? We've had, we've had about five months in between majors here, roughly five months.

Torrey Hawkins (00:58.967)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:00.526)
relatively same players, new year, first slam, women's tour, what is different than we thought three, four weeks ago?

Torrey Hawkins (01:10.691)
It's a great question and clearly my answer is it depends, right? It depends on who you are, right? I was...

Torrey Hawkins (01:23.245)
I looked at the first two seats, right? And it was obviously, know, Svejnatec got upset there, you know, kind of coming into the coming, Litton tournament, but didn't necessarily play, a bad tournament per se, a bad tournament for Herseady, but not necessarily a bad tournament. I look at our three and four seed in Cocoa Golf and Amanda Anisimova, who didn't have the tournament that I would have expected.

Alvin Owusu (01:25.133)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:51.753)
especially having such solid years as before. And I felt like Amanda never really got going. mean, as much as she won matches, I felt like she got through matches. I kept thinking her next match would be cleaner, maybe stronger, would be better, and that happens. That happens. It just so happened to happen this time at the Australian. I felt like Cocoa plays some really good tennis at times, the Mahova match in particular. like, you know, and then to have the unfortunate situation in the last match, felt like...

you know, maybe maybe maybe we're reading too much into the serve in the forehand. Maybe she just got beat and maybe the pressure and the frustration all that not playing her best or at least not necessarily playing the way that she would have liked to have played. Maybe is what the difference was. So the three four to me is where I thought things kind of kind of tapered off a little bit quicker than I would have thought. I did expect Rebecca to go the distance and get to the final. I thought

I would give her the 51 to 49 % edge on hard court against Sabalenka. So that one didn't necessarily show me anything I didn't know. We saw that in the WTA fire, did we? We saw that same kind of prowess from Rebekah, especially on a, you know, let's face it, when the roof's darn near partially closed, it's pretty much indoor tennis and Rebekah shows up to play there. So I didn't see that much difference on the top four, say for maybe a round or two early exit from the three and four seats.

Alvin Owusu (03:09.56)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (03:19.124)
I was impressed with Elena Svidlina from the standpoint of still having some gas in the tank. I was impressed with a other players I'll get into later, but I was impressed that that next round is still pushing the way that they can, at least she as the representative of that next tier, especially at her age and at a level I thought she played some phenomenal tennis the whole tournament. And, you know, do that learning thing. Yeah, don't count them out. You know what mean?

Was it a little bit tough to see Mira go out that early? Sure, but I also was that impressed with Ivo Jovovich coming through and reaching the quarter. So there's so many good things I saw from this tournament, Alvin. Did the main, to answer your question, did the main thing, keeping the main thing the main thing for Taylor Townsend, I thought yes, it pretty much went true to form. No real surprises.

maybe just a couple of speed bumps and hiccups, you know, and that's to be expected in any Grand Slam.

Alvin Owusu (04:21.865)
Okay, that's fair. That's fair. From my standpoint, I don't think I learned anything new about the women's game, right? We left the year coming out of WTA Tour Finals with a pretty clear, like, these are the women that can compete for Grand Slams. We...

coming out of that indoor season, we were somewhat convinced that Elena Rabakina, if healthy, if all things were pointing her direction from a health and off court standpoint, that she had the tools and the demeanor and the weapons to be one of those players. We were just a little concerned about, know, could she put it together in a grand slam, which she hasn't done in three years. Question asked, question answered, right? And so, right.

Torrey Hawkins (05:12.065)
Exclamation point.

Alvin Owusu (05:15.487)
Right, if we want to take the assumption that Madison's run last year, we'll take it for what it was, I don't think anyone necessarily considers her to be a perennial Grand Slam threat. And I say that kind of with hesitance because on hardcore with that serve and that forehand, it can happen, it can happen. Always a threat, always a threat. But if you wanna...

Torrey Hawkins (05:36.49)
Always a threat, always a threat. AJ Brown, always old.

Alvin Owusu (05:42.798)
Right, yeah, if you wanna keep her in that group or you wanna say maybe we're back in her replace or let's just keep her in there for the sake of the argument and now we just have another player who is officially entered. Obviously, everyone has known what Rebecca can do, what her top end looks like and she seems happy, she seems healthy, so now add another one. Now we've got six, seven, I don't know, eight women that on any given, maybe nine, any given.

Fortnite can be the one hoisting the trophy at the end of it all. So if I have any questions, it's like if you go into a Grand Slam, we talk about Irina Savalinka's dominance, right? She's like the most dominant player since, we feel like the most dominant player since Irina. If the question is Irina or the field going into another Grand Slam, you've gotta kinda pick the field, right?

Torrey Hawkins (06:37.601)
Yeah, 100%, 100%. And I think I wanna put a, I wanna clarify one and then I wanna substantiate another. Number one, Arena's consistency is still unquestioned. She's still getting to the darn finals, right? And the field is in a bit of a revolving door. Well, which one of us is gonna get there this time?

Alvin Owusu (06:55.777)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (06:59.499)
Hmm?

Torrey Hawkins (07:07.171)
Unfortunately, even Eva, Ega who, Sviatnatec, who has the most slams of the rest of the field. I think she's got one or two more than Sabalenka yet still, right? It's pretty close. Five and six maybe. You've got six. Right, something like that. Right. Right, so my point, I'm pretty sure she has six. So my point is that's a tough thing to say with a girl that has six slams, right? At the same time, those six haven't.

Alvin Owusu (07:18.829)
think she has five and six or six and four. Seven weeks after, I think she's got, I think she has six.

Torrey Hawkins (07:34.866)
Only one of those have come in the last year, year and a half. And so it's important to understand that her reign of dominance may be coming, know, maybe we're on the other side of it now that these other players are coming through. And the other point I wanted to substantiate was.

Rebacchina went missing. It wasn't that she isn't there, didn't have the goods, had the issue with the coach and all the riffraff and rigmarole that came to. She did win a slam a few years ago and showed everybody she could beat the best of the best and much like, you know, in a better way, even than Anissa Mova, who's one of my personal faves, who also took a bit of sabbatical, right? So we're talking about players that have come back the top form. And I feel like that's what Rebacchina did toward the end of last year.

Alvin Owusu (08:14.721)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (08:21.514)
kept it going with the win here down there in Melbourne. And I think that's important to say because unlike an Ivo Jovic or another player that's coming up or Vicky Mboko who's coming up, these players were there, they were pretty good before. Once they've come back or now healthy and so on, they've simply returned. And I think to your point, the stats don't change, the ranking don't change, the eight, nine top playing, you know, girls, you know, I feel like all these women came from

Wonder Woman's Island, you know what mean? They're all just tall, you know what I mean? I mean, they're just, they are just some elite level athletes and ball strikers, man. It's very rare to see this many six foot tall women that have this kind of mobility, that kind of body control, grace and feel. They're very few to no holes. mean, and all of them, I mean, to a person are tall.

Alvin Owusu (08:52.653)
Seriously.

Torrey Hawkins (09:16.883)
You know, and just there's not much that either of them are giving up on the tail of the tape. So I wanted to substantiate that fact because it's easy to kind of say, Rebecca is now the new, this is in the third year. And while she is, this is not her first rodeo. You know what I mean? And I just think those are two points to kind of, to really include. And it just means, you know, for the WTA tour, man, you guys are in a very, very lucky and a very good spot right now because there is so much parody in the women's game.

And as you said, the fact that any of them have a legitimate shot at holding up the trophy, buddy, that just shows how tough the WTA Tour is.

