Ben Shelton’s Clay Evolution and Arthur Fils’ Pattern Identity

Alvin Owusu (00:00.826)
And welcome to another edition of the best three podcast. I'm Alvin that's Tori and we're to talk a little tennis today like we normally do. Ben Shelton takes home the, the Munich 500, championship with a nice little, nice little victory over, a Flavio Kabali, our, our main man, Arthur Fees takes home Barcelona with a, with a big win over Andre Rublev and miss Elena. We're back and, continues her role.

with a nice little victory over Carolina Mahova in the Stuttgart finals. We'll get to all of that stuff. But first and foremost, TH, how you doing?

Torrey Hawkins (00:31.397)
you

Alvin, I'm good. good. Had an interesting week, but I'm good. Always happy to be here with you. And a lot of tennis, man. A lot of tennis. feel like when we get these, you know, these starting in this clay court season, there's so many of them. You know what I mean? There's so much tennis. You got to kind of bob and weave and kind of watch the matches that you're looking for because it's too much. It's too much to catch all of it. You know what I mean? But some great matches, some great people, some great upsets, as well as some great fun.

So as far as the people getting to those finals, say great runs to the final. That's what I'm trying to say. But how about yourself? How's it going these days? where are you these days? Even better, even better.

Alvin Owusu (01:16.952)
Yeah, I'm doing well. I'm home. I'm in the studio. I'm back. We're back, baby. We are back. We're in place. We are here until, man, I might be here until French Open, until I leave for French Open. So I'm here, happy to be here. This is the kind of time where you actually wanna be in place because last, I wanna say Thursday or Friday, there were so many good matches on back to back to back at the same time between Barcelona, Munich and Stuttgart.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24.899)
Good.

Torrey Hawkins (01:44.653)
What? Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:45.911)
It was like, I think I need four televisions for three tournaments somehow. And as players are sharpening their clay court spears right now, you're starting to see the streaks get a little longer in the slides, is nice to see. Points are getting a little heavier. A little finer. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:50.661)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:58.533)
Droppers get a little bit more fine, the slides for the droppers get little bit better. You're right, you're right. You're starting to see them kind of catch stride, so to speak.

Alvin Owusu (02:17.836)
Literally, literally and figuratively. Speaking of which, let's start with Captain America himself, Ben Shelton. Ben wins the Munich, I think that's the BMW open, BMW 500 on the ATP side, battering his result from last year. So he finaled it last year, lost to Zverev in the finals, gets to the finals this year against Kabali, is able to take home the crown.

Torrey Hawkins (02:19.832)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (02:25.957)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (02:43.918)
the first American man to win a 500 or better on clay since 2002. Do you know who that player was? Yeah, because remember, the Houston event is a 250. And this one also used to be, yeah, yeah. But the first American player to win, first American man to win a 500 or better on clay since the year 2002.

Torrey Hawkins (02:48.419)
Are you serious? Has it been?

Ah yes yes yes yes okay fifth.

Torrey Hawkins (03:05.893)
2002 I'm gonna go with if I had to give it my guess I Would say to Roddick would be my first guess my second guess would be Who was playing around that time back then that was putting in the work that was my main man my main man I'm looking at Marty fish

Alvin Owusu (03:29.422)
I'm gonna give you a five count, I'm gonna give you a five.

Torrey Hawkins (03:33.995)
Andre, Andre? Okay, if you're talking old school, I Andre, sure. I was thinking it was more on the 500 level. Yeah, I would have come around to Agassiz, obviously, as my default choice. Got it.

Alvin Owusu (03:36.844)
Incorrect. Andre Agassi. This is Agassi part two. Yeah, Agassi part two.

Torrey Hawkins (03:51.565)
Welcome to O2, I mean, he was always relevant through all that. I was just saying, I was trying to think of somebody a little more mid-2000s that was there, that Andre was, Andre was always relevant by the way. Let me just make sure I that up there.

Alvin Owusu (03:51.951)
Hell, Agassi final to US Open that year too. That was prime, that was, was that, that was, yeah, FET, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (04:09.262)
Absolutely. But watching Ben, so Ben's had a, I would call it an up and down year at best, right? Quarterfinals, Australian Open, comes back and wins, I think he wins Dallas maybe right after the Australian Open, so another 500 title, beat Taylor Fritz along the way, but has been outside of those two events losing to players ranked behind him, which is not typical of what we're used to seeing from Ben, but.

