Australian Open 2026: Rounds 1–2 Breakdown | Next Gen Reality Check + Early Contenders

---- PART 1 ----

Torrey (00:00.647)
WTA, you know, it's so hard to make your mark on the WTA and ATP tour. I don't think it's so much their lack. I think it's just how tough the top is. You keep banding the term professional, right? This is a tour professional. You keep saying that. I've, when I first heard it, I'm like, yeah, well, they're all professionals at some point to varying degrees, but.

your point, those that have had varying degrees have and really in all aspects, especially three, four, five year vets, they've been through some of those highs and lows and they know how to come out and give a solid professional, stuck in quotes, performance. And I think that's what lot of our younger players coming out of college players have to really get, really understand. We saw many notables, you know,

Alvin Owusu (00:31.0)
Yeah

Torrey (00:56.633)
just meet a different, just didn't have that meet expectation. The expectation, maybe it may have been too high, right? But at the same time, I think it's worth noting that to be a tour professional is a level all unto itself. So with that said, I'll let you kick it off.

Alvin Owusu (01:15.256)
This is what I do, I say welcome to the best three podcast. I'm Alvin, that's still Tory. We are in a brief respite here between the second and third rounds of the Australian Open as TH, as you alluded to. Or as we talked about before we started rolling, this has been a very interesting tournament to this point in that it hasn't been all that interesting. And I think the...

Torrey (01:17.86)
Yeah.

Torrey (01:40.164)
right.

Alvin Owusu (01:41.706)
interest that we're talking about, if you think about the French Open, guess, maybe specifically Wimbledon, all those seeds, the bloodbath going out early, right? Players in the middle of the year, lots of players at ranging levels finding good form to supersede their prior results from the year taking out big seeds. Right now what we're seeing in a lot about what we're gonna talk about today is how difficult it

Torrey (02:02.714)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (02:10.566)
is or has been for the, we'll use next gen specifically for those who are actually next gen, like formerly ATP next gen, but also that next generation of player, the younger player on both women's and men's side to, in this tournament, in these last four five days, to really make an impact early. Because, know, I just kind of by quick count, on the men's side, our top 16 seeds, we've only lost one, and that was Felix going out due to cramp, right? On the women's side,

Torrey (02:31.226)
percent.

Torrey (02:39.022)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (02:40.11)
We've only lost three of the top 16 seats. That's, and two of them were in barn burners. Most notably, Belinda Binchich went out this morning to Barton Kovale in an amazing match, an amazing match. The girl brought her Mojoba Junior energy. But yeah, so I know you wanted to talk a little bit about, let's start with the men's side here. And I, know, we typically,

Torrey (02:47.546)
Right, right, Gordon told me, he that mess. Unbelievable.

Yeah, she did.

Alvin Owusu (03:09.144)
come at these slams a little bit differently every single time, right? It's for the most part, it's the same people, but what's going on in the year and what we've seen in the early rounds kind of dictates how we talk about it. I would say for this particular exercise, I don't think we really need to talk about seeds one through, let's call it six. There's not much, how much does this?

Torrey (03:29.05)
No, no, not much to discuss. I want to pick up where you left off there about Next Gen specifically to want to talk about Yalfonseca and Alex Ayala. I know we talked about guys first and girls, and I just want to mention those two as poster childs for...

expectation perhaps a bit hasty, right? To dole a lot of these expectations on these young players, they had some good weeks out and that's what they had. And we are right in our mind to expect good things. I would say two or three very, very early bullet points. They're still young. The best is yet to come. Let's not put them on the expiration date so quick. Number two, let's not expect great things from them.

just yet so soon either. Some of our best of all time took four or five years to win a slam, Sir Roger being one of them. So we have to appreciate even the great Rafael Nadal, while he took to the French Open fairly quickly, it took him almost eight years to get to the second week of the US Open and some of the hardcore tournaments. So I say that to say there's even some of the great ones, if we measure them by

17, 18, 19 years old success. There are always your outliers. But I just think it needs to be mentioned that Yannick center, our, our code number one slash number two, uh, hadn't didn't really receive a lot of that until later on. So I wanted to preface all those comments with that and all that to say when y'all went out first round and so did Alex couple of good matches. It, didn't play terrible. They just didn't come. They came out maybe a bit flat, maybe didn't have the best match.

but it also to me speaks more to the depth of the tour nowadays. And while we're just a little too quick to dole some of these, this young player is gonna be the next one to win a slam, he's the first of the top two, stop, just stop. He's gonna be a good young player. Don't put that on him yet. I'm old enough to remember when we started talking about LeBron was gonna break all these records over Kobe and over MJ.

Alvin Owusu (05:16.063)
Right, right.

Torrey (05:38.325)
And I'm like, the kid's coming out of high school. know, give him some time. Now, in the last 20 years, right, LeBron has proved himself. Do I still think he's past LeBron, past Kobe and Michael? Not really. Do I think he's made his place in the game? 100%. Is he one of the greats? Absolutely. So I say that to say only recently, I'm talking the last five plus years, has he really, to me, moved in that upper echelon.

of that and I'm talking more of that one of the games greats but you're comparing him to that level so I want to I want to just mention that for yowl specifically and for alex I just feel like you know in tennis it's not like you are measured man you're measured so specifically on a metric that is so unforgiving you know you've got to do this well to 16 weeks and beat the other you know

Alvin Owusu (06:08.514)
Right, right.

Torrey (06:33.666)
top 20, top 50 in the grand slam scheme of things, top 100 or so in the world who are all at different peaks and different times in the week and they're prime or whatnot. And buddy, you get four cracks at it, but buddy, those are four real tough cracks. And so I just wanna make sure we, I wanna preface this whole comment to say they did, I'm not gonna say they underperformed. I'm gonna say the level is much harder than most realize. And I feel that good things on the horizon form.

Alvin Owusu (07:02.84)
Well

Torrey (07:03.008)
not this year, let's not make this seem routine for them to climb K2 is all I'm saying.

Alvin Owusu (07:14.188)
Well, let's look at these two players separately though, Because I think the reason that we found ourselves with both of them being out in the first round is a little different for both of them while their profile and the reason why we're talking about them is probably the same due to their success last year. Yalfont Sacco, right? He has had some, I mean, he finished up the year quite strong and then, or 2025, and then had some injuries, some back things that have, I guess, chronic back issues that have...

played him since juniors, kind of flared up, kept him out of competition. He came into the event saying he felt fine and that he's looking forward to the season ahead, but also unseasoned, right? He has played no matches, competitive matches since, probably since the indoor season of last year, right? So for a young player, when we talk about what we expect out of them, I think the thing that goes unsaid, which is kind of understood, is that if all goes to

Torrey (08:00.536)
It's the indoor season of last year. Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (08:13.614)
plan then, right? You're talking about natural progression of know, of progress as growing as a player being one thing, health being one thing, the team, know, stability around them being one thing, like all these things. If all goes according to plan, then they will X. And I think that still holds true for Fonseca, but when you start talking about back issues, right, same thing with.

Torrey (08:15.509)
Right. That's a point.

Alvin Owusu (08:38.476)
Arthur Fees, right? Like he's got some back issues and he's been out since Wimbledon with last year, friendship with last year. So that's something to keep an eye on. So, you know, with him getting through that match and, you know, even talking about a player who's been on tour for a little while, but hasn't really popped yet, Elliott Spazeri, taking him out pretty early. Elliott was ready for the, he was ready for the opportunity. You come in a little undercooked, Elliott's 24 years old. He's a former college player, one of 26 in the main draw, which is insane.

Torrey (08:43.072)
Right, Trench, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (09:06.414)
Um, he was ready for it. And that's like one of those. Yeah. Under normal circumstances. I'm sure if I'm second probably handles that match, but these circumstances aren't normal and rarely are they right? We always have these things that pop up. then I think the Alex Ayala version of that conversation is a little more about the tennis, right? We've found ourselves in this situation with her a few times now in grand slams. think, uh, if you go back to the U S open, um,

Torrey (09:16.116)
Right, right, right.