Alvin Owusu (09:52.194)
Yeah, and just kind of continue on that. Like as we talk about, I think the way that we talk about the stack, or stack rankings, or the ladder of these women, like we have to look at two things at the same time, right? There are the rankings.

Rank kings with a K, right? And those are mathematically driven, right? And you need to be consistent throughout the year with some big results to move yourself up the rankings and collect points and all that stuff, right? Rankings make seedings, seedings make draws, and then draws make for what you play out and see in the tournaments. But I think there's also the ability for us who are talking about these players to...

take that for what it may be, use our kind of coach's eye here in this particular use case and say, what is our own personal like power ranking of sorts of these players? if you tell me, such and such is ranked nine in the world right now, but I feel like the player who's ranked 20 in the world right now, who is ranked 20 for a myriad of reasons, I feel like if they were to play against each other, I would pick the player ranked 20 over the player ranked nine. Something to that effect.

Not the exercise that we're undertaking right now, but I think just maybe laying the groundwork for how we might or might not talk about these players throughout the course of the year is not necessarily tied to the rankings per se. Per se. Players on the men's side then, did you learn anything new? Are we any wiser than we were three weeks ago?

Torrey Hawkins (11:15.806)
I with that. I agree with that.

Torrey Hawkins (11:32.008)
We have to give special props to, in my opinion, three players. And in ascending order, got to give a shout out to Elliott Spazeri, had a great match, had a great run at the Australian. You have to give it up to, and we all know that that five setter could have gone either way, right? Yadik was literally on the ropes, literally on

I mean, just a roof not closing and a few more minutes out in that heat. That match could have gone the other way. Wooden could have showed up. I get it. That's why he's Yannick Center and a Grand Slam champion. He did not. However, shout out to Elliott Spazeri and his coaching team and for all that he did. I the stat I read, I'm not sure if he's 85 now or he's 85 before the tournament, but my gut tells me he's recently inside the

So heck of a job for him to get to get through this whole thing. Number two, got to give it up to learner 10 who, you know, at 20 years old is reaching quarter finals of Grand Slams. We cannot forget that the man just capped off the next gen tournament four months ago, Alvin, maybe three months ago. Right. And so we got to appreciate what he's doing to move the needle while we're kind of, we're kind of quick to put a few extra roses on the, you know,

Alvin Owusu (12:48.436)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (12:58.59)
in the box of Yael Fonseca, which I think are in some ways deserve potential. My main man Lerner is just winning some matches. And so I think it's important to appreciate what he has done and what and his continued rise. He has not really stopped. He picked up where he left off and, you know, in his case, fortunate enough to get another one, Danil Medvedev in the draw one more time because that was almost a special situation. And Alvin, have to give a special

Alvin Owusu (13:22.218)
Hehehe

Torrey Hawkins (13:28.551)
Just a special shout out. I mentioned something to it before the tournament started. 38th final at 38 years old, our elder statesman, our reigning GOAT, our still playing GOAT, who showed that he was still relevant. And while he could not have maintained the esteem of that first set, he played some phenomenal tennis in that first set and let everybody know that he is still the GOAT.

And while he lost the match, think he proved his that he can still play with the best of them. He proved that against Yannick and that fight in that match before it wasn't wasn't five sets. I can't remember if it was five or four sets, but bottom line it right. But bottom line play and gave us a very, very entertaining tournament as well as some quality tennis pretty much every match. Albeit helped out with the walk over and some other things. That's an extra days. We get all that, but just had to

Alvin Owusu (14:09.396)
Yannick was five, yeah, that was five.

Torrey Hawkins (14:25.341)
call those two things out. On your actual question, did we learn anything? We learned how far ahead Arlos is than most of the field. I still think Yannick is right there at a very close number two. He just ran into a former number one for 15 years in Novak, but I feel like he, the two of them, I will give him his props right now. He in particular are so far ahead of almost everyone else that

It will take a while for the tour to catch up. I feel like we're entering in that phase of 0567, or I think it was 04, it might've been 04, 0506 Fed, where he won nine of 12, I think, in that range or something like that. I feel like we're heading into that kind of space, and there's only a few people that can really knock him off. And that's tough. That's the stuff sledding now for the tour. I like it for him, and that's all to me. He's deserved it. He earns it.

Alvin Owusu (15:10.645)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (15:24.732)
He's earned it. Hats off to Juan Carlos and all the things he put into him from the start. Hats off to the new coaching staff, Mr. Lopez and all the rest of those guys that are continuing to carry the torch with him. But this young man is coming to his own as one of the greats in the game already. And I feel like what we learned was how high his upside is. What we're gonna continue to learn is how special these matches are and how good he really is.

problem is what we didn't learn was he's pretty darn good. And the rest of the tour has to catch up to him. And if he's the Greyhound, if he's the rabbit in the Greyhound race, he's already lapped the Greyhounds. You know what I mean? So it's a tough thing. didn't know, I don't think, how far ahead the rabbit was. We found out this time.

Alvin Owusu (16:17.078)
I'll push back on the back end of that just a little bit because I think one thing that I did learn, which is almost in direct contradiction to Carlos's distance away from the field, I learned a lot about Alexander Zverev and I usually don't give Alex a lot of.

props and I usually maybe undersell his like what he's done as a player throughout his career, what he's achieved. I mean, we obviously look at the goose egg and the the grand slam total, right? But short of that, he's he's done a lot. He's won Masters offense. He's won year and year in championships. He's finaled a few grand slams and. You don't get much closer than he got to Carlos in the semifinals without winning. And I and I say that because.

Not only has he beaten Carlos in Grand Slams, he has also pushed Carlos to the depths in the latter ends of Grand Slam matches. So in their last, I think it's their last three matchups, right? In Grand Slam, it's two, one Carlos, but the two matches that Carlos has won have both been in five sets. And one was in the semis and one was in the finals. Finals of Roland Garros two years ago, that had been 2024. And then,

And then obviously the semi-finals I'll show you in this year. I think Carlos does have these special tools and a belief, honestly, and that's almost just enough to get him through these, these precor, I always lose that, lose that word this week. These hairy situations, if you will, against, against Alexander. But that doesn't mean that, that Sasha's not close. He's barely close.

Torrey Hawkins (17:53.722)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (18:00.997)
Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:02.272)
He's three in the world. mean, three, four in the world, whenever you want to, wherever he is on a given week, but he has consistently made semi-finals, finals of Grand Slams over the last three years. I can't take that away from him. I might not be the biggest, right, I might not be the biggest, like, yeah, I might not be the biggest Ferris fan, but I don't think that even, that doesn't matter. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, the results speak for themselves and...

Torrey Hawkins (18:12.32)
for sure. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (18:17.86)
Nope, and played a heck of a match. But it's very fan.

Alvin Owusu (18:29.58)
He's not going out and playing Carlos. If you want to make any decadent of statement about where the line is of players where Carlos is like, I'll put Carlos and Janek and maybe those just two and then Novak, depending on what event we're at, have distanced themselves from the field, look at what Carlos did against Demonor and then look at what he did against Zverev. And I think that's the...

Torrey Hawkins (18:47.77)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (18:56.654)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (18:57.036)
That's actually a better representation of like where the gap is. It's probably around like it's one through three and then Fritz or Zverev depending on the draw will be there and then we'll see. Like and then we'll see but no one else is getting close. If Fritz is on grass, that's about it.

Torrey Hawkins (19:18.212)
No one else is getting close. Alvin, said 10 earlier, sorry, three slam finals. And I'm thinking that what I'm looking at, and obviously, of course, he's played a long time, 40 singles finals that he's been in, winning 24 of them. So Alvin, your points both said, and he had a phenomenal match against Carlos, and Carlos too was on the ropes, right? Let's not forget that. I'm not buying the medical issue.