Torrey Hawkins (04:13.487)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (04:33.605)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (04:38.03)
I like to see him come into this event with points to defend and almost taking a macro look at things here. Winning a 500 is always good. Winning a 500 on clay, on European red clay, nonetheless, is fantastic. You come out of that, you're feeling really, really good about going into what would be next, Madrid, Rome, and then Paris. So it's not necessarily about, you know,

Torrey Hawkins (04:44.687)
Sure, It's better.

Torrey Hawkins (05:07.406)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (05:08.47)
am I getting closer to the guys in front of me on the surface? It's more so, I was really excited to see Ben put himself in a situation where he needed to execute and then got the job done. He had an interesting week, played some interesting players and showed up. I think, mean, he went through Emilio Nava, tough one in the first round, beat...

Torrey Hawkins (05:23.491)
Yeah.

Thanks

Alvin Owusu (05:37.356)
Yeah, three-center there, beat your boy Blox in a tough one. Well, he actually made Blox kind of look like a junior tennis player. And then a tough one against Fonseca and then another really good match against Kowali here. I wanna go back to a conversation we had a few weeks ago about how players, American players like Ben Shelton, Taylor Fritz, perhaps, I think you said perhaps, forego the clay in favor of spending more time on.

Torrey Hawkins (05:42.179)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (06:05.271)
not only hard, but grass as well, focusing there. And I was watching Ben this week, kind of with that in my head, and I got to the point of thinking where I'm not so sure that clay, it might help Ben.

Torrey Hawkins (06:17.945)
Ben needs it. Taylor doesn't, not at this point in his career. Taylor to me is a much different case and I was, I think I was referencing Taylor. Just sharpen up, get your body ready, do your thing on the clay, sorry, on the grass. Ben's younger. Ben has more years to get better on the terrible two and I really feel like he needs it whether he likes it or not. He has to get better at constructing points. He needs that.

let's face it it's about six weeks give or take on the dirt. He's got to really get that part of the career down just to give himself a chance to be relevant at the French. But other Americans who've been there done that and have kind of realized that they're hitting a little bit of a wall on the red stuff. Once you get about 27, 28, you've never really done much on the clay. You need to, in my opinion, to just start picking and choosing other tournaments because you you do what you've

done you're gonna get what you've always gotten you know so I think that's where I was going out with especially Taylor he's got some he's a little dinged up at the moment who wouldn't be it at this many years as he's been at it and so to me he's had great results on the grass just make sure you're healthy when the comes to them when the short grass season kind of creeps up I think Ben needs this big time he needs to get his returns better he needs to understand shape better he needs to be able to trust his backhand better all the things he did today

Alvin he really played a pretty solid tournament and he if he's going to be a true top five we've talked with us before about the litmus test of top five in the role right now Ben is knocking the door on being that top five player he's got to take on all comers Alvin he really does he has to be able to do that and he did that this week I was very proud of him to see him be the hunted right and not the hunter and and that comes with its own pressure and I was very very impressed to see him hold hold it down so to speak because

Alvin Owusu (08:07.393)
Yeah, yep.

Alvin Owusu (08:15.063)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (08:17.255)
He had he had some scares. You're gonna have some scares clay, you know, know some actions You can have some three setters and I was very happy to see him

Alvin Owusu (08:25.537)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (08:26.233)
you know, I'm gonna say answer the call, so to speak. He really did a nice job and didn't do it by just bashing balls and just smacking, you know, one foot, literally played a composed, a very disciplined style, trusted his backhand when it was cross court, sometimes almost too much, trusted his ball, took control, didn't lose court position, slides better than you think.

Alvin Owusu (08:40.47)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (08:51.481)
came in, used his drop shot, which he's very good at, can't do that quite a bit, I thought, which was nice. So I thought that was nice. So I just really feel like it's not gonna be your, know, Rafa Nadal type lefty clay quarter, but it's gonna be Ben Shelton style. And I think he did a nice job of showing us, you know, Ben Shelton style, American style, if you will, clay court tennis. And he was obviously very effective this week.

Alvin Owusu (09:00.109)
A lot, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (09:20.813)
Speaking of Rafa, I wanna kinda double click into that. Being left handed, feel like the Rafa blueprint is, that's how most lefties want to play, Extreme amount of traffic from the forehand on the add chord over into the backhand, using the slice serve to create width on that add chord and then leave yourself with a lot of options there. Rafa did it by sliding over into the deuce corner, then dictating out, and then back in again, whatever, so on and so forth.

Torrey Hawkins (09:49.103)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (09:50.35)
To your point about Ben doing it his way, when I said the clay helps him, I think the slower surface actually helps him execute that particular part of his game even more. Whereas when rallies get hot, he can sometimes get a little late on the forehand and that traffic ends up going middle, all right, comes up and coming a little flat across the back of the ball there. But with a little bit of extra time,

Torrey Hawkins (09:57.445)
Right.