Alvin Owusu (09:35.33)
You know, she had a, she had a pretty good, pretty solid win early against Clara Towson, was able to get through some adversity in the back end of that match, but go all the way back to her match against like Krachikova and Wimbledon first round. has this thing where she comes out guns blazing, right? Oftentimes the crowd is behind her. and that's kind of another point I'm gonna get to later. And then once the, I say the, excess jet fuel burns off.

and she ends up in a match with someone who might have a little more, a little more pop to their game. That's when the holes start to show up. The lack of firepower starts to show up. And I think to get through a, to get through a professional tennis match, especially one that goes the distance, three sets on the women's side, you're going to need to be able to step up, first, win serve, win points off of your first serve one, and then dictate and hit through the court with your, with your forehand two and.

I'll give credit to Alicia Parks in this particular case playing against Alex Ayala, who got, was it a bagel in first set? I think it was a bagel in the first set. then, I was watching, I watched part of that match, especially that first set, crowd is everywhere. This is the grand slam of the Asia Pacific, right? Like, Ayala should have probably been on a bigger court and the fans were on top of the court. It was a fantastic venue for professional tennis, but.

Torrey (10:33.695)
Play great.

Yup. Yup.

Torrey (10:47.701)
100 %

Alvin Owusu (10:56.888)
Kudos to Alicia Parks for getting through that match, like getting through all that adversity and then letting the tennis do the talking. Yep.

Torrey (10:59.19)
Yeah. Right. Do the talking. Yeah. I want to push back on, I think it was the tennis for both of them, to be honest. Yow, again, all thoughts him being hurt and dinged up. get that. I'll stick with Ayala first. Alex, Ayala's second serve is still a weakness. It's not by any means has it been corrected.

while she's very good and you mentioned some great things about, you know, dictate play, control the similar court. She's a lefty, obviously plays very strong off that forehand wing. Backhand's very underrated, in my opinion. But you just can't do much if you're retrieving the dead gum second serve into corners. And she's not phenomenally fast. She's not extremely tall. So her court coverage is now limited. And when you're serving up that darn cream puff of a second serve,

Alvin Owusu (11:48.49)
Right, yeah.

Torrey (11:54.666)
We all know Alvin, the return of serve is the weapon in the women's game. So you're gonna go out there on break and her serve let her down a little bit in the first and Alicia had, for her part, served great in that match. Had a few nerve doubles, but for the most part served great when she needed to to close that match out, especially with all of the antics of the Ayala crowd and the Philippines fans all around. Great to see the fans by the way. That's to me is part of what Grand Slams bring, especially Australia.

Alvin Owusu (12:21.806)
Absolutely.

Torrey (12:24.374)
You're likely to see all kinds of people come out of the woodwork. It's like there's a strong sample of every country in Australia. There might be a strong contingency from Uzbekistan. I you just don't know who you're gonna see in Australia. I remember being there years ago with Skow when he played with Novak. And every match, they played doubles together, every match, there was this whole Serbian crew that just followed around.

That was probably 30 people going match to match. They were watching every Serbian in the draw. Back then it was Ana Ivanovic and Jelena, Jelena, what's my girl's name? No, was Jokic. No, I wanna, I don't know, that's not ringing a bell. The two girls that were topping the tour at that time, Jokic I thought was earlier than them. Long story, Jelena.

Alvin Owusu (13:04.782)
Duggetch? Duggetch. Duggetch, yeah.

Torrey (13:17.973)
I know why another J is coming to my mind. Bottleman, obviously, and Novak were coming up to speed. And they were watching everything. were still, Anna was finishing out juniors at that time before she were making that point to that turn to the women's tour. But they were at everything anybody Serbian was at, period. It was just funny to watch. And they had the flags on like cakes, and they're going all over the court. And you saw that for everybody. There's a little.

There was a Brazilian out there. There was a Brazilian crew out there. There was somebody from Japan, buddy, you name it. They were there to support their players. So I say that to say that's something you have to expect with Australia in general. It's a very diverse country and especially the slam is well represented. Back to tennis, Alex needs to fix the second serve weakness. I could say that for about two or three players in the top 10. I could say that about players like Emanuvaro. I could say that about players.

all the way through the top 30, top 32 seeds as well as many others, but her in particular, and hats off to Alicia to play that well and to keep her nerves and to keep her mind focused. I actually thought she played better as an underdog to be very honest with you. And that's one of the things that I feel like that's where I see it's about the tennis. She matched up okay. Her defense isn't great. Her build and neutral is really good, but she has to be neutral starting at zero, not starting from negative. The same thing goes from Yao.

Yao's got a good game, Alvin. His forehand's actually a little better than a serve. And the problem, the good part about those things are he's got some skills to build with. But if you get first strike first, Yao looks to be very average. Now I said that with full, I said it before, he's just not fully developed yet. He's gonna get it. He's gonna get, he's still young. He's still gonna understand it. And let's face it, all through juniors, all through the first level of the tour, he didn't need much more than that.

Alvin Owusu (14:51.97)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (15:03.438)
Still a guy, still a young guy.

Torrey (15:11.665)
So we're starting to see, you know, much like Coco in lot of ways, she got through with speed, she got through with that backhand. Then you get to the top and you realize how much more you may need and then you get back to development, maybe change some changes on the practice court, maybe even some change in coaching, but you start figuring it out. That's what the tour makes you do. It makes you continue to develop and continue to see how much more can I churn out of this package that I've been dealt with. So I feel like both are good.

I just feel like they're gonna need some more seasoning. And it looked to me, both came into this tournament looking a little more the same, not looking different, like they shifted gears. And that's what I'm looking forward to them doing the next, frankly for the next slam, but of course for next year.

Alvin Owusu (16:00.046)
I wanna go back a bit and talk a little bit about Grand Slam Tennis and then we'll come back to that particular part about young players and serves and whatnot. I think someone brought this to my attention and I kind of have been peeling over it for a couple days. Under normal circumstances, right, and this is the way that we evaluate not necessarily just players but matchups, right? This player's playing this player.

Okay, they have this strength and this weakness. Okay, then this is probably how this match is gonna go, right? And that is, I think that is under a certain understanding of like, if this match were played in a test tube or in a lab somewhere, particularly on hardcore, neutral speed, hardcore, yada, yada, yada, so on and so forth, right? But tennis is a game of variables. And I think one of the variables that has to be considered is,

Torrey (16:39.923)
and a vacuum, yeah, yeah.

Right, right, right, right, right.

Alvin Owusu (16:52.27)
the environment of a grand slam is very different than the environment of your run of the mill 250 or 500, right? It's not just that the players, the top players like step up their game at the big events. Like, well, I've said this before, I think I probably stole it from Andy Erotic. It's just like tennis players would play well every single time they got on a tennis court if they could. They would play, there's never a time when a tennis player gets on a tennis court goes, I wanna play 80 % of my ability today.

Torrey (16:59.762)
Not that bad.

Torrey (17:21.394)
Exactly. No, no.

Alvin Owusu (17:21.71)
Cause that's what I, that's that, that will be just fine. That will be just fine. That never happens, right? That never happens. But the thing that changes between let's say the Australian Open and Indian Wells, Indian Wells and Charleston, right? Charleston and the often one, two, five, right? You might get the same match. Let's keep it on the women's side. You might get the same match at every single one of those events. And the format is exactly the same, but little things change. One, the size of the courts is sometimes different, right?

Torrey (17:45.394)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (17:51.8)
has its Medvedev effect, if you will. But then there's also, like you brought up earlier, the fans. People travel for Grand Slams typically, right? From all over the world. From all over the world. And if you come from Uzbekistan, or you come from Croatia, or you come from Argentina, and you saw this in the Echeverri versus Kasmanovic match, Argentine faithful was there from ball one, and they carried that man through the fifth set.

Torrey (17:54.47)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (18:13.583)
Yes, yep, yep, yep.

Draw.

100%.

Alvin Owusu (18:21.602)
brings a different factor into it where it's almost like a Davis Cup or a Billie Jean King Cup match where you have these fans who are very pro one player, less pro the other player, and it has a real impact on matches. Players who don't thrive in those kind of scenarios don't get that lift. You saw with Alexandra in the first round, right? She got herself into a very bad spot where she just, she isn't the kind of player who

Torrey (18:38.694)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (18:51.17)
will gel with a crowd. And I can't remember who she lost in the first round, but that the other person had the head crowd support 110%. It just was a bad scenario for her. It happened to her last year as well. The same event like Australian Open is the middle of summer in Australia. People are happy to be there. It's the happy slam. It gets a little rowdy. us fans are, you can hear them scream and chanting USA, which tends to help some players, right? And it tends to put other players in a position where they're like,

Torrey (18:53.211)
Right.