Nod, nod, wink, wink, I'm not buying that for a second. And that was unfortunate. At the same time, he got the lucky end of that break against Novak, you know what I mean, and the pullout last year. So that part, it is what it is. It wasn't notable to me because he's done it before. Otherwise, was it a great match? Am I?

Alvin Owusu (19:48.971)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (20:15.573)
Am I happy to see him? Did he play better? 100%. Did he continue to fight and show some things that he hadn't shown before? 100%. Was it probably one of his best iterations yet? 100%. Unfortunately, it was the same bottom line at the end of the day. And that's not for nothing, but it is to say, unfortunately for the stats of what it is, it was the same. So I agree with you. I've liked Sasha since it came out.

talked at length about his brother, Misha, and I've known the Zverev family for some years from back in the day. I get it. I just want to make sure, you know, if we're talking about notables and what we learned, right, I'm going to stick with that to say who showed, who gave me something different that they hadn't given me before. But I couldn't, I'd put an asterisk on that with Mr. Zverev because he's shown me that before. And quite frankly, I still feel

sun, moon, and stars are just right. He will still get his lamp. I really feel that. I think he could still get that done. He just better hurry. Because he may not have a lot of time left.

Alvin Owusu (21:24.563)
Yeah, yeah, I'm starting to come around. I'm starting to come around on the idea of Alexander's Vera of the Grand Slam Champion. Like I feel like it, when we talk about Novak needing a little bit of luck, the right opportunity, and we damn near had it in this tournament, right? I think we have to say the same thing for Alexander's Vera, like in the same breath. Like he needs, he just needs a little bit of luck.

Torrey Hawkins (21:42.745)
We did. We did.

Torrey Hawkins (21:47.545)
100%. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (21:53.418)
He needs, yeah, he just needs a little bit of luck. And maybe it's a, I don't want to go as far as saying it's, he needs to play someone, he needs to go through an entire Grand Slam and not play either Carlos or Center. I think his best path is.

Torrey Hawkins (22:03.299)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:09.917)
If he only had to play one of them, avoiding Sinner and playing Carlos. And this was the opportunity. Yes, he's not, yeah, the matchup with Sinner is horrible. But the matchup with Carlos is a little more favorable in the fact that he does have, I think he has a better chance. It's almost a coin toss between the two of them. Talking about it at this point, 7-6 in favor of Carlos. I mean, he's done it a few times. He has done it.

Torrey Hawkins (22:14.755)
He's the much better matchup there, isn't he? Right.

Torrey Hawkins (22:39.128)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:40.814)
So yeah, I wouldn't be shocked if he pulled one out even this year. Like I honestly, wouldn't be shocked at all. He's right there.

Torrey Hawkins (22:48.61)
No, as would I, as would I, think he's right there. And no one's more deserving, right? The guy's been absolutely putting in work, you know, for a long time. And lest we forget, still battling diabetes in the same time. I mean, it's not like this guy's ever made any excuse about it. He's never, it's almost, the people don't even fully understand that. It's James Blake made a great comment and said, he's like, he's playing two matches at the same time. You know what I mean?

Alvin Owusu (23:05.131)
Sure, sure.

Torrey Hawkins (23:15.288)
And I thought that was a nice way of saying it. He's still battling. For him, it's always been for him, but I just think it's important that the listeners and viewers out there understand that that's no small feat. For anybody else, that would have been reason and an excuse as to why you didn't come through. He's doing it all the way to three in the world. I like what that says about him, this character. And because of that, knowing how precious energy is, knowing how precious the length of the match can change his

everything went from his diet to his medication. you know, when Lerner stole that breaker from him in the second, you know what I mean? With that running slap forehand, had to be, Alex had to be like, God, I think it's, oh, now I've got to play another set. I mean, you could almost see inside and now he destroyed him in that third set. But just saying, like the fact that he had to go that much deeper in the tank.

Alvin Owusu (23:54.123)
You

Alvin Owusu (24:03.819)
I'm gonna play another set. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (24:11.736)
And again, I didn't mind him blowing up about that situation against Carlos. He wasn't so much pissed at Carlos for taking it, he was pissed at the officials for allowing it. You know what I mean? Because he's like, hey man, I got knees. I'm hurting, you know what mean? I'm fatigued, you know what I mean? What is this? I thought there was no medical attention for cramping. And again, I think that ATB's gotta step in on that, both tours. And I understand the medical side.

Alvin Owusu (24:23.615)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (24:41.749)
you can't say on a percent for sure. You can't ever know the difference between cramping and an injury. And the player can always say, I have medical injury. So there's always gonna be some gray until they have some AI infallible robot that will know the difference, right? That ghost will give you a full body scan on the court side. There's nothing that we'll never know. And so they're gonna have to do something like that. And I would even say on the flip side of that.

Alvin Owusu (24:48.489)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (25:08.344)
know, Zverev's gonna have to manage that himself a little better. you know, hey, as they say, win the Rome, you know, pull some of the same antics and do your thing because you can't complain about it talk about it. It's legal. You know what I mean? So embrace it.

Alvin Owusu (25:22.591)
Well, okay, but at that point, there's kind of two things there, right? So one, when that happened, mid-second set, whatever, Alex had a chance to win the set, he didn't. I he was serving for it, he didn't. He also won the next two sets, let us not forget that he did win sets three and four. So the net-net of it was nothing, actually, it was nothing.

Torrey Hawkins (25:36.375)
You still dead?

Torrey Hawkins (25:41.889)
Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (25:51.507)
And on the other side of that coin, know, tennis is a very personal game, right? If you go watch a tennis match, can see the players, you can hear the players. If you go to a smaller tournament or an outside court, you're right there, right? know, everything they're going through, their expressions are as clear as day. It's a very intimate environment. It is, it is. I don't, while the idea is to get everything

Torrey Hawkins (26:12.491)
Yeah. Very visceral. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (26:21.34)
is everything we can get right, let's get it as right as possible, right? To the effects of things that are binary, like line calls, right? If we can be perfect with line calls, let's be perfect with line calls, that's fine. But there are some things about tennis that are unwritten, require a little je ne sais quoi, if you will, as we look forward to the next Grand Slam. I like a little bit of my tennis-specific gamesmanship.

Torrey Hawkins (26:43.638)
hahahaha

Alvin Owusu (26:49.502)
I remember once you told me a story about Donald Young way back in the day at US Open with the shoe tying incidents, right? Like just like, and you know, just buying time. It's just the little, there are little things about tennis that even at the professional level, if you've played this sport a long time, like the pros are just sometimes just taller juniors. It's sometimes it's kind of the same nonsense. And I find that to be extremely like refreshing and comforting. Like they're just.

Torrey Hawkins (26:53.836)
man. Never forget it. Never forget it.

Torrey Hawkins (27:09.845)
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. I agree with that. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (27:18.334)
bigger versions of me. We're all playing the same sport. They're just playing at a higher level.

Torrey Hawkins (27:23.062)
The one that comes to mind still puts a smile on my face because it's so Novak. Early days, Novak is in the first round playing Gaelle. First round of US Open back in the day. That's got to be like 04, maybe 05. I can't remember. was back then. Maybe one of the viewers and listeners can pull it up and remind me. But Novak is a...