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (10:07.011)
Yup.

Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (10:17.743)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (10:19.157)
and obviously you're both players are a little further back naturally on Klay. He's got more time to almost find the back of the ball on the outside and gets that forehand to open up the court. Same thing with that slicer, right? So he is able to serve in volley on Klay just because he's got more space and time. It's not the prettiest thing, but he's in there hitting a volley and you're still...

Torrey Hawkins (10:22.903)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (10:35.865)
Yeah. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (10:43.671)
Yeah, still recovering from the return. I agree with you, my only pushback or caveat I would say, it does take a little bit away from the serve itself. So to me, it's a nice bonus given that it's a little bit of a takeaway. There is a toll, so to speak, to pay for the big servers on the clay. He has good.

Alvin Owusu (10:46.781)
Right foot outside the the double Sally. Okay, right

Alvin Owusu (11:11.223)
does it take away? I mean, I know what you're saying, and he can't get as many free points going heat up the tee, but that same scenario I just gave is also part of the serve package that he has that other players don't necessarily have.

Torrey Hawkins (11:22.871)
which is what I was happy to see him use. And I think the more he does that, I've always felt like his plus two needs a little bit of work. His plus one's really good and his serve's really good. it's like, serve a plus, plus one, 90.

you know plus two it could be a little thin heavy or maybe too big and if it comes back and he's a little more neutral he gets broken a little more than you think you know what I mean in terms of what happens but to me on the clay it forces you to have higher percentage first serves now this will go for as many big ones it forces you to take advantage of that guy's return position which is sometimes 15 feet further back I think Caboldo was about 18 feet further back today he was way back there too far in my opinion but

I feel like Ben now has to make his plus one be a 95 and then let his plus two really be the shot that really gets in the pattern and gets him all the forearms that he can handle and just continue to just you know literally just keep feeding him and feed him. he did a nice job again he did it all week and I feel like he did a nice job of handling other people's patterns right and defending that a little bit. His forehand on the line looked good all week.

He knows how to reset without getting too risky and sloppy. He knows how to reset that doubt. When you try to go wide forehand to get it back to his backhand, he will yank you line and he will make you pay for that. And so all I'm saying is I think he's starting to figure out his his best patterns on the red stuff. And that was nice to see.

Alvin Owusu (12:57.997)
Yeah, one match of note that was really, think, both, not necessarily a litmus for one and a, I think kind of proving a point for the other. So Ben played Fonseca in, I believe the round of 16, beat him as like 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, something like that. Or maybe it was, yeah, I think that was the score.

Torrey Hawkins (13:14.905)
Cool as I think, yeah.

Yes, yes.

Alvin Owusu (13:21.421)
Yeah, quarters, pardon me. So on one half you have Yao, right? And we talked about this right before maybe coming out of Australian Open, sometime in there how to become a top 10 player you need to start, you need to have like kind of like a 500-ish record against top 10 players. And to get to 500 you need to first start playing them, right? I mean Yao hadn't played many, if any,

Torrey Hawkins (13:34.533)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (13:39.749)
20%.

Alvin Owusu (13:50.163)
up until that point, then in almost successive tournaments here, he got center at Indian Wells, he got Carlos in Miami, he gets Ben in here in Munich. So he did not win the match, but he did take a set, right? And even though Yal grew up on Clay, Ben's still five years older than this kid, right? So I think Ben did a really good job of...

Torrey Hawkins (13:58.061)
Newly.

Torrey Hawkins (14:08.005)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (14:15.333)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (14:18.316)
announcing his presence like, you might be the next hot thing and this might be your, potentially be your surface of choice, but I'm still him. And I finaled this tournament last year and if you feel like the centers and the Alcratizes of the world are what you need to work through, go ahead and add my name to the list as well because you gotta come through this too.

Torrey Hawkins (14:27.876)
right.

Torrey Hawkins (14:35.573)
Exactly.

Alvin Owusu (14:43.384)
And I, it's like he's only, I read it as a, he felt like this was a, almost like a statement match to not just Mr. Fonseca, but to the rest of the world. Like I'm one of these dudes too. And big, big win. Big, big win. also for Yao and the other flip side of that, like he now finally gets a set off on one of these guys. And it's, you know, on his, on his path, a mere 19 years old, like that's a, that is also a big deal.

Torrey Hawkins (14:45.829)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (14:50.67)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (14:58.892)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (15:05.913)
continue to make progress. I really feel, Alvin, and I'm serious on this, I really feel we just were patient with this young man, with this young Brazilian. He's doing such good things. No one is getting worse, okay? We gotta keep that in mind. No one is getting worse. You know, I was watching Rublev earlier against Feeves, and I'm like, Rublev is still good, bro.