Torrey (18:59.429)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (19:06.779)
Hehehehehe

Alvin Owusu (19:21.038)
What the hell is this? am I supposed to do with this? So I think that's all

Torrey (19:23.537)
100 % Happened with your girl had happened with Peyton Stearns and Marchenko last night and I felt like she almost Dwindled a little bit with all the pressure from the I got a thing She's serving as well from all the all the pressure and it it it fired Peyton up You know, I mean she was ready to go. She used it as fuel You know what? I mean tackling fuel so to speak from old-school Adam Sandler

Alvin Owusu (19:37.761)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (19:44.694)
And she's a, and she has, and this happens a lot with the, with the former college players, right? Peyton played at University of Texas. She has that experience of like being in a tennis match, you know, hook them and everyone's just yelling and you get, you can either take it or you can, or you can shrink from it or it can be coming against you and it can, it can fire you up, right? Peyton Stearns is a great example because the same thing happened to her when she played Venus, the crowd in, in DC last summer. The other side of the coin is like, I guess she learned from it.

Torrey (19:49.197)
That's That's right. That's right. That's right.

Torrey (20:04.122)
Right.

Torrey (20:08.432)
Crowd, crowd, that's right, that's right. It flipped against her. And to your point, Bartukova last night with Benches. mean, the crowd could not have been more behind her. You know what I mean? again, to your point, and I think what I wanna add to your point, Alvin, is not only are they different, not only is the prize money different, not only is the stage bigger, right? Everything is a little more, I'm gonna say it just has a level of...

Alvin Owusu (20:14.369)
Exactly, exactly.

Alvin Owusu (20:21.176)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Torrey (20:39.369)
a level of status and a level of, you know, I think it was the great Ray Lewis, big time players make big time plays and big time games, right? Right. Now, now if I hope I'm giving the credit to the right person in that one, I'm pretty sure it Ray Lewis. The point I'm getting at is this is tennis's big time game, right? And so those four slams, not to say that that 250 win wasn't as

Alvin Owusu (20:49.518)
that plays in big time games. There you go.

Torrey (21:07.536)
legitimate, it's still in the record books. It still goes in head to head when you look up WTA Tour and ATP Tour stats. But that win in the slam means different. just, bar on the term for Australia, it hits different. And so what I see is that the player who wants to step up, who enjoys the stage, and I don't see this happening near as much as I used to see this back in the day. Gamers enjoy the stage. And Alvin, I have to tell you.

A lot of times there are players you can tell that don't enjoy the stage. It's not just they're not playing well. They don't enjoy the stage of professional tennis in the crowd, in the stadium. They prefer to be on court 16. They prefer be on, you know, one of the practice courts. Being in that moment, you have to have a little bit of a game of a gamesmanship to you. You to a little bit of a, of a,

Alvin Owusu (21:52.023)
Right.

Torrey (22:03.162)
personality larger than you are personally, you have to kind of enjoy that and you have to have this mentality like, I have trained my whole life to be in a moment like this. And not a lot of players have had that personality, let alone have that level of confidence. And I think for the tour professionals, thinking back, kind of bringing my whole point back together, they've learned, even if they're not comfortable with it, they've learned to be more comfortable, to be able to enjoy it.

and players that are still kind of getting there, can tell when they feel little bit naked out there. They feel a little bit out of place, and especially if not playing well, and perhaps they'll still get it, right? And I think that's something that they can continue to develop. So to me, it's being in front of camera, it's being knowing how to make adjustments quickly, knowing when to take your time and not let the moment rush you or break you, and also knowing to...

you know, to really lean in and make some balls at the right time because you don't have players feeling it right now. They are about to self implode. If you just put a little more pressure to borrow a phrase from Brian Shelton, squeeze that limit. You know what mean? Put a little bit more pressure on them at a point where you think they might just burst if you add just a little bit more to what they're doing.

Alvin Owusu (23:19.616)
And it's also that point, it's also, you know, how much can you rise to the occasion as an entertainer, right? Because when you're out there on, let's, whatever outside court it might be, especially at a grandstand, there's still gonna be people all around. And now they are a factor in the match. Can you get them on your side? If they're not on your side, can you block them out? Right, exactly, exactly, and when to do it, how to do it.

Torrey (23:38.083)
Yup. Right, right, right. Or quiet them. Right, right, right, right.

Alvin Owusu (23:48.79)
you see your opponent struggling a little bit. do you get the, how do you start to, you know, get the, the fans to now get into this match and help move you forward a little bit. I mean, it's all very different than hitting, than playing practice sets or playing in Austin or playing wherever. So that's a, but that's yeah. So that's the.

Torrey (23:52.975)
Yeah.

That's right. Right.

Torrey (24:05.246)
100%. 100%. The young man that played, Jampin that played Alcarest, mean, could not have played a better match, you know, with a few injuries and what he was dealing with. I think he's like 34, they said, know, obviously former college player as well. Jampin was, mean, he was, he knows he's the underdog against the world number one, and he knows that he's playing well. You have to respectfully yet,

you have to speak and plug your own, plug yourself a little bit, because you're like, hey, God, I'm trying out here. And he had no problem, like, hey, give it up for me. You know what I mean? That takes a certain level of confidence and pick the right moment to do it. The crowd could not deny him. The crowd could not deny that he was bringing it that day, nor could Carlos. And so those are moments where...

Alvin Owusu (24:37.912)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (24:44.269)
Right.

Torrey (24:56.719)
You don't want to piss off the number one seed, right? You don't want to poke the bear. At the same time, you want to make sure the bear knows, hey, buddy, I got some teeth too. And I think that was just a good example of, you know, he's obviously a tour professional and been out there for several years. You the age of 34, he's not new to this, but it was great to see him seize the moment and know, you know what?

You you look at that, at the stats, look at the scores. We didn't go five, but I was right there with the number one player in the world and I was going toe to toe, point for point with the number one player. He's better than me. I'll give him that. But I felt real good about how I performed and that was, and maybe he's not that player that loves the center court as much as most, right? And I say that to say clearly how many center court matches he played on. Probably not many, you know, at his age and at his ranking, but.

the fact that he handled that moment so well, I always that proud of him, but I was also happy knowing how many players I know don't even get to practice on those courts that often to see that moment's a big deal. That's the one thing I also want to mention to you, Alvin, in my short time on the four or five years on the tour, you don't get to practice on those courts that much. I mean, they don't, only the top do, right? So there's something right there in the chapter I understand most people don't understand that. You get the regular practice courts.

Alvin Owusu (26:09.089)
Right.

Torrey (26:16.461)
If you're gonna play on that main court, know, John Cain Arena or Rod Laver or what have you, Kea Arena, then you get to practice on that court ahead of time. But most cases, how many people are that comfortable playing on those main courts? Not many. You don't play on them that often. You know I mean? So unless you've got a top four, top associate next to your name, you're not gonna play on those courts a lot, if ever.

Alvin Owusu (26:27.669)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey (26:39.529)
And so that's also part of the part of the you got to use that court got to use that crowd son. I mean, so many parts of that are different where some of your smaller venues is not quite the same.

Alvin Owusu (26:51.362)
That's an interesting point because I used to think about this, I still think about it, professional, the sons of professional basketball players, how they seem to come into the league and they're so comfortable right away. then you, Steph is the leading example here because you've seen so many videos him as a kid shooting around in the old Hornets arena with his dad during warmups and stuff like that. It's still a 10 foot hoop.

Torrey (27:04.717)
Yep, yep, is the example, yep.

Alvin Owusu (27:21.176)
which is what they play on from age 10 on out, but shooting in an arena versus shooting in a normal gym is very different. And if you've grown up being used to shooting in that kind of environment, I think you start to, you approach basketball a little bit differently. don't get as frazzled by that, I guess initially. At some point, everyone who stays in the league for more than a few years gets used to it and adjusts. But same thing with these

professional players on the tennis side playing in the stadiums. It's just to your point. There's a lot more space out there. The ball comes off the racket and it sounds a little bit different. The sound of the crowd is something that you're not used to dealing with as a tennis player, especially something like Arthur Ashe Stadium, where it's cavernous in there. Yeah, but I wanted to go back to the, just kind of like from matches, things that I've seen in matches.

that kind of speak to your point earlier about players coming out of the off season, whether it be a six week off season for some of the, know, most players, four weeks for the top ones, eight weeks for others. One thing that we've knocked specifically like learner TN about with the serve, right, which everyone's talked about a serve. My man goes into a.