Let's just say he's got a little heat sickness, know what I'm saying? But gets up, pukes on the court and looks around. You know the crew at US Open, you know, they're contracted labor and the brothers there from the Queens are like, I ain't touching that. know, takes about, probably about five, 10 minutes for the brothers to realize who's gonna even go get the mop bucket. You know what I mean? Meanwhile, Novak puts the towel over his head like.

Alvin Owusu (28:11.026)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (28:21.749)
10 minutes at least. may have 20, but to your point, it's gotta be cleaned up. You know what I mean? And he wins the fifth, sixth one. He's back in the locker room. And in my best Novak impersonation, he says, this was not conditioning. This was tactics.

Alvin Owusu (28:23.942)
Right, exactly. Exactly.

It's gotta dry. The spot's gotta dry.

Torrey Hawkins (28:49.073)
And every time I hear tactics, my mind goes right back to him almost pounding his chest in the locker room talking about how smart, how savvy he was that he puked on the court to buy himself some time. So I'm with you on that, Alvin. I really am. It's because to have the awareness, right, to be able to know puke. If I ever puke, I won't puke on the court because I need time.

And the fact that he did it to perfection. And again, that was early, that was beta. That was beta testing Novak. mean, so we already know, multiple slams later, 38 finals later, buddy, this guy's a tried and true veteran. So I'm with you and I like it. You know what I mean? I like it. That's one of those stories that to your point, it brings that little extra something and those that deal in the depths of gamesmanship.

Alvin Owusu (29:18.502)
On the court. On the court.

Torrey Hawkins (29:47.538)
You know, they, all you can do is respect it. You know, all you can do is respect it. Cause you, you know, it's, you gotta play with it. Let me ask you a question.

Alvin Owusu (29:51.988)
Yep. All you can do is respect it. Yep. Sure thing.

Torrey Hawkins (30:02.452)
Did you think that Carlos, only one slam, but was Carlos affected, not affected? Did he look at any times more vulnerable or not? Minus on Carlos Ferrer in the box. number one, I have four.

Alvin Owusu (30:25.182)
You have four, okay, that was question number one. I think if, okay, all right, I think no. I mean, we are on the record, you can go back and listen to our podcast when the announcement in December about them parting ways when it occurred and I was steadfast at that point in time. Like, Carlos still has to hit the tennis ball, right? And there is a certain point where you get what you need to get from a certain coach.

Torrey Hawkins (30:27.11)
I have five, I have four more.

Alvin Owusu (30:54.546)
and then you can move on, right? Carlos is not a child. don't, we can't mistake the smiling and the free spirited for a lack of maturity. He's, my man is Juan, prior to this Grand Slam, six Grand Slams. Like Juan Carlos Ferrer didn't hit a single ball in those Grand Slams, right? Like yes, he was obviously very instrumental in taking him from a junior player to a professional player, professional player.

Torrey Hawkins (31:14.579)
If.

Alvin Owusu (31:22.014)
to a high performing six time Grand Slam champion before they parted ways. But it's not like Carlos wasn't there also for each one of those steps, which mean, and I say that to say, he got those experiences. He picked up the, we might've gone back to the first French Open he won or the first Wimbledon that he won and he's like, what do I do? Okay, great, Juan Carlos is there for him, as someone who's been there. But now, guess who else has been there?

Torrey Hawkins (31:30.61)
All right.

Alvin Owusu (31:51.85)
Carlos Sacaraz has also been there. He's been there. So at a certain point, at a certain point he can and should rely on himself to be able to continue to evolve as a player. Federer did not have the same coach for his entire career. Novak has changed coaches many times. Rafa, yes he did go from, he did have Uncle Tony for a long time, but then he switched coaches to Moya, right? Like it's very...

Torrey Hawkins (31:51.902)
Yep. Yep. Yep. All for sure. For sure.

Alvin Owusu (32:19.901)
they were never going to be together his entire career. And so at some point they're going to split. from what I saw in this tournament, I mean, he got through two very tricky situations of five setter against Varev in which, you know, he got through it. So either the coaching doesn't matter or his, the information he was receiving from Lopez and team were just fine. And then he also gets through

Torrey Hawkins (32:46.558)
Yeah, for sure.

Alvin Owusu (32:48.425)
the greatest player of all time coming out guns a blazing and say, Mollopa is giving specific information about needing to, needing to back up on the server a little bit and take, take a little, take a little different approach in the second set. and then, you know, then we get three sets on the trot. So I don't know what type of experiment we're going to run to figure out if there is a, if there is something missing with one call, let's not being there. I had to imagine it's probably.

off court if anything, like someone's in your life for very long time, they're not in your life anymore, that's an interpersonal relationship. But from a tennis standpoint, no notes, he won the Grand Slam with him five months ago, he won a Grand Slam without him a week ago, like okay. Keep it moving, yeah, as long as Carlos is still the one hitting forehands and backhands and running around like a banshee, then I'm gonna say you might as well take the bag, you coach him.

Torrey Hawkins (33:25.156)
Agree.

Torrey Hawkins (33:31.11)
Yeah. Keep it moving. Keep it moving. I'm with you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (33:44.316)
Sure. Bye. Hey.

Alvin Owusu (33:44.849)
I'll coach him. Someone, he'll be fine.

Torrey Hawkins (33:47.827)
I'm available. I'm available. Carlos, if you're hearing us on the part, I'm available. I told Roger that one time getting out of the cars at the US Open one year, I told him I could work him in my schedule. I saw that he was without a coach. He got a little chuckle. He got a little chuckle out of that. Ega's next slam. Specifically, what's her best chance in the slams coming up for the rest of this year?

Alvin Owusu (34:01.619)
Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (34:17.02)
beyond tech.

Alvin Owusu (34:17.033)
The rest of this year, I feel like the women's game right now is, it really is like, how is the draw gonna break? We were very chalky in this event, right? Top seeds advancing, I think we got the top four seeds on the women's side in the semifinals, or at least most of them into maybe the top eight in the quarters. Yeah, if I'm off by a little bit, it's close, but.

Torrey Hawkins (34:36.818)
Yeah, quarters, I think.

Alvin Owusu (34:43.921)
With that being the case, it really is a game of matchups, right? If Ega finds herself against some of the bigger hitters, and Ega's tricky, because she's been losing to all of these women lately. think we might have covered that in our last pod, if not the one before that. She's been losing to a lot of these ladies lately. Hints to question? Fair.

Torrey Hawkins (35:04.54)
Hence the question. What's her next one? What's her next best chance at one? And you know where that question is going, dot, dot, dot.

Alvin Owusu (35:15.785)
I'm gonna say

Alvin Owusu (35:20.583)
Her next best chance is at the French Open. She's won it four times. She's still my favorite going into the very next slam because she's won it four times. And if we're gonna say Irina Savalinka is the one who's always there, well she's won it zero times. So I'm gonna put my money on the one who's won it four times and then it's the field after that. What about you? What do you think her next slam chance is?

Torrey Hawkins (35:49.361)
And I hate to put it like that. don't think she needs too much help in the draw.

for the next foreseeable three to eight slams. I can't dare go, I can't go past next week, let alone next month. So that the next eight is a hundred percent projection of what I know today. But I think there is too many. There's just too many. What did they call those girls in the Wonder Woman, the Valkyrie or whatever? There's just too many of them right now that all.

can beat her that she has to get through. And she needs help from several of them to get the up to beat each other before she plays with them in the semis and gets through the final. I thought that and that's what Amanda helped her do in Wimbledon. I think that's why she ended up winning the one in Wimbledon this past year. I don't know if she will be as lucky going forward now that Rebecca has had her resurgence. It means only gonna get tougher. And with that now being the matchup, there's gonna be.

more chances of her matching up to one of them in the quarters earlier, let alone the semi and of course the final. I don't like her chances and I love her as a player. think she's going, in my opinion, she's going through, gonna go through that phase where Martina Hingis went through where she was beating everybody until one of the top players that we now know as the ghosts of the game stepped up and rose to that occasion. So that's where I'm at. Do I count her out?