Alvin Owusu (15:24.806)
Hey

Torrey Hawkins (15:31.685)
It's not like he went to a club, he went somewhere and just got terrible. He went to some retirement home and he came back out and he's, you know, playing bocce ball or something. And I say it to say, it's one of those things where the rest of the tour isn't just waiting around and letting you cut the line, you know what mean? So it's one of those things I just feel like I really hope we are patient. His progress is gonna be incremental. His progress is against the best in the world.

Alvin Owusu (15:35.21)
He's still good.

Torrey Hawkins (15:59.927)
like any young player. And I think sometimes we as fans, we as spectators, we're so hungry for the next, right? That we don't realize that, we don't realize the level of difficulty and the hoops and hurdles and leaps and bounds you have to make to get to said station, let alone to hit, to achieve once you hit said station. I mean, it ain't like it's easy.

And the fact that he even made it competitive, let alone went three, is a big deal. And so anyway, I just wanted to make sure that we are, we're patient with them. We're making sure that he is, he's making progress even in a loss. It was an old saying, know, I.

Alvin Owusu (16:29.12)
Yeah, right.

Torrey Hawkins (16:45.503)
I win, I learn, I lose, I learn. You know what mean? Good sister. So he's right where he needs to be, you know? And I think that's where he's at, especially at a young age. And again, I thought that was a, it was to me, I liked Ben handling him, even though was three, on clay.

Alvin Owusu (16:53.068)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (17:02.469)
Yow is a better return than people think. Yow's got a better back than people think. And so for me, for a guy like Yow to not just be competitive with, also to, you know, but forbid also, you know, there's three sets and there's three sets, right? There can be a three set with early break that the guy just managed to hold serve. And then there's a three set where this guy came and he put the smack down. know, Zverev had that three setter.

Right? Against Sarandolo. But that was an 0-2. I don't call that a three-set. I call that I came out of the Gates Law. You know what mean? That's not your official three-set. No offense to my main man. Is that Francisco? that his name? Francisco? Right. Sarandolo. So I say that to say, and no disrespect, but an 0-2, second and third tells me...

Alvin Owusu (17:32.832)
Against Sarundalo. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (17:45.206)
Francisco's turn to let you.

Torrey Hawkins (17:48.117)
Yeah, you might have snuck out a set against him. You necessarily push him three so much as you took advantage of a slow start. And hey, three sets, three sets. But where I feel like it's all sound good enough. But I felt like for Ben and for Yow, I felt like that was more of a hey, I held my own. you give me a, if I can earn a break, I'll take it. I'm gonna hold. And then I felt like, he bared, you know.

Alvin Owusu (17:55.084)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (18:02.092)
Hey, that third set costs Alex the next day too. it's like, he didn't need that shit in the legs.

Torrey Hawkins (18:15.024)
36636 that's classic, you know, just a break. You know what I mean? I started off serving, you know what I mean? And hey, it looks bigger than it is, but you know, all of us who have played know that that's 633663 is just, while it might've been more breaks than just the three, it was.

Alvin Owusu (18:24.95)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (18:34.213)
the net was three breaks, you know what I mean? and technically two breaks for the winner. So I really like what Yao's doing, putting a good body of work together, but I cannot take away from what Ben did this week. And especially having gone three, I actually think three sets helps Ben. I think three sets helps him get more reps. And I don't say that in a weird way. I say it, you gotta keep in mind, Ben was not your

Alvin Owusu (19:00.65)
Yeah, that's what we're here for,

Torrey Hawkins (19:02.149)
was not your 12s and 14s national champion junior tennis player, right? The kid was still playing two or three sports. I think, and I talked to Brian about this, I'm pretty sure Emma, his big sister, had a little more of a high level junior career than Ben did. Ben kind of came through a little bit late, and I've known Brian for a long time, but I say it to say, so this is reps, right? This is reps.

Alvin Owusu (19:24.277)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (19:28.517)
that he still needs to get stuff, he's still learning, his AI, so to speak, is still being trained on what, I say trained in the AI sense, of what he is needing to know. And there's a lot of things when he hasn't been pushed as to the depth that he had, up until recently, in the last two or three years, four years, we forget that he's just that good and has that big of a serve to be relevant at the highest level very quickly.

But there's still a lot of depth that he still needs to get to his game. And I feel like three sets help him understand that he has to be sharp. He has to hold serve. has to, he can't be sloppy. Where on hard court, he can be a little bit more, let's just say risque, you know what I mean? And go for things that he doesn't. And I was very, very happy to see him, as I say, finish the deal this week.