Torrey (28:58.336)
Alvin Owusu (29:08.645)
Yeah, I think that was me actually.

Torrey (29:10.593)
Okay, I love to say I got as much power, as much internet, and I'm three feet from my router. I'm like, can't be, I'm like, please tell me it me. I saw you were starting to get a little bit.

Alvin Owusu (29:20.784)
No, that might-

Torrey (29:24.342)
Go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (29:26.727)
No, like my bar is all over the place and 23 % uploaded.

Torrey (29:30.892)
You were starting to get a little bit discombobulated with the visual. I heard you fine, but it kept saying reconnecting, reconnecting, I'm like, huh, weird. And from my end, as I say, I'm plugged in and I'm literally around the corner. When I say six, I'm eight feet from my router. So I mean, there's no way that I've got a, not no way, there's always a way. I'm just saying, I was wondering what happened there, but there's always a way. Keep going. I wanted to let you finish whatever segment you want to pick back on.

Alvin Owusu (29:53.253)
there's always a way.

Alvin Owusu (30:02.055)
Yeah, so someone like Lerner Tien who has obviously coming out of last year had a great year, a great first full year on tour and the biggest point of improvement that everyone's talked about is that serve, right? But you could tell they did the work. My man dropped 21 bombs against Girona in the first round to 10 aces. Like what does that actually mean? Like he's going bigger, he's just going bigger. He's getting more aces, more double faults, also screams, okay, you're hitting more second serves.

Torrey (30:15.564)
100%.

Torrey (30:22.774)
Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Alvin Owusu (30:29.991)
because you're going bigger on the first. And that's fine, you'd love to see it. I think he went nine aces, maybe two double faults in the second round match. that's, yeah, juxtaposed to the Alex Ayala serve situation, right? Like you can, there are incremental changes or incremental improvements that are to be made every year for a professional tennis player. Some get it done, and Lerner was able to lean on his serve in the back end of that match against Garon.

Torrey (30:34.379)
100%.

Torrey (30:57.579)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (30:58.427)
whereas Alex is still in a point where she's, it's still something that she needs to develop. And that's a, know, ooh, ooh.

Torrey (31:03.537)
It almost looked worse, Alvin. It almost looked worse, to my opinion, for Alex to serve. It looked softer, it looked weaker. Again, maybe a little bit of wind, you could tell on those outer courts, defenses aren't as high. And obviously, the state of the block and a lot of the wind. It looked worse, it looked weaker, especially on the ad side, which typically, typically is a strong side for most lefties. When she's played some of her best tennis, she was landing a lot of those same first serves, playing with lot of energy, playing with lot of confidence.

as I say, it looked worse. And I say the same thing for Fonseca. It just did not look like he ever could get first strike. This was very, just completely got first strike first, right? And I felt like that was the difference in the match. So I wanted to add one last point to your, have a new five word situation for your Grand Slam experience. Should you be so lucky? There's my five words.

Should you be so lucky as to last two, three, five years on tour? Should you be so lucky to play on Arthur Ashe or Rod Laver Arena or Chatrier or opposite center, central court at Wimbledon? Those are very hollow ground, hollow grounds Alvin for most players and those outside the top don't see those stages often. I've known players that been on the tour 10 years, never played a match on

the top on those on those courts for whatever reason, right? So and typically if it is once or twice, it's because you're playing the one or two seed and you're going out in the first round. So while you get that experience, you also are getting the early exit because that seed is rarely losing to you on that first round. And so those are just things you have to understand. Should you be so lucky? I think Alex and Yao are going to be fine. There's no question about that. I'm not saying anything to the contrary. They're going to be fine. Right future had the both of them.

Alvin Owusu (32:34.801)
Sure, sure.

Torrey (32:53.684)
They're gonna fix some things and get that second serve. They're gonna get healed up. You know, they got two good teams around them. What I'm only saying is the average fan has to appreciate how hard that transition is. Give it up for those that have done it sooner. They have had great situations to understand. I like what you're saying about Lerner. His serve looked so much better. We were, how long have we given Coco hard time about her serve in the forehand? And she's starting to make some strides there as well. I just feel like sometimes,

People kind of think of the Pro Tour as this place of this destination, not this constant place of development. Even the minor tweaks, if you can get four mistakes better, that's huge. If you can get your serve dialed in two more feet to a certain corner and lean on a first strike. If you can defend a hard strike return where a person's just going for it, stopping at your feet on a hard return on the middle, you can.

Alvin Owusu (33:29.894)
Hmm.

Torrey (33:48.916)
pick it up on the rise and deflect it open court four more times in a set, let alone in a game. That means the difference in you holding serve or not. And those are small incremental changes in an adjustments album that that level, when you're talking about incremental change that small, but make that big of a difference, that's the difference in going and splitting sets and going out in three or routine two for the ladies.

Alvin Owusu (34:17.286)
perfect example, because you know I love to talk about Madison Keys. Well, I love to and I'm afraid to at certain times. She found herself in a very precarious situation in her last match against, it wasn't McCarty Kessler, it was the other one. Krueger, Alison Krueger. And so she's up six, I think she won the first set six, six two, something like that. So maybe six one, she was rolling. And then found herself down two five in the second set.

Torrey (34:32.969)
Cougar. Excellent.

Torrey (34:38.953)
Yeah, one or two. Yep.

five.

Alvin Owusu (34:47.301)
Which to her to her credit, she was also down for the first set of her very first round match. But I think that same ability of I remember there was one point it might have been at five, two or five, three. and Madison was serving rocks a serve on the do side right into the slot, though. And and Allison ranks it cross court. Maddie gets low open stance, true hand coming straight through. Boom. They showed it in slow motion after it was just like a clean.

Torrey (34:52.713)
Yeah.

Torrey (35:12.691)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (35:17.094)
full extension into the buggy over the head right down the line. I mean that return might have landed 18 inches from the baseline. But that's the kicker, right? That's it right there. That's 15 years on tour right there. I've been on this same court before taking the same kind of heat from Marina Sabalinka in the final and pulled the same thing. think, man, that might have been third set in that one. Five alls, something like that. But yeah, those are the little things. coming, kinda coming back to the serve part.

Torrey (35:24.627)
Right,

100%.

Torrey (35:36.008)
That's right. That's right.

Torrey (35:44.986)
And to your point, Ashlyn, and Ashlyn had the exact opposite happen to her toward the end of that second set. Wasn't feeling it, was a little bit tight. Realized she's let five through slip through her fingers, not so much slip. Madison, Maddie just came back and showed her defending champion chops. Ashlyn didn't play poorly. Maddie raised her game and she showed a fifth and a sixth gear that only the top have.

Alvin Owusu (35:55.483)
Yep.

Torrey (36:13.53)
And I look at those kinds of matches to your point, good for her to keep trusting her weapons. But it also shows you if Ashlyn wants to be a top 20 player, she's got to develop those level of gears as well. Now I the same thing for, you know, Peyton, who obviously won her match against the young girl, Marchenko, but also for McCartney Kessler, you know, who had a tough one with JPEG. They've got to start developing a second or third, even a fourth gear.

to their game to be able to win on a tough day when they're not playing quite as well with their A game and be able to weather the storm of a good player. And that's all part of the development. That's all I wanna say. just wanna feel like sometimes, and I hear my juniors talk about it, I parents talk about it. Like there's this nirvana of pro tennis. Like everybody there is good. Everybody there plays good all the time. And it just ain't so. It's the same as everywhere else. You gotta keep tweaking. There's good days and bad days.