Definitely not. Will she beat somebody on their bad day? 100%. I just think the road to get there got a lot harder. And if she drops off anywhere, the French in particular, the mathematical likelihood of her reaching those players in the round of 16 or in the borders is exponentially higher. I'm concerned for her because I feel like she's now fighting uphill a lot more often.

Torrey Hawkins (37:58.161)
That's the question. That's why I was asking you. Do I think they're friends with their best chance? do. Just because she's won it. Do I think that that didn't help her last year? You know what mean? And I don't see her situation having improved with the recent arrival. You gotta keep in mind, Alvin, did not play well this tournament, and Amanda is not beating her. Now, maybe not on clay, but just saying, she...

Alvin Owusu (38:02.565)
Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (38:24.88)
She redeemed herself from that Wimbledon match in the US Open a handful of weeks later. So to me, even that and Amanda went out in the, what round of 16 in the quarters? I Amanda, and so that was a fairly early exit for her. So I'm saying that to say, you still got the other players to deal with. I'm not pronouncing a death sentence by any means. I'm just saying as far as winning another slam, it just got harder. That's all I'm saying. And that was why I was asking the question. Push back, I know you wanna push back, go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (38:51.721)
Yeah, Yeah, because especially when we start to look at, I think we're looking at kind of two things at one time when we're talking about Ega. One is we look at her heights, right? She was one in the world for a very long time, was winning, consistently winning Grand Slams, consistently winning the same Grand Slam, right? Three years in a row she won the French Open. And...

Torrey Hawkins (39:11.045)
long term.

Alvin Owusu (39:19.965)
but now she has fallen all the way back to number two in the world. She's two in the world, right? And that has primarily due to the coming of age of the woman that we say is the closest comp to Serena Williams that we've seen in Women's Tennis since Serena left. Okay, so I think when we lay out the landscape here of Women's Tennis, and then with that being the case, last year on balance was her best.

Torrey Hawkins (39:24.634)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (39:38.895)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (39:48.497)
year performance wise across the Grand Slams. She had two semis and she won one. So I'm like, at that point I'm like, what more do you want from her? She performed, she was the second best performer on aggregate at the Grand Slams last year behind Irina and that's why she finished the year number two. The thing is I don't consider any of these women to be without flaws. I don't expect all of the top eight to make the quarterfinals every single time.

So I still think, mean, she won Wimbledon, was two slams ago. She got some help and won a slam. But she also was in the semis of the two sams prior. Everyone can receive help.

Torrey Hawkins (40:20.983)
She'll get some help.

Yeah, she can receive help. Yeah, she will receive help, she will get help. I just don't think it will be as easy. And I don't think it'll, I don't think it's as likely. That's all I'm saying. I said before, we'll move on. Here's my next question. Of the next gen players.

I'm talking about it from Blocks to Jodhar, Lerner to Fonseca. I'm including that group, because that's really his peer group. Which of them gets top 10 first?

Alvin Owusu (41:06.504)
top 10 first. It'll probably be Lerner. I mean, probably for two reasons. One is pretty simple, he's the closest to top 10 right now. And being top 10 is a function of consistency over the course of the year. Lerner, I would imagine his weakest surface is probably gonna be grass. He'll play like two grass court events in a year. Outside of that, I think he will

Lerner will draw the line. Lerner is like a version of, of demon or in that he's going to get to a point where there's going to be a line of people below him that he will not lose to and a lot of people above him that he will not be able to beat. And do I think that line is at 15 in the world? No, it's probably I've seen him beat 15 in the world. He beat, he's beaten Ruvlev before. So I think it's a little higher than that. Um, and he's extremely young. So as you're, you know,

Torrey Hawkins (42:02.318)
20.

Alvin Owusu (42:04.1)
In the next year that I think it's the next year he's going to become top 10. Maybe from the standpoint of he has no points to defend like very little points to defend. Maybe maybe maybe it's this year. Is it in the next two years? Yeah, because I think he's got. I think he's got the balance to to perform on all surfaces over the course of the year, which means he's got to bust the quarterfinal or two in Grand Slams. Yeah, it could happen.

I think it's him. Fonseca... I'm a little concerned about his...

Torrey Hawkins (42:35.118)
Do you have a number two?

Alvin Owusu (42:42.502)
Yeah, it's, without looking at the rankings by age right now.

I mean, Fonseca is the easy answer. think the popular answer is Fonseca first. And you didn't ask me who's gonna reach the highest. I'm gonna put Lerner's gonna be the first one to crack top 10. Fonseca will do it after him. But I don't expect that to be extremely quick. Still some growing to do there. Get that all together.

Torrey Hawkins (43:11.318)
I would love to be as bullish as you are on Yao. I haven't seen some of the progress I would have liked to have seen. not mistaken Spazeri beat him in this tournament. And if I'm not mistaken, was not seen. I know he's been hurt and he's been dinged up a little bit. I have been more impressed with Jodar and with Blox than I have been with him in as far as what I've seen. It's not to say that I don't think he'll be as good.

Alvin Owusu (43:12.007)
What say you?

Torrey Hawkins (43:40.94)
I just haven't seen enough yet for me to think that he's on a rocket. I he is on a, you know, he's certainly on a intercontinental ballistic missile. I will say that, but I don't, but I don't think he's on the Titan five. And I say that to say, think Lerner is a 100 % meteoric rise. I think in my opinion, I think it'll be blocks or, or Jordan before.

I just feel like what I'm seeing from them and their game styles and what they're able to do, they're just a tiny, with a little bit of seasoning, I could see them having a breakout a tad sooner. I feel like he showed me in the match, the two that I've seen him lose, that he's very easily beaten if you do a couple of simple things well. It's to say that it's easy to do, but it's if you have that package, that profile.

And unfortunately about 50 of the guys in the top 7,500 have that profile. And that is a solid backhand to count of the inside out, right? And decent returns. And I think a lot of your guys have that kind of a situation. And so when I see that, I'm thinking to myself, he relies a lot of a red lining off the forehand. I feel like if that's the case, that's gonna be something that he's gonna run into. And I haven't seen him come up with the goods to game style two, game style three.

to be able to match it. I love the kid. think he's great. He's a breath of fresh air. But much like I thought we put a little bit of a little bit too much extra sauce on Pesci Paracard, but he was going to be this, that and the third. And he's now, unfortunately, Pesci is kind of, know, kind of of stalled out a little bit. But the reason he stalled out out of him is he only has one big part of his game. The other parts of his game are still very underdeveloped. Until you get those things developed, he's still going to be a big bit of a serve bot.

you a pretty good serve bot at 6'8", but he still just has the serve. as far as I'm concerned, you start getting to the top hundred, top 50, top 30, let's have good returns. And it's just a matter of, you you're gonna have to have more than that if you're trying to go the distance. So that's your three out of five. As I say, hence my question.


=== PART 2 (Approx. 28 minutes) ===

Alvin Owusu (00:00.558)
Yeah, I take all your criticism, or not criticism, evaluations of Yao Fonseca's current game, but I will also submit to you his current age, he's 19. And so when you look at two players, Lerner Tien, age 20, Fonseca, age 19, we've already established that, okay, Lerner has the skills.