Alvin Owusu (20:23.083)
Yeah, you can see, I'm glad you mentioned it or put it that way, shining light on his lack of, let's say, international high-level junior tennis, which does count. We had Scoville on the show a couple of times, and he talked about his experiences at some of the junior slams, which not only gives you an idea of what it's like to be there and then also see the professional players, like in

Torrey Hawkins (20:47.237)
.

Alvin Owusu (20:52.093)
like, go ahead and mention, like, yeah, I saw these guys hit, and I'm like, they're not as good as they look on TV. Like, they're not, they don't hit the ball as big as you would think by watching on television. It's just, they're better in ways that you can't quantify while watching on television. But my point is, Ben never had that particular experience, right? He didn't go to Banana Bowl, and he didn't go to Coffee Bowl and all these other different tournaments to play against these South Americans and Europeans on clay court.

Torrey Hawkins (20:54.277)
All right. All right.

Torrey Hawkins (21:04.364)
over.

Torrey Hawkins (21:11.501)
Right, that's right.

Torrey Hawkins (21:20.195)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (21:20.927)
Ben is becoming a tennis player. He showed early success.

by being, not necessarily just by being athletic and being explosive, but he was trading on that. A lot of his early success was because of the pop and a lot of the force he was able to play with. But you can, and being tough as nails, like.

Torrey Hawkins (21:33.205)
I'm listening. I'm listening.

Torrey Hawkins (21:39.077)
And being a gamer and just being a gamer and his nails bring it bring it I'm down for it. I'll stare I'll stare down the barrel any day you you will and and and that says something now he's got a backfill and be as good as his ranking right and that's my whole point and that's why I say he needs these kind of matches and these these kind of tournaments so you know

Alvin Owusu (21:55.496)
Absolutely.

Alvin Owusu (22:09.707)
And he's getting better too, that's the thing. I remember watching him at the Miami Open a couple years ago, this is probably, think he played in the set maybe three years ago, and that backhand, I didn't think I texted you, was like, oh, I'm gonna need work there, that's not gonna stand up. Every six months, I'm like, it's a little bit better, it's a little bit better. That thing is damn near rock solid right now. It is a shield amongst shields, it's not breaking down.

Torrey Hawkins (22:35.587)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (22:37.737)
You can't go there looking for free points. And that's what you want. can even occasionally catch you looking, go line, and you're in some trouble.

Torrey Hawkins (22:38.34)
Right.

It's a line. And not taking the inside out.

too early losing court position and losing pressure to save or to hide or to cover said backhand and that's the biggest thing for me was that I think a year or so ago he started getting the slice down was able to redirect with line bring you back but I always thought his backhand return was just kind of average he just kind of got it in play and I feel like he's doing such a much better job of getting it he's striking it he's hitting he's hitting that low heavy and he's getting the ball he wants off of the backhand

Alvin Owusu (22:54.804)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (23:16.711)
which that's the best compliment you can give a guy with a big forehand is is your backhand setting you up for the ball you want on the next shot that's huge and that's what it's doing right now

Alvin Owusu (23:32.31)
Yeah, absolutely. yes, we are, we're happy with what we're seeing with Mr. Shelton. Went to Munich on the clay, got the reps, got the trophy, got the new BMW that I don't think he's gonna drive that car. But anyways, that's what I'm saying. That particular car, it's an iX3. I don't think he's driving that car. think I've seen, he's,

Torrey Hawkins (23:43.329)
He's a car guy though, he's a car guy, he might, you know what mean?

God.

God, he likes the old school. I could see him with an old, what was the old one that the guy had back in the day in the TV show, Man Called Hawk. Wasn't it like an old school M8 or something like that? It was like the old long coupe. I could see Ben being a little more old school. I could see him with an I-8 or the old M1. Remember that one? The old M1 that looked like, it was like BMW's, not the M1 series now, like the old,

Alvin Owusu (24:13.493)
So he,

Torrey Hawkins (24:19.975)
had the nice tail, the big spoiler in the back. I'll find a picture of it. Those of you old Beamer fans like me, you'll remember the old M1. It was a beautiful car. Slow, big, I mean, huge engine, lot of power, but weighed like two tons. it was a fucking brick.