I played my best match on the second round. played, I somehow got through my first three. I'm playing pretty well now. I'm feeling the ball pretty well right now. And it's just with much, much, much bigger stakes and bigger courts and bigger paychecks. but it's, it's, got to have been, it's been fun to see. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (37:23.632)
Well, let's stay there on that, yeah, let's stay there with that McCartney-Kessler, JPEG, and Keys versus Krueger kind of space because I talked a lot, we spoke a lot about in our US Women's State of the Union at the end of last year, I would highly recommend if you haven't listened to that podcast, go back and listen to that one, that these two women are right there in that beam McCartney and Allison.

in that can they be the ones to step into that space once JPEG and Madison do matriculate off the tour, right? Whether that's one year, three years, whatever it might be, right? And we were very fortunate to get those matchups in the second round almost at the, think they played at the same time, so I had them on multicast, like just kind of really focusing in on like, okay, what.

Torrey (38:09.937)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (38:19.078)
where are these two younger ladies right now and are they any closer than they were this time last year? Because I would say they both moved up the rankings. McCartney's gotten herself almost damn near seated in this event, or maybe she was seated. She's close. And Allison wasn't that far off as well, but you could still see the gap. The gap was very obvious. mean, hell.

McCartney got got bageled in the first set and it looked like JPEG was like I'm playing look like JPEG was playing against a junior like she was She was blatantly just like I'm trying things. I'm gonna I'm gonna bring out the drop shot early. Okay, that's that that's working today Any any second serve sitting there going after it? Any ball in the middle of the court going after it it was very I'm gonna say textbook, but it was like

big sister, little sister, like, or senior versus freshman, like, you're just not ready yet. You're just not ready yet. And then in the match, the other match, Keyes versus Kruger, I always want to say Kessler, because all these K's. Keyes versus Kruger, it was like almost looking at mirror images of the players, but like, one is a more refined model of the other. And I think coming back to your point about serves,

Right, and how the second serve return, second serve, second serve return is the biggest kind of, you know, Mendoza in women's tennis. I can't remember who was on the call, but they were talking about the difference between Maddie being able to hit that big kicker, like having a true kick serve as a second serve, where Allison, her second serve is a little flatter. She can't really run it up and out, up or out, actually. And that is when you play against someone as tall as Madison.

Torrey (39:54.342)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (40:09.114)
that flat surf kind of sits right there in her slot and it's like, that's no fun, no fun.

Torrey (40:15.654)
will have to go back and fix that piece of her game. She has a very good serve. She's going to have to go back and get that stroke. Just the same way McCartney is going to have to go back and find a way to play what I'm going to call an aggressive, an aggressive defense, not necessarily an aggressive neutral. She ends up hitting so many balls aggressively in the corners that if you slow the pace down a little bit on her, she's actually

not as good at creating maybe her own pace and doing some of the things you could tell. She was ready for JPEG to hit through the court on her. She was ready to go open stance a lot and hit through some shots. Everything her footwork look was ready for. And she wasn't looking for the off-pace, to your point, the drop shot. She wasn't looking for the off-pace. Maddie hit a ball on Ashland. That was about a, looked like a 60 mile an hour second serve. And she almost fell into the court on a second serve. Those are just...

veteran tactics, you know, that you see from a player that's been there that knows I know what you're looking for. And here's what I'm gonna give you. And so those are the things that again, to get enough seasoning to be a tour professional, those are things you're gonna have to get. And I feel those two are going to be just fine. All three of them Peyton as well gonna be just fine. I was happy to see them get to this point. I was also and you and I talked about this several episodes several podcasts ago about the litmus test of five in the world, the litmus test of what

Jessica Bagula is and what she and obviously same with Madison Keys. They are the litmus test of you want to be good? Let me show you what good is. Right? You want to be you want to be top five? Let me show you what top five is. This is what it looks like. This is what it looks like and you don't dip and the beauty of them being American is that they have these players as you know as big sisters slash, you know, hitting partner slash and who knows maybe down the road maybe even some level of

you know, as Maddie benefited from Lindsey Davenport, right? Maybe they'll be even on the other side of the basket from them at some point, who knows? But I say it to say they've got a lot of bright spots ahead of them with that think tank, you know, of players and that whole repository of good players around them to help them get better. I think JPEG even played with McCartney and doubles this term, right? So those are things that they're only gonna get better.

Torrey (42:40.773)
I feel like Coco got a lot better because of JPEG in those early years. You know what I mean? I don't think enough is said about what she did for Coco's early start. Don't get me wrong, Coco kicked her own doors down, but that early doubles pairing gave her a lot of confidence, gave her a lot of matches, helped her feel like she's belonged. She's done her own thing since then. And I'm not saying by any means that she was helped. I'm just saying she benefited, right? From some of those early experiences, especially being a younger player, 17, 18 on the tour.

just really helped to settle her down. And obviously she had some great success with McNally as well, Coco did, but I feel like that settles you and kind of gets you into a nice thing. So maybe the same situation will happen for McCartney and Ashlyn as well as they go through it. So bottom line, great, great things to come.

Alvin Owusu (43:27.477)
And I just wanna kinda go back to that, because that's a good point about the doubles helping, getting experience, being able to partner with kinda tangentially related to the conversation about the serve that we were just having. Getting to the pro tour is not the end all be all, staying there is the next part of the job, and making those incremental tweaks both tactically and technically is part of that job, right? And so when we talk about

someone like Ashlyn Kruger, can she make those changes? I'm sure she absolutely will. That for her is not necessarily even a change, it's adding this to her game. She's a tall girl who's come through the US system, like has she necessarily needed a kick serve? It's like probably not, but now she does. We are here now, this is something she needs. But I wanna speak to the fact that in the same way that Lerner Tien has improved to serve, I think Alex Ayala will improve her serve because this is what professional players do, Coco as well.

Torrey (44:11.301)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (44:25.013)
let us not remember that two players who are considered to have one of the best serves on the men's and women's tour respectively would be Alexander Zverev and Irina Sabalenka. Go back just four years, three years, both of them had horrendous issues with their serves, right? Like these are things that when, if addressed, can be handled, can be worked out. They're all, mean, Carlos,

Torrey (44:39.609)
Right, right.

percent.

Torrey (44:50.404)
I'm set.

Alvin Owusu (44:52.646)
Carlos has gotten a lot of, Carlos Alcaraz has gotten a lot of attention lately for the kind of the changing of his serve technique over the off season and it starts to look a lot like Novak's serve and he called it, first time I've ever heard this term but I love it, technical drift. It's like technical drift, so naturally he's like just over time, like as you're working on things, other things start to show up and the serve evolves. Pete, mean not Pete, Roger had some slight.

tweaks in his serve along the way. think Novak has obviously had tweaks. You look at the 20 years he's been on tour, he's had three different serves. Rafa, as he got older, added more MPHs to his serve by continually tweaking. look at Rafa winning his first fringe open, Rafa winning his last fringe open. That sort of looks, they don't look the same player. So, I think to your point about players being on tour and continuing to get better, continuing to change, it's going to happen and it is no different than a junior player.

Torrey (45:50.436)
All right.

Alvin Owusu (45:51.749)
We've got to make technical adjustments as we change as players, right? These guys are getting, if the player's getting stronger on the pro tour or needs to do something because the game's gotten faster and they need to make an adjustment or they've gotten slow, they've gotten older, right? Their bodies are different. Like all of these things, you know, impact how we hit a tennis ball and how we perform on a tennis court. Kind of quickly wanted to go back maybe to American players in the third round.

Torrey (46:07.182)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (46:20.933)
There's gonna be two of them that I've been really impressed with. One of them inside, one of them inside. Ethan Quinn. Ethan Quinn's doing the thing. In the third round, he beat Talent Greeks for the first round, straight sets. He beat Hubie in the second round, straight sets. Playing some good ball.

Torrey (46:31.267)
Yup, yup. Ubi. Yup, something almost, yup. Ubi in a second, yup. Playing some very good ball. I will say in that match, I watched a good bit of it, Alvin. I will say Ubi did not play classic Ubi, which is not Ethan's fault. He gave him more than enough chances to break him on multiple occasions. Hats off to Ethan for staying the course. I will say this.

Alvin Owusu (46:41.509)
Playin' some good ball.

Alvin Owusu (46:57.253)
Especially that first set.

Torrey (46:58.911)
my God, the second wasn't, there was three different service games out where he defended break point down three times in each game, three times. So that's not a great thing. And that's something that will certainly get exposed. You hoped that that was his lesser match that he wasn't playing as well. And getting through those yips and getting through those situations he's able to do it. I gotta say, when he was firing, it looked great.