He knows how to play the game. He is very connected to the ball, right? That is what he's going to be able to ride and then he will add on some firepower on top of that and then that combination will probably be where he, when he hits his peak. He's also a very extremely short player. But when you look at Fonseca, you cannot deny the raw ability that's there, the...

the high end that's there. And my man is already top 40 in the world with, with, you know, one year to, yeah, with, with, like every player, like every player has got flaws, right? But not every player has got tools like that. And so, I mean, he's won, he won ATP 500 event this year. That's a nice check mark. He's halved his ranking over the last year. Another check mark.

Torrey (01:05.406)
with flaws, one year under his belt with flaws. Totally understand.

Alvin Owusu (01:27.038)
I mean, I've said it, others have said it and I still believe it. That kid will win a grand slam one day. that is, that is, that is big man's tennis right there. That's big boy tennis. It's going to take a little while to, it's like a, it's like a, the NBA, right? The players that take the longest to develop are the, are the centers, right? But you, every knee, every team is a center, right? So you're going to wait, you're going wait a little bit. that is, that is grand slam winning, potential.

Torrey (01:48.019)
Yep, yep, yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:56.62)
Right there.

Torrey (01:58.301)
I'll be front row with you when it happens. I think it'd be great. I'm only telling you there's there's still some work to be done. I feel there's work to be done with players like Cocoa Golf and others. So, you know, I feel that and she's already got two slams in her to her credit. I totally get what you're saying again. I'm just playing devil's advocate right now. Here's another question that's right up your alley in your former TV role. What did Australia get right? What did the

Alvin Owusu (02:21.313)
Okay.

Torrey (02:27.32)
advertising, did the what did the tournament itself, the broadcasting, what did ESPN get right with AO this year?

Alvin Owusu (02:40.142)
Okay, so ESPN made a very, I think a very obvious choice to move off of some of their elder talent that had been broadcasting on ESPN for a very long time. The likes of Cliff Drysdale, the likes of Mary Carillo, the likes of Pam Shriver, right? And moved into a different space, getting more out of their A plus talent in Malika Andrews, getting more of

We've mentioned Chris Eubanks kind of front and center there. I think that's even Cocoa Van De Wey, who I'm not as big a fan of, her broadcasting anyways. But I think that's a strong move to continue to grow with the game. The game moves forward. You're the way you cover. It has to move forward. I think...

They did a fantastic job with their graphics package. I'm always a little iffy about the way that people use data to express what's happening in tennis. It's kind of hard to use data in the moment during a tennis match because data is aggregate. Tennis is a game of, know, you can lose more points than your opponent and still win the match. Like sometimes pretty handily. it's, data in tennis is a little tricky, I think letting the, especially like when they look at

Torrey (03:46.589)
Yeah.

Torrey (03:55.868)
Yeah. Right.

Alvin Owusu (04:03.479)
when you look at the movement of serve, they're measuring heights of kick serves and widths and tails and stuff like that. I think that is really, that's really informative to the viewer to like really let them know like, okay, I understand what six feet is. I take my height and you're telling me when that ball crosses the baseline, it's above my head. That's a problem. I can then deduce that that's some serious action, right? So I think that's cool. The camera angles that they're able to get

Torrey (04:18.779)
Right, let's do that.

Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (04:33.407)
at the Australian Opener, when they go for that behind the baseline that's right about four feet, maybe four, maybe five feet high, that's the best angle in sports, It's amazing. You see this trajectory, you see how fast the players are moving, when you get that close, it's like, whew, that's a different, I will submit to anyone listening. Next time you watch a tennis match, I would like you to try to count, even use it if you have an iPhone player, iPhone, whatever.

Torrey (04:43.784)
As you can truly see the trajectory, you know, of the ball.

Alvin Owusu (05:02.097)
use the stopwatch function and time, like use the lap function, time the distance, like the amount of seconds between contact of shots. You will start to see very quickly how fast that game is moving. Yeah, you'll be tired just hitting the lap button frequently.

Torrey (05:12.049)
Right.

Torrey (05:23.271)
Your finger isn't as fast as it should be. Your finger will not, I don't think, I've tried it before, because I've had a lot of kids when I did strength conditioning. It doesn't measure anything under a second that well. So you'll be stuck at 1.1, 1.08, maybe. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll get a 0.9, a 0.8 every one. If you have just lightning touch, but you don't realize how fast it takes to even on that lap function. Alvin, you're exactly right. And that high tempo,

Some of the balls those guys hit in the first set with Novak and Carlos were smacking the ball back and forth. There were sometimes, there were six shots. There were six dots in under six seconds. I mean, back and forth, full length ground strokes. I mean, that's high tempo, buddy. I I agree with you 100%. And the graphic with a little bit of flames behind it, well, I thought it was a really nice touch. I thought that was great, a little cheesy, but you know what I liked about it was,

It helped you to see the trajectory of the ball, but also not the ball movement as high as it was, also to appreciate, because I think if I'm not mistaken, it had various colors on it based off of pace. So I like that part too, which is pretty cool. So I agree with you. I thought they did a phenomenal job and it was neat to see. And I know you from your background in TV and sports would have appreciated the finer parts of it that most of them.

viewers and listeners, know me myself don't always pick up on.

Alvin Owusu (06:54.401)
Yeah, they're there. I mean, ESPN has a lot of experience here. There are some things that I I'll always continue to wish for. We've had these conversations and in places that I've worked before, like specifically, I'm going to get really into the into the weeds here. If you are watching ESPN, this is for our American viewers, ESPN on a what I call a connected device, right? A device that you plug into your television that uses the Internet to bring you to bring you content. When you go into the ESPN app.

And if anyone from ESPN is watching, listening, please hear me out on this one. Put the scores of the matches into the match tiles. The match tile is that little rectangular thing that says, you know, Djokovic versus Moussaidi or whatever. But put the score in there. They can do it. I know they can do it because you'll see another sport right next to it with three to two in this particular hockey match or whatever. It's like.

Just do it. Just do it. It bothers me that I have to go into a match just to see what the score is and I can't navigate in the way that I want to. That's my own personal complaint. Kind of tangentially related, Craig Tiley, he's doing some things, moving around, likely leaving tennis Australia and taking the big job at the USCA.

had some comments, outgoing comments on his way out, I think it was maybe the last day, the second to last day. One note mentioning that he thinks that from the quarterfinals on, the women could or should be playing best of five. And that is, it's an interesting comment. Grand Slams can do whatever they want. He did mention that they'd have to be in lockstep with the players, so that's it.

Torrey (08:38.085)
Three out of five, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (08:51.425)
be a lot of conversations for it to happen. But he said they could do it as soon as 2027. Like they have the authority to change whatever they want. It's their tournament. I did see Jessica Bluel was like, I don't want to play best out of five. That's ridiculous. The men should play best out of three. We don't need more. We don't need more tennis. So, I submit to you, a question to you is where do you land on specifically that? Do you think the women should be playing best out of five quarterfinals on out?

Torrey (08:58.853)
Right. Right.

Torrey (09:23.365)
We've had this conversation before. You know I'm a big fan of three out of five.

The only reason I would say no is the history that they haven't played. If I am judging the question off of wanting more tennis, if I am judging the question of, and I don't even touch the equal thing, that point is well said and irrelevant right now. We're talking about

We're talking about length of badge. We're talking about quality.

I would tell you that I love three out of five. I'm gonna tell you I love three out of five at the slams. I would tell you the only thing I would have against Craig's comment is why not do that for the entire tournament? Why do it from the quarters on? Just saying. I think that there's a, either you're gonna do it, you're gonna do it. I get JPEG's point, I get all the ladies' points and they have a long year. It's not just the slander playing for them. It's the entire year. It's a lot of tennis.