Alvin Owusu (24:43.763)
Right, yeah. Our buddy Logan Stevens told me that the place that he gets his cars or car work done, that guy also supplies for Ben Shelton. up in Marietta, some shop up there. Yeah, so, but I did remember seeing a video of Ben at the Miami Open, and I think he was in this purple 7 Series. was pretty dope, and it's like, he's not driving that iX3. He ain't driving that. That's going, that might be going to

Torrey Hawkins (24:51.971)
Not for me. okay. Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (25:05.645)
Right, right, right. Right, right. That's right. all know, for Trinity. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (25:13.035)
That might be a gift for Emma. That's not gonna be his, that's not his car. But we'll take a shift from unseasonably sunny Munich over to more regularly sunny Barcelona. Artefies. Arter, yeah. So Arter wins the Barcelona 500, beats Andrei Rulev 2-6 in the final.

Torrey Hawkins (25:23.589)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (25:43.082)
He had himself a week. He got a lot done. Let's remember the last version of Mr. Feast we saw last year was French Open, Then he ends up pulling out, getting hurt. I think he was actually supposed to play Rublev in the next round. Gets hurt, pulls out, and then doesn't really formally come back until this year. But the clay court season last year is when he was turning a lot of heads.

Torrey Hawkins (25:55.621)
Thank

Torrey Hawkins (26:08.365)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (26:13.267)
Right, I think he rounded 16 at Monte Carlo or something like that and then semi-finaled this event last year. Yeah, lost to Carlos in the semis. So he comes back, does a round better and wins the thing. Had some good wins along the way. Beat Ottman, had a tough one against Terrence Ottman in the first round. Six in the third, ain't no joke. And then gives it to Bnoch, Musetti and Yodar.

Torrey Hawkins (26:16.633)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (26:23.812)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (26:27.269)
See you.

Torrey Hawkins (26:32.372)
Right. You know, you know, you know, sorry. I said it was a boy.

And Yordar was a tough match, hey, anytime you can beat Lorenzo on clay is you're doing some work. You know what I mean? And to me that was, I'll let you finish your thought because there was one thing I felt that I really, really liked that he's doing now. And I'm curious to get your take on how he's winning. It's not just that he's having a great week, it's that big, how he's doing it.

Alvin Owusu (26:42.653)
in route. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (27:13.629)
I'm gonna go a little more macro and then I'm let you come down into that one. like, say I put him and Ben right now kind of coming out of these two events, looking at their, what do you get out of this moving forward as we're properly using these events and marching towards the French Open? Does this mean that you are getting, does this have an impact on the players ahead of you? Like the way you view yourself and in terms of like,

Torrey Hawkins (27:14.681)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (27:22.469)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (27:34.725)
Thank

Alvin Owusu (27:41.567)
the Carlos and center of things. Directly, no, but I do feel like the more you can put yourself in a situation where you have to execute when the chips are down, the better off you are. So winning the event is a big deal for both, right, for both Arthur and Ben. Arthur winning the event with an opportunity, it could have been a lot easier at the back end of that second set. He took himself into the woods a little bit from five, two, up to

Torrey Hawkins (27:48.015)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (27:52.037)
Winning is never a bad thing.

Torrey Hawkins (28:03.917)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (28:11.178)
Five six down, but got it done. He got it done and Rubelip stepped up a little bit there, served a lot better when the chips were down there. He is, from my perspective, the obvious things are he's going a little bit bigger, especially off the forehand side. I know you mentioned it's not just that. He's going again, a little bit bigger on the first serve. He looks stronger. I mean, he's only 21 years old.

Torrey Hawkins (28:13.305)
in there.

Alvin Owusu (28:40.682)
You expect him to get stronger, you know, from, from here until probably 24, 25, 26. So, um, but I'll, I'll, I'll see the floor to you on this one. What are you seeing that is a market difference? Um, or the next, I wouldn't say market difference because the last time we saw him, this version of him, he was 20 years old, right? So even if he didn't get hurt, you would expect 21 year old version of artifice to be better. So.

Torrey Hawkins (29:02.519)
I would, but I wouldn't expect it this fast. The biggest thing that I'm watching that Arthur is doing now that I didn't think he did before was the same complaint I had against my black Canadian. I feel like they were so good at so many things that they had no identity. I didn't see them do the things that they needed to do that cater to their

weapons, right? In anything, Alvin, we're always trying to put our strengths against our opponent's weaknesses. We're trying to, I tell my players all the time, a pattern is a series of shots that gets you the ball you want, right? It's not just that it hurts the person, it can hurt the person all day long, but if I don't like the ball they're hitting me back when they're in trouble, then I'm still stuck, right? It's never gonna hurt them, right? If anything.

Alvin Owusu (29:50.44)
Yay.

Torrey Hawkins (29:58.469)
I remember playing sets with Brian Vahaley back when he was coming to juniors and I was in college and I was playing and I would run Brian in the corner every single time and he'd hit this backhand looper about 20, 30 feet in the air. It would land about three or four or five feet behind the service line high.