I mean, his forehand is so loose and so clean. know, when he serve, his serve out wide on the deuce is money. I mean, I absolutely love his game and love his smoothness to him. I like his game. like his, I like his looseness out there. He's just, it was, it was fun to watch him. Who's your pick on the women's side? That was my, who are you? And don't say Madison.

Alvin Owusu (47:46.948)
No, no, I tell myself that it's Evie. it's Evie. it's yeah, she I mean Eva coming into this event, right? She she final she finaled Hobart right before the event I mean like two days before the event and then comes in and she's just Smack on it. She's smack on it. She's she's she's she's like I am legit. I am top 20 all day Last year was not a fluke I'm here to do things and she's got herself a really big test in the next round against Jason Paulini and

Torrey (47:48.535)
Or even Ivovich.

Torrey (47:52.771)
What I'm about to say, right, right, right, right, right.

Torrey (48:15.478)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:16.814)
for someone who hasn't been a full-time tour player for, mean, Indian Wells last year was kind of her coming out party. think she qualified in that event. She's already played Jasmine twice, which is wild. She played Jasmine at Indian Wells, lost to her in three. Paolini up two-oh, but Eva took a set off Paolini at Indian Wells, then Jasmine beat her three in, yeah, well, Jasmine beat her three in three at US Open.

Torrey (48:29.388)
Right. What's the head to head? Okay, yeah.

Torrey (48:39.426)
which is closing the gap.

Alvin Owusu (48:46.34)
Those two events happen six months apart from each other. You can take from that what you will. I will say that will be an interesting, that is a match I will be watching. Geez, yeah.

Torrey (48:52.064)
Right. The fact that she's getting a third crack at it means... Right. The fact she's getting a third crack at it already means a lot. I mean, you don't get seeds often, and when you do, you usually lose. So the fact that you're a third crack at it within a year's time tells me that you're doing something right because you don't face those kinds of seeds. You know, it's an interesting point, and some of you, some of the listeners and viewers who have, who are familiar with, who are familiar with...

Alvin Owusu (49:02.371)
Yeah.

Torrey (49:20.49)
UTR who familiar with tennis recruiting, right? I used to always, about every year, I would always have a parent and junior meeting and I would go over there, their tennis recruiting. And you got your blue chips, you got your five stars, you got your four stars, right? They also have this little small graph. How have you done against blue chips? How have you done against five stars? For most players that are three stars, Alvin, you've probably never played a blue chip. You're just...

as the numbers work out numerically, you've never played them. You've never seen them. You're not in the same events. If you did, it was a kid two years younger. You played a blue chip who was 12 playing up in the 14s if you're in that, or 14s in the 16s and so on. That said, four stars have played maybe one or two, right? Five stars have played them off and on and maybe you're one and seven, maybe you're and three. Who knows? But that tells me when I see that graph, I know where you are.

When you tell me you are, you know, in this case, against a blue chip, that you are, let's just say, 0 and 5, and you've been on tour for a year, you've gotten to play them 5. I don't look at the 0. I look at the 5. You're starting the trend pretty well. You know what that usually tells me, Alvin? That your 5 star is probably 10 and 6. You just haven't found a way

Alvin Owusu (50:38.776)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey (50:47.947)
to really handle the top blue chips yet. Give me one more crack, I'm closing the gap, I'm getting there. And guess what always happens? That player ends up being a blue chip themselves one day if they're not already in their own age group. I say it because you give me a person that has had zero cracks at the blue chips, they're probably not getting there anytime soon. You give me a player with zero cracks at the blue chips and maybe one or two cracks at the fives, you're

pretty much where you are, just deal with that unless you're planning on making some major changes. And I think in the tour is no different. It's just another level of the tournaments, like we said, just bigger stage and bigger paycheck. So I really like this about this Eva Jovovich. I'm happy to see her going this route. To me, I think it's a great situation. Happy to see other players. I know you've got some players mentioned here. You got Haley Baptiste is starting to kind of make a little bit of depth in some more of a run in some of these.

these Grand Slams, unfortunately she plays Cocoa it coming up. I'm looking forward to, and we talked about this, there are so many of those players on those outer, that six, that 17 through 32 that I knew. I'm like, ah, these players ain't gonna make it. These players, that difference between 32 and 42, it ain't that big. And I don't wanna speak and lay shade on anybody also on the outer realm.

But there's a bunch of those players that I feel like, yep, yep, I call that one. You know what I mean? And those listeners and viewers who saw the previous podcast will know what we're talking about.

Alvin Owusu (52:28.856)
Yeah, I mean that's kind of the other side of the seed story as we open up this podcast talking about the top seeds have been relatively unscathed across the 16 top seeds about the men's and women's side. still got, so that's 32 total top seeds. We've still got 28 of them playing. That's pretty solid, right? But if you look 17 through 32, yeah, which is like pros showed up ready to go.

Torrey (52:45.898)
Yep. Right. Pretty solid. Especially for Australia. Right. Five of those, right? how many? How many of that? Is that seven? Give or take? Is that 25? You said 25? Okay, I got it. So that makes an unfortunate.

Alvin Owusu (53:00.066)
Four, three on the women's side, one on the men's side.

Well, I was just speaking to you like, yeah, like so, but...

Just to the other side of that though. Actually, no, let's do this. Before we start to cut to the back end of this, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back and we'll talk about some of the matches that we're looking forward to seeing.


---- PART 2 ----

Alvin Owusu (00:00.974)
And we're back. All right, so we're gonna pop through some of the third round matches that we are interested in looking at. We kinda took a trip around the world there, or a trip around Melbourne, if you will, in the opening. yeah, Mensik versus Quinn, we talked about Ethan. Jakub is playing some, I think, disciplined tennis right now. I finally got a chance to watch your boy Yodar.

Torrey (00:11.172)
Yeah.

Torrey (00:23.419)
Yep, yep.

Alvin Owusu (00:25.806)
They played in the second round. That was a fun match. Yodar's a kid is Rafael. Yodar from Espana. Anyone who's 18 years old named Rafael, I'm pretty sure I understand the genesis of that one some 19 years ago when that child was born. But that'll be a fun one. Looking forward to seeing, know, can Mensic...

Torrey (00:26.276)
Yeah.

Yeah, gonna be good player. Yeah.

Torrey (00:38.318)
Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (00:50.784)
solidify himself as, no, I am legit. What happened in Miami was not an outlier. I think getting to the fourth round of a Grand Slam convincingly would be something that we're looking to see from him. And then on the opposite side of that coin would be, can he pop through? Like, we get one of these? If we're, you know, third round is great for him. I think that's, if he had third round at every Grand Slam this year, I think he's gonna take that. But you know what's cooler than the third round? Fourth round.

Yeah, yeah, that's one of my favorites. What about yourself?

Torrey (01:21.498)
Both of them. You know what, and I'll pull off, you have in some of your notes here, one of my, this match here to me is gonna be absolute make or break it. Demon and Tiafoe. I mean, that's gonna be an absolute, where are we going? You know what I mean? That to me is,

Alvin Owusu (01:41.774)
What we doing?

Torrey (01:48.434)
Where are going? know, I are we doing this or not? For either of them, it's unfortunate that this match takes place on Demon's home turf. I could see the same match happening on the US Open. I could even see a rematch of this match happening at the Open, to be honest. Just the way they're seeding and the way things could work out. And I could see it being a five setter in both places. I could see Demon winning this in five. I could see Francis winning it in five in the US for relevancy and so on. I like that one.

Alvin Owusu (01:57.87)
Right.

Torrey (02:20.216)
be honest, the rest of the matches that we're trying to look at here, you know, I don't know. I don't know. There's just so much. Chilich and Root. I want to see that match. Root's playing some good ball again, man. He's healthy. He looked good today against Menard. Chilich is never, never not a professional. You know what I mean? And he's going to give you everything he's got. Some of the other matches, I mean,

Alvin Owusu (02:32.75)
That'll be a good one.

Alvin Owusu (02:42.242)
just showing up at Grand Slams the last year or so, just consistently banging third rounds on Grand Slams the last few years. It's like weird Renaissance. We forget that he's a Grand Slam champ.