I just feel that it's unfortunately part of the men's game. it's part of the men's game. It has not been a part of the women's game. It's never been part of women's game. It's like all of a sudden now we're gonna have, you know, girl softball versus baseball go 13 innings now instead of nine, right? It's because, right? Because the World Series can do whatever they want. Let's just say the college World Series, for example.

Torrey (10:59.877)
And so to me, I don't know, it hits me a different way of history wise. Do I like it? Sure. Do I think it's a nice way of kind of throwing out there for conversation, testing waters? Of course I do. Do I like 305? 100%. I'm not so sure it would gain the players.

So therefore, man, that ever happens. So it's a moot point. Would I like to see it? Sure. But I like to see it for the whole tournament. Absolutely. But I don't want it on the grounds of anything other than I want more tennis. You know, and again, only at the slams. So, you know, I would also, I would also, I would also submit to you, I think the ATP WTA tour should write in some rules regarding this is related.

Alvin Owusu (11:35.349)
Yeah.

Torrey (11:46.28)
on winning a tournament that exempt you, dare I say, should let you out almost mandatory for the betterment of the rest of the year to be off the next tournament. Don't pull out. You're already out. You won the tournament. And so we're putting somebody else in your place. So we are doing this for the longevity of the game. And when you win a tournament,

You get whatever bonus points and pass through for the next tournament so that you can stay healthy. Otherwise you're almost dinging the player for winning and the player getting final for winning. And you're, and you're in a sense penalizing them to cause they got to get their next tournament in that win should give them a pass the next and the finalist so that they can rest with the body to be good for the rest of the year. And that's just something I want to put out there. I feel like the tournaments really lose some lose something.

Last year's French really hurt me out. And I saw so many players pull out. I to say it was something stupid. was like 14 players were out. And I think within the first three or four days, there was something crazy. Like I want to say 18 of the 32 Cs were out by the first few days. Before the quarter, the round of 16 even happened. I mean, they were already gone. Pulled out, hurt, retired, dinged up, know, crazy match, walkovers. And I'm like, guys, this is May. This is May. This is not.

This is not September. This is not October. We're early in the year. Ain't even half over. And I think that had a result, direct result of how long the season was, how long the clay court season was and whatever ATP tried to do with that whole extra bonus pool garbage, which is again, players fault for taking the money. I just feel like there's a two different, there's a different ATP tour for the top two. There's a different ATP tour for the top 12. And there's a different ATP tour for

let's just say 25 to 100, right? And I think, and then we all know that the outside of the top hundred ain't even getting in yet. So there's a different tour for them. So I feel like there needs to be the rules need to be flexible enough that we incorporate everyone with whatever caveats are needed for the top because of the space that they're carrying the game.

Alvin Owusu (14:03.404)
I'm gonna, okay, well put. I'm gonna go back to the best out of fives that part. How, yeah, the player schedules and management. That's gonna have to be another episode for me. That's a long one and I think it deserves, I think it deserves some space and some thought. But on the best of five part, I start to just kind of break it down with a series of questions. It's like, okay.

When you say the women should pick up best out of five sets for the quarterfinals through the finals and say, okay, well why? Why are we doing it? And it's not because of equal prize money. I doubt that's the argument. If it's for more tennis, that's fine. Okay, then the next question is to your point, like why not the entire tournament? If we're, and now we're adding in a different variable here, now it's.

Torrey (14:53.538)
I'm sorry.

Alvin Owusu (14:56.908)
I think once you go from two out of three to three out of five, it's not about execution, it's almost about attrition, right? It's a whole different situation. that being the case though, for me, just my preference, I don't want it. And I don't want it, I don't need it, I don't need it for the women's game to be better. I think the women's game is great. I like that the margins are thin. Like you would imagine with thinner margins, you get more,

Torrey (15:01.357)
Got that right.

Alvin Owusu (15:26.28)
more variety in results like, nope, best players at the top. They all exist within these thin margins and they all find the way, the best ones find a way to rise to the top. So I don't need more. I don't need more. You could make the argument, I would be more, if we're change something, then for the betterment, just like what you talking about for player health, the betterment would be to move the three out of five from the mens down to two out of three.

Torrey (15:30.914)
Yup.

Torrey (15:41.867)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (15:56.095)
Now, I don't think we should do that either because we've come too far. The game is too established and the way that we talk about records within this sport, it is almost the backbone of comparison that we use to draw between generations, right? I understand other leagues move things, right? The NBA likes to move the three-point line around, right? They're messing around, but they never change the length of the game.

Torrey (16:01.27)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (16:11.156)
set.

Alvin Owusu (16:24.118)
It's one of the reasons they're not moving off 82 seasons anytime soon. We have these records and once they're established and your game is established, it's almost like you're stuck with them. So within tennis.

Torrey (16:33.537)
unless you have a really good reason for changing.

Alvin Owusu (16:37.8)
I mean, I want to be, I wish someone would present me with, give me two good reasons why we would change men from three out of five and then tell me how we're going to handle numbers like 24 grand slams or youngest to win the career grand slam. The word grand slam now means something different, right? It's a different event. Yeah, in the open era, in the open era, it has been this way.

Torrey (16:53.685)
Yeah, right. Right.

percent. We'll call it a minor slam. Yeah. I agree. I agree.

Alvin Owusu (17:07.008)
So unfortunately, I think we're stuck with this way.

Torrey (17:09.045)
This is, and we're stuck in a good place. Let's not, you know, let's certainly not fool ourselves. I'm gonna skip over my fourth question and go to my fifth, because the segue is just too good.

Alvin Owusu (17:19.83)
Okay.

Torrey (17:24.299)
There used to be a time when Australia was on clay. There used to be a time when the Australian was played on rebound ace, a more of a rubberized kind of recycled tire kind of material that played very differently in the very different elements. Hard court, suck in quotes, it was a little more mercurial depending on the weather, depending on the conditions and it made the tournament itself play very differently. It seems, I think it's Plexipede now or whatever it's called.

And I think it plays a lot more like hardcore.

question, does there need to be more variety within the slams? Roger was quoted recently as saying there used to be more difference between all the slams.

Even Wimbledon is playing more like a hard court in the second week nowadays, and it aids a certain style of player. He was quoted as saying something to the effect of it was fun. was challenging to get the feel of that tournament quickly and do it quicker than the opponents. And I thought that was a neat point for Roger, who's only recently retired from the game, to speak to he feels like the game, or at least what I took from the comment was.

he feels like the game is more homogenized now. And it's pretty much hard court, hard court, not quite hard court on the clay to hard court the second week to back to hard court and with the exception of the extremely long clay court season, right? It seemed as if the slams have almost become a bit more homogenized. My question, what say you?

Alvin Owusu (19:14.828)
have they become homogenized? I would say if they have.

Torrey (19:21.362)
And let me tweak the question. You may not agree with it, however not. Does the...

or need another variation-ish for one of the slams? Is Australia too close to US? I think it's a better question. Do you think it needs to be changed? And that was the segue we were going to. The change.