Alvin Owusu (29:59.147)
You're not really hurting them.

Torrey Hawkins (30:17.893)
and I'm finding myself hitting hitch kick forehands in the alley, trying to tag balls, knowing that I've got an easier shot, but I'm in such terrible court position, right? And I remember Brian told me at the end, I'd probably hit about, I don't know.

10 winners on him and lost about 20 points and he told me that he was keeping track of the numbers and I'm like, God, who is this kid? It's like a little like a little mini computer on this kid and he said, I was okay with losing those 10 because I felt like you couldn't hurt me on the other 20 and he said to me, deadpan straight face like, yep, I kept trying that play on you because I was wondering, said, yeah, you got to go for it. Yeah, you got a heavy ball. Yeah, but I was like, but if you couldn't hurt me off that next ball, it was okay. So I say that back for

Alvin Owusu (30:43.645)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (31:06.149)
for you know obviously for Felix and for Arthur I feel like Arthur's now getting the ball that he wants and ironically Alvin he's going through people's forehands he wants that matchup on the forehand side he went through Rubalev on the forehand side and when Rubalev went line Alvin he went back line again give it to me again he didn't go line that often to get to Rubalev's backhand he didn't need to

And I remember those were some plays that Nadal would do a lot. He would get the ball he wants. He liked pace. He would take the first inside out back to your forehand, being lefty, on the deuce. Nadal would stay inside out with you, getting the ball he wanted until, until, and he knew you were going to do it, until you changed. Got you. And he would wait for you to go all in knowing that once you did it,

Alvin Owusu (31:50.27)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (32:01.482)
Go lie.

Torrey Hawkins (32:05.155)
He was so good going to his left. Once he hooked you back wide, and you know what he would do? What would you do? You were in a trap. You would go back wide and all of a sudden now he comes sweeping back around you again, going back behind you, going. And at that point it was a dance. But I say it to say, Arthur's figured out, I like pace. I'm gonna go big to your forehand.

Alvin Owusu (32:15.498)
You're in the trap. You're the trap. You're stuck.

Torrey Hawkins (32:27.811)
You're gonna go down the line, good. I'm gonna go back to your forehand. You're gonna come back to my forehand and I'm gonna rip you a new one. And what I love about that is it tells me that he likes it. And when you can do that, Alvin, against one of the biggest forehands on the tour, one, Andrei Rubalev, you have got a pretty good forehand yourself. There were some times, Alvin, he was going inside in on Andrei.

going ham on the forehand back down the line to Andre's forehand. A, who does that? Not many people. B, who hits clean winners off that ball, off of Andre's ball? Virtually nobody. And number three, who does it repeatedly? So I was very impressed that he's starting to see a pattern that he likes. It's not to say he can't go line, he goes line fine, but I was just very impressed. And then it makes it, when you do go line, it puts pressure on you to be able to.

finish when you go live because you know if you don't you're gonna have a whole lot of pressure on the next few shots which if you think about it is that double pressure that you kind of want. You want that player feeling like yeah did it work did it? Yeah try it again. And that's really how you establish clay court pressure is that you know your patterns aren't working against me and what you thought you'd match up and that was half your whole game plan it don't work anymore. That's that's what's rotating.

Alvin Owusu (33:57.119)
And that's, that's something that like that specifically with artifice handling pressure or handling pace, specifically on the forehand wing. I think that is kind of two things are happening here. One traditionally he, his forehand was always big with time less so with pace. Right. And I think you saw it like, let's go back to, let's go back to Doha. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (34:13.572)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (34:17.166)
Correct.

Torrey Hawkins (34:24.013)
Correct. Yup. Correct. Correct.

Alvin Owusu (34:26.356)
when he lost to Carlos in the final. He lost to Carlos in final for a lot of reasons, but he couldn't do that against Carlos on hardcore, right? The actual, you know, the production on that forehand is a little elaborate, so he can get rushed over there. But if you slow it down just enough, Klay will slow it down just enough, right? And then also it's happening, like you have a little, not only does the surface slow it down, the distance behind the baseline the players both take

Torrey Hawkins (34:35.983)
Sure.

sure.

Torrey Hawkins (34:42.948)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (34:55.077)
It's your turn.

Alvin Owusu (34:55.218)
is gonna be a little bit longer. So you had now the ball's in flight longer, so it gives him just enough time to manufacture that. Like almost, think of it almost similar to how Zverev takes a long time to get through the backhand. Right, but it's just for it. Same thing. So yeah, but here, just enough time to make that thing go ping, right? he is, I mean, not only is he bringing heat off the forehand side, he was also getting on the front foot on the backhand side.

Torrey Hawkins (35:01.741)
Correct. That's his form. Yeah. Right. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (35:19.599)
front foot, nailing it down the line. I mean, nailing it in the corner, knowing it was coming. And then if he got the right ball, he was going big on the inside end. Which to me, the inside end is the ultimate I'm feeling good about my forehand right now. Because it's really a low percentage shot. But if you can do it and hit a winner off of it, you know.

Alvin Owusu (35:24.752)
also going through the court.

Torrey Hawkins (35:45.741)
People are thinking, why would you not go inside out? It's to my back, especially my Marjorie Rubelap, right? mean, of course you're gonna go in my backhand. And he he dared enough to do it and did it pretty well. that was what I was, I just was laughing when I saw the matches, how much he was feeling. I think what he lost the first two games, got an early break and I think he went like the next six. Like he just went off, like just went off. And that tells me he's a little shrieky too, but it also tells me.

Alvin Owusu (36:08.233)
Yeah. It was... Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (36:12.025)
He's able to keep momentum for that long. Streaky is winning three or four games in a row and then losing another two or three in a row. Even that five, was up low 40, four, five. I thought some of that was Andre's stuff in his toe in that game too. Andre buckled down, made three first serves and before you know it, you're not Andre's.

Alvin Owusu (36:33.095)
Right, right, yeah. But then Arthur did get broken at love the next game though, serving four at five, three. That is, that's a little worrisome.

Torrey Hawkins (36:36.735)
first of all, he was up, he got broken love. That's youth and just thinking that I'm just gonna walk this thing through. I was just as impressed when he won the five, six game. And then made the breaker fairly routine, let's be honest. I think it was seven, two. My point is, so I say that to say.

Alvin Owusu (36:52.873)
Five six game, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (36:58.827)
It wasn't like he lost or he squandered anything, right? He had a loose game, you know, and the fact that we can say it was a loose game, singular, not games, plural, is a big deal for where Arthur has come. And I'll be honest, he did it with a little bit flash and did it with a whole lot of pop.

Again, I can't understate this against Andrei Rubalev, who's got one of the biggest forms on the tour. it's not like this was against, if you told me he did this against, who's my main man, Caspar Roode, the foreign aid ain't big, okay, but he's got a little bigger form than Caspar Roode. He did this against Andre. mean, Andre hit it with the best of him. So that style, that tactic to me tells me that that pattern is pretty good. And maybe not for Carlos and for Yannick,

But buddy, for about 97 % everybody else, that's pretty big.

Alvin Owusu (37:58.206)
Yeah, and that's the kind of the duopoly of the ATP tour right now. It's like, this week for me was fun because you get to see everything without the shadow of those two, you know, those two hanging over everything. Yeah, yeah, and it's like, we know, I'm not saying I'm bored with it. I'm just saying like, we get it. Let's.

Torrey Hawkins (38:11.269)
The clouds, the hail, they put on everything.

Torrey Hawkins (38:18.116)
No.

Alvin Owusu (38:24.913)
Let's see what everyone else is doing. Let's see how they're matriculating without having these.

Torrey Hawkins (38:25.187)
Right. Good to see the tennis without them in the spotlight.

Alvin Owusu (38:34.409)
Yeah, and back to your earlier point about Fonseca and how everything happens incrementally. Beating Tabilo and René Creniche before losing to Shelton is progress in a 500, right? Winning two matches in a 500 at age 19 is progress in the right direction, right? Yannick Center was not Yannick Center today at age 19.

Torrey Hawkins (38:44.569)
Yeah, yeah, that's funny.

Right? That's right.

Torrey Hawkins (39:01.605)
100%.

Alvin Owusu (39:04.137)
I think we need to keep that in mind. He took the most methodical steps to getting there. They were relatively, I was like, he was kind of quick to get to top 20 and then did not become the center we know until he brought K. Hill in. So there was a little bit of stalling in that stalling, like, okay, this 10 to 20 range would be plateauing if not bringing in the special sauce that can help you get to the top.

Torrey Hawkins (39:19.973)
Yeah. Platonic. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (39:27.589)
100%.

Alvin Owusu (39:33.162)
Even Carlos, he won that US Open in 22, was it 22? But he was not this version of Carlos at that point in time. So I think, I say that to say, all of these players are still progressing at a nice clip. And so when you see players like Shelton and Fees step up and really, gonna put the hammer down and like, okay, I'm taking this title. I'm taking these titles.

Torrey Hawkins (39:37.305)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (40:02.825)
That is input into the machines. I'