Torrey (02:49.113)
100 % 100 % Right, right. And I feel like maybe the other one if I had to give I think Mousseti and Mahatch any doubts I had of Mousseti not being top six in the world were dumb. And I saw him play another Lorenzo and who has a massive serve massive forehand and he played Lorenzo like it was

Alvin Owusu (03:09.528)
Son of a...

Torrey (03:20.033)
Like it was a lesson. I mean, he played him like, let me tell you what I've learned in the last couple of years, Lorenzo. This is what you might want to take. Take some notes. You got your phone? Put the phone over there and hit and press record. And let me show you this. That way you can refer to this the next time you want to talk about getting top 10. And he just routine'd his countrymen. And I said to myself,

Sonigo, Kaboli, and who's the other, the guy that just played, Darjari, you got some work to do. You got some work to do.

Alvin Owusu (03:55.183)
Even Dar Dairy. Well, to that point, was watching that match and it reminded me of when the varsity team scrimmages the JV team. It's like we're operating off the same playbook here. We all know each other, but we also know that there's a class difference here. And I didn't think it would be that stark, but it was so stark.

Mercedes just like they both were walking around the court like they both knew who was who was on the a team who was on the B team when it comes to the the Italian packing order and I mean anytime you say anytime you heat praise on Lorenzo Mercedes I just want to make sure you say it with your chest Tory Hawkins say it say it with chest I want to go back. want to go back to the the the Tiafoo Demon or you see I don't let you I don't let you get any more words in about Lorenzo

Torrey (04:32.876)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (04:46.913)
You

I know it, I know it. And I gotta be careful not to give you too much ammunition.

Alvin Owusu (04:56.494)
It's not about me, it's not about me. Let the tennis speak for itself. I wanna go back to Francis versus Alex D. Menor because you referenced it like, know, it's unfortunate that this match is happening in Australia on home turf for D. Menor. It could be different if was the US Open. I think that's the crux of why this match needs to happen right here because that is also the crux of the Francis Tiafoe conundrum.

that all good things that happened to Francis Diablo happen at, uh, in Flushing, right? It's like, no, we need to, it needs to happen other places. And that's, that's what he was talking about. And that's what we've been talking about. So like, yeah, in my notes, I was like, you know, all right, this is everything that he said is specifically on like Andy Roddick's podcast, everything that he said about coming to work on days you don't want to work and, and showing up in the events that, you know, showing up outside of the U S open. Okay. Boom. Right here. You are not the crowd favorite.

You are your your ranking is put yourself in a position where you're playing a top 10 seed in the third round Okay, fine fine fine Let's get it done. Let's get it done. And I feel like Alex is gonna come into this match like I expect to win this match and I also expect Alex to win this match But if Francis expects to win these types of matches, then this is the one that he needs to Please please prove me wrong

Torrey (06:01.367)
Yep, yep.

Torrey (06:21.526)
percent. doesn't put up or shut up is an old one that we haven't used in tennis in a while. This is that match for Francis. He's got a whole year to do it. But as far as I'm concerned, if he doesn't, he's on the other side of things. I will put one more in that same category. And that is for the beleaguered Sasha Zverev, who goes up against the always crafty Cam Norrie. And that one is another put up or shut up.

Demon should dispatch Francis for everything being equal and being a tad faster age and so on and the home crowd, but playing great right now. That one, and if anything to me, if Francis found a way to take it five, I would actually have a lot of respect for his upside this year, because that's a very potent.

Alvin Owusu (07:06.379)
And he's his peak right now. Like he's at his peak right now. Yeah.

Torrey (07:21.815)
top 10 player at his home turf, at his home slam, right? 100%. If it goes straights, I wouldn't be surprised, but it's just a matter of who plays their best tennis. And again, if it goes five and Demon wins, well, if he beats Demon, that tells me Francis has another gear left in the tank.

Cam and Sasha, different story. Neither are from Australia, right? Neither have a home crowd advantage and neither are, this will sound weird for me to say, it's all on Alex's, it's on Sasha Toulouse. Cam matches up well to his game. They both got very solid backhands.

It's a very weird match and they both are big servers with good backhands and neither of them has a huge forehand. This will be an interesting match. And the fact that it will take a while, of which I agree with you, but it will also take starch out of Alex should he go farther. His fitness has always been pretty strong. It's just injuries and lingering things that he's been dealing with over the years. I don't like this being a match that could create a death of a thousand cuts. He doesn't need a lot.

to take him down to 80 % anyway. He didn't have his 100 % is it very potent at the high end. So I'm more worried about what a loss like this to a potential loss might say for Alex. He's already under my hot seat, so to speak. But I also feel like this is a very difficult matchup. If you told me he was playing somebody like Impesci Paracard or somebody who was just.

you know, had a one, a Riley O'Pelker who can play very good at different times. It's a tough matchup for anybody because it was heightness in the serve. I said, yeah, but Alex has great returns. So he'll figure that one out. This one here is just one of those tactical matches where just don't like what lack of a weapon does in this scenario off the forehand wing because he does it. Alex is not the type to hit a bunch of huge serves. He's not the type to go for a lot of returns.

Torrey (09:32.054)
pretty solid mentally and pretty solid with errors. Nothing can give you a lot either. And I feel like he's an opportunist. He'll get to net when he can. He likes to shovel that backhand low on you. He likes to that funky forehand. He plays like a weird lefty. He's like Jay-Z, I'm awkward, I box lefty. He's that weird kind of player. But he's going against one of the best backhands of all time. I mean, I think...

I think Zverev starts off backhand cross courts and rallies and warmup. I mean, which no one does, right? He just loves the backhand, you know? He sleeps on his left side. I mean, he's just, that's just what he does. So I just feel like those are, it's gonna be a very tough match. And I would love, love, love to see Alexander Zverev dispatch camp in the straight sets that a top four seed should do. I just don't know if I'll see it.

Alvin Owusu (10:10.103)
Hahaha

Alvin Owusu (10:25.133)
Well, it kind of going, you look at their matchups in recent years, so like head to head, you know, all time, it's 6-0 Zverev to Nory, right? But within that, and within, I say, five of those six matchups, they've had at least one set go into a tire breaker, right? So we do have some evidence here that they do play each other tight while the wins and losses are pretty one-sided. Two years ago, I'll show you it up in 2024, Zverev beat...

Nori in five. Seven six in the third. I mean, seven six in the fifth. It's legit. That's legit.

Torrey (10:58.761)
Mm. Which speaks to the problem of Zverev, not to Kam's upside. Just saying.

Alvin Owusu (11:04.201)
Right, it's, right, yeah, it's, it's a weird, it's a weird matchup, and you can't really draw much from a seven, six in the fifth set victory. Like that's, you're right there, right? There are points, we're separated by a handful of points here. But in that matchup, I see it, like Cam can't really get much out of going lefty forehand to the backhand, right? Because Alex would prefer to be there. But then Cam's, Cam's.

backhand doesn't get much rise either. if you if you want to, you know, bother Alex on the floor, it's like truly bother him. You need to keep him behind the court with the ball out of his strike zone. But hit that hit that down until like the ball that's sliding and he's gonna be able to catch that kind of in the slot like it does. I'm saying it's just gonna be it's just gonna be long. It's just it's gonna be drawn out. It's just gonna be drawn out. I'm like

Torrey (11:42.132)
hidden hidden forums.

Torrey (11:52.648)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (11:56.494)
I probably won't even watch it to be honest with you. It's just gonna be a long drawn out match with a lot of a lot of cross-court rallies

Torrey (11:59.892)
I'll watch one set, because that one set will be like all the other sets it's gonna be. Right, right. And both of, and you have to appreciate, Alvin, I have been a huge Sasha Zverev fan. I still feel like he stubbed his toe against Dominic Deem in that open, that COVID year. I say this as a jilted Sasha Zverev fan, not as a critic. I am, I am, I am as, you know.

Alvin Owusu (12:05.069)
Right, right. Pop in, pop in for sets one and three and then call it a day.

Torrey (12:28.444)
was once, know, he was my next best, you know, I feel like I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi. You were the chosen one. It was said you would bring balance to the force. And it just never happened. So I want to make sure the fans have to realize it's not hate or hate. I'm just, it's overdue to me, some of his offerings to the pro tour at the high level.