Alvin Owusu (19:47.402)
Yeah, yeah, think if you, okay, I think it's well documented that the clay has gotten faster, the grass has gotten slower, the hard chords are a little, you there's variations in speeds of hard chords, but hard chords are kind of hard chords, right? To a certain extent. So you get a little more sameness of the.

know, players doing well, but you're also getting a little more, this is like tennis kind of at a macro version, like tennis has become even more global, which means there are less, there are more people moving about the globe. You have Spanish coaches coaching in the United States. You have US coaches going to, I'll use Europe, somewhere in Europe to learn, players, US players going to Europe. You have this crossing of ideas.

and coaching styles all over, crisscrossing all over the globe. And I think the way that players are taught is more homogenous now. The technology, strings and rackets, off court training has allowed for players to, has allowed for that variance in different game styles to almost get closer and closer together. We see this now, most players play the same way. They all kind of play the same way. And

that leads to, okay, same game style means that no one's game style is really attuned to any specific surface. You've got this B-stock game for these B-stock surfaces, you're get these B-stock results. It kinda is what it is. So I mean, could, yeah, exactly, exactly. Everyone's got the same car, everyone's on the same track. It's the same. So I mean, you could change the, if you sped up Wimbledon, I mean,

Torrey (21:16.787)
Yeah. Right. NASCAR almost. Cars all the same.

Alvin Owusu (21:33.708)
what changes are you gonna see? If you slow down the French Open, what changes are you gonna see? I don't think the surfaces really matters. It's the players that are all kind of the same player and they're all using technology that allows them to overcome whatever shortcomings or deficiencies they would have had on any surface 20 years ago. It's fine, it's fine. Like on grass, Serve used to dominate.

Torrey (21:53.202)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:03.403)
Well, that was before polyester strings. And when you move into a string that allows you to take rips off of 125 to the forehand and put it right back on someone's feet, speed it up, slow it down, I don't care. We got a tech issue here, not necessarily a speed of the court issue. And yet, I'll use Wimbledon, I'll stay with Wimbledon as an example, French Open as well, how many different players have won Wimbledon in the last 25 years?

Torrey (22:10.93)
Yeah. Right.

Torrey (22:17.424)
matter.

Alvin Owusu (22:32.779)
Ain't that many? Ain't that many?

Torrey (22:34.871)
I want to say, let's do the, I'm going to say eight. I'm going to go out on limb and say eight. 25 years, I could be wrong.

Alvin Owusu (22:41.771)
Since the year 2000, and this is like whether or not, I don't remember when Agassi won his Wimbledon, it's like, it ain't eight. It's not eight. It's...

Torrey (22:49.341)
Yeah. Pete, I'm gonna tell you, I was gonna say eight at the high end. I was going back before X, I was going back before more than 12 years. I was gonna say it's been Pete, several, Roger, several. It's been obviously Rafa Novak, Andy.

Alvin Owusu (22:57.097)
Maybe eight.

Alvin Owusu (23:12.989)
Andy didn't win it. Andy didn't win it. Andy Murray. Andy Murray. Sorry Andy Murray. Sorry. Not Andy Roddick. Sorry.

Torrey (23:13.758)
Carlos, Andy won Wimbledon. Yeah, Andy Murrow. No, no, no, no, Andy Murrow. Carlos and Yannick won it this past year. Yannick had a one-year gap. That's right, Yannick had, no, Yannick won. Yannick won it this past year. There's seven. There might be one more in there. I'm telling you, I think it's eight.

Alvin Owusu (23:22.699)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:31.659)
Yeah, right. No, he won't this year, he won't this year, 25.

Alvin Owusu (23:38.955)
And it's like whether or you want to throw a Mr. Cry check in there, think is the question.

Torrey (23:44.254)
What was that 2000s or was that 90s?

Alvin Owusu (23:47.551)
It was close. It was close. And like, it's like, was Agassi 2000?

Torrey (23:48.99)
I think that was 90s. I think that was 90s. I it was in 90s too. I'm sorry, it hadn't been many. Yeah, to your point. I think it's eight or so. If memory serves, to your point, it ain't been many. And there's been more multiples of the ones that have than it has been new players, to your point. Yeah, I'm with you. It might be nine. I mean, I may have missed one player in there, but to your point. And the question I'm having...

Alvin Owusu (23:54.316)
That's the point though, they slow down the grass.

Alvin Owusu (24:07.199)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (24:15.241)
Yeah, it's not, yeah, but it's not like if the gate

No, go ahead.

Torrey (24:23.079)
question I'm asking.

Alvin Owusu (24:23.883)
If it were so homogenous, then we would have more variability and we don't. It's still the best players, the best athletes win Wimbledon. It's not really about the grass, it's about the players. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (24:26.982)
Right.

Torrey (24:34.183)
We'll still figure it out.

They will figure it out. The best will be the best. Just give them time to show you. They'll figure it out. That's why they're the best. And the question, the reason I was asking that is here we are at the recap episode, looking forward to the year to see what changes, if any, could you make, would you make, make things better and what things you keep the same. Every sport has to create a tweak.

You and I were talking at length earlier about, you know, game styles need to be reclassified. I look forward to talking to you about that on a future episode with that because I feel like that gets into coaching. That gets into how we train these players. We can no longer define it. Everybody's a hybrid. Everybody is a bit of a, a bit of that, a bit of that, but a little bit of this. And that's because there is no one is being a player type anymore. There are players that have all.

phases and players that don't have all phases or not at least not as comfortable. And there's time to use all of them when you when you have the right situation or not. There's time to take it earlier, there's time to back up. And so to me, I look forward to that episode, but to your point, it's become so you mentioned homogenous, I'm going to go further and say, the level has gotten so good, everybody is pretty much the coaching and the level of play is so is so highly developed that

It's beyond not having hope. They have multiple weapons. And so now it's just a matter of which ones do I use today or how do I counter my B game to your B game, which may be the difference in this match. But I have the tools to use and the player that has the higher upside simply has three different ways to beat you versus the one or two ways that he may have. that's something that we'll talk to in a future episode, but that's why I was asking you, does the game need to change?

Torrey (26:32.55)
Does the ball need to be a little bigger and slow down? Does the hard core need a little more grit in the paint, in the acrylic? Something to throw in a wrinkle to make it a bit more, not gonna say challenging, it's already pretty challenging already, but something to throw in a monkey wrench, as the English would say, a spanner in the works. So that's kind of what I was getting at was just your take on it.

from an entertainment and from a production standpoint, felt like I wanted to get your take on it because I'm always gonna default to a coach's mindset. I'm always gonna default to the quality of the tennis. Not necessarily always looking at the broadcasting, the color, commentary, the, know, I see it, I recognize it. If a few of those get on my nerves, I just turn the volume down and I watch for myself. But I'm watching the tennis.

I feel like, you know, I'm always curious to get your take, you know, on the sports broadcasting side of things, sports production side of things to help kind of keep my, you know, help me see what I'm seeing. You know what I

Alvin Owusu (27:47.371)
Sure thing, sure thing. Yeah, think it's, yeah, Australian Open, ESPN, they did a good job. I think as we toss it over to, know, not HBO, but Warner Brothers Discovery for the French Open, that's a few months from now, but the bar has been set. We'll see what they do. I think that's a good place for us to stop. think Australian Open is always my, it's my,

I don't know. I always say it's a badge of honor to get up early and watch these matches and really have to earn it here in the United States. If you want to watch the Australian Open and ESPN did not make it easy with their 17 packages, we made it through. kicked the year off right. It's like the weekend of college. Like, hey, everyone's here. Some people look great. Some people got stronger. Everyone's happy to be here. Everyone's fresh.

Torrey (28:21.509)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (28:28.645)
Yeah.

Torrey (28:39.323)
Yeah.

Torrey (28:43.919)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (28:46.623)
We are officially out of the gates and the season is amongst us. So with that, I'll put a pin in it. I'm Alvin, that's Tori, best of three, we are out.