Alvin Owusu (12:39.949)
Hehehe

Alvin Owusu (12:58.157)
Understood, understood. Let's bounce around a couple more matches on the men's side before we catch the women. Bublik versus Echeverri. Do you believe in this version of Mr. Bublik? Because he looks like, he now looks like a professional. I am 10 seed, top 10 player showing up, cleanly getting through matches in the first two rounds of the slam. Lucky Plans on being here on day 12. Do you buy it?

Torrey (13:14.983)
Does a

Torrey (13:20.947)
Yep, yep, yep. And that's a very needed crowd and a few sets to get through.

Torrey (13:32.564)
Do I buy it? No. Bublik is still mercurial. He's still one day to the next. He is two or three missed drop shots from losing it, in my opinion. Do I think he will win this match? Yes. Do I think he will have this kind of staying power for other matches? No. And I'm giving him heads up because he's playing clean and because Echeverri just went five. Just feel that heat in Australia is no joke. I think Echeverri comes in this next match a little bit.

He'll come out solid for the first couple of sets. see, I just see a dip in form and I think Bublik will take advantage of that more so than it being a head-to-head situation. I think that other match by centers are emotionally and physically draining, probably emotionally more than anything else. And I just feel like Bublik will take advantage of it. If you were to say, I won't look too far ahead. If there's another match coming up, that match would be one.

Alvin Owusu (14:27.084)
They play, Winner plays the winner of Demonor and Tiaffo. And Bublix got, Bublix got Demonor's number as of late, yeah. He's beat him the last few times I played.

Torrey (14:32.115)
Now that's when we'll know.

D-Minor's number, right. That's when I believe he gets through this match and takes D-Minor. Now we're talking. Now we're talking and that's again, way too early to look at both, that's, you see what I'm saying? Right now he can be an opportunist in this match.

Alvin Owusu (14:42.484)
Now we're Okay, well...

Alvin Owusu (14:56.108)
And that's the beauty of like, of getting all this chalk in the opening rounds on the men's side is that we are setting ourselves up for a, it's after this round, it's about to be on. Like it's about to be on. It is on, it on. We're at round of 32. We've got, we've got, I think eight matches like where you're like, and we're not even probably want to get a chance talk about Novak versus Botic Van Duzansulp, but like Botic, Botic's got dead eyes. He don't care. Like he beaten Nadal in Davis Cup. I don't care about, I don't care you're retiring. He beat,

Torrey (15:05.455)
It's on already. It's only gonna get it right. Yeah.

Torrey (15:13.479)
Yeah.

Torrey (15:17.212)
Yeah.

Torrey (15:24.636)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (15:25.67)
He beat Carlos here two years ago in the first or second round or whatever it is. Don't care. doesn't care. And I'm not saying it. I'm not saying that that's gonna be a problem for Novak. I'm just saying it's not gonna be a problem for Botic. He's gonna show up. He's breathing with his heartbeat at like 78 or something like that. Just not caring. Exactly. On the dead sprint. Two other matches that should be just really fun. I think for very, very different reasons. Shelton.

Torrey (15:29.158)
Right. Right. Yep. Yep.

Torrey (15:37.523)
Right. Right. Right.

Torrey (15:44.144)
Yeah, while running.

Alvin Owusu (15:55.181)
versus Vashiro and then Tommy Paul versus Alejandro Davidovic Fekina. Like that's gonna be a, that's an athletes match over there. I don't have any proclamations to make about it. It's gonna be a fun one to watch. But the Valentin Vashiro just playing with house money all year, right? This is his first grand slam. He's seeded. In his first grand slam, he's seeded. So what does he do? He shows up and acts like a seed. All right, I'll just win these matches I'm supposed to win.

Torrey (15:56.498)
Valentine!

Torrey (16:04.698)
after the athletes match.

Torrey (16:16.687)
Yeah, right. Right. That's great. Yep. And dispatches and dispatches people like he's supposed to do. You know what I mean?

Alvin Owusu (16:26.792)
Apparently it's harder to get there than it is to stay there.

Torrey (16:30.002)
This would be a good match. This would be a good match for him. This would be a good match for him to test the top tenor. He had a lot of good wins in those those couple of Chinese tournaments that he went through. Was it Beijing or was it? I thought it another tournament he won. He won Shanghai, right? It did great. Anyway, I say it to say and Ben's looking solid. Ben is looking about as solid as you can look right now. You know, it'll be a good match. Those are good matches to me for for tennis and it's good. It'll be a good match for Ben because

Alvin Owusu (16:42.486)
Shanghai, Shanghai, Shanghai, yep.

Torrey (16:58.641)
Again, Ben, quiet as his cap, is becoming a tour professional and has raised his level where his low is no longer able to, he's not having to win playing lights out. He's winning routine, holding serve routine. His returns got a lot better out of it. His backhand's got more solid. He's not having to go for broke on the forehand. Thinking then when he needs to hold and serve without many question marks, he's just doing everything he's supposed to do and looking like he's comfortable doing it.

Alvin Owusu (17:03.085)
yeah.

Torrey (17:28.528)
Vachero is a steely, steely competitor. So I'm looking forward to that match as well.

Alvin Owusu (17:34.604)
Yep. Um, I want to switch over to the women's side. Um, in Boko versus Towson.

with the winner to play the winner to play the winner between Sam Blinken and Pata Poba, you assume arena is going to be there. That is, I don't know how entertaining that match is going to be because, you know, both girls can hit the ball pretty hard. One is in a different class of mover. Victoria is a different class of mover than Clara. I don't know what that ends up meaning, but I think that's a match of consequence with two women, slightly different parts of their career, but still.

Torrey (17:48.145)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (18:11.98)
probably their best tennis in front of them for both of them. That one I will find time for. Hopefully that time is before midnight, but I will definitely find time for that one. I counted Muhova out. I don't know why I did that, but I did. And here we are, third round against Magdalene. Pretty well favored in that match, and this is just what we're doing.

Torrey (18:17.828)
Yep, I agree.

Torrey (18:30.896)
Here we are.

Alvin Owusu (18:41.792)
This is what we're doing. If healthy Carolina Mojova is a top 10, a top 10 player. She's shown the ability to go deep at grand slams. She has finaled French open, semi-finaled US Open. Why? Why did I assume that we were just not going to, we weren't going to be here.

Torrey (19:00.401)
She's also underperformed in last several slams and I think you thought that form would continue. She's still got something in the tank. I discount that's Svetlana. I thought Elena was gonna not do well. I thought she was gonna be, you know, her and Gael were gonna ride off in the sunset with the little girl and call it a day as they may one day. But she's continued to prove me wrong. I did think, I did not.

like you again, sometimes that's why they play the matches album. That's why they play the matches. You don't know the match that I would look at in addition to this. What's that? yeah. The other thing I would say is is I'm looking forward to Pliska van keys. And of course, you know, this Mertens and Barton Kovach match, does she have a little more in the tank? Was that kind of her peak the other night against

Alvin Owusu (19:29.708)
That's how they play the matches.

Torrey (19:56.832)
Bench is, know, Merton's another, Bench is, she's another, you know, tour veteran, you know what mean? Probably around Bench's age. And then of course, you know, obviously you got, you know, Khaled Scarab versus Ega. So there's a lot of good matches in this up and coming, so many good matches. I am looking forward to, looking forward to those two or three in particular. I feel like Ega's just kind of quietly getting to work, you know what I mean? And like she always does.

Alvin Owusu (19:57.77)
Binch it.

Torrey (20:25.831)
And I feel like this is a, we're about to, you know, the, I feel like some of the younger players with the exception of Eva Jovich have started to kind of realize the elder States women are as good as advertised. And now the elder States women are like, okay, now I'll raise you one, I'll see you one and I'll raise you two, you know, in this game of high stakes poker. And I feel like it's been.

It's good to see a lot of them step up to the level that they have shown. And as I said, we as the viewers are the winners in the deal.

Alvin Owusu (21:01.804)
Absolutely, I think that's a good place to put a pin in it. Lots of fun matches coming up in the third round here. It's gonna be a fun weekend for all of us. I think we'll probably let maybe a round or two fly by and then check in again with one another post fourth round before we start to get into the nitty gritty of this tournament. again, TH, thank you for all you guys out there. Enjoy the matches upcoming and we will catch you on the next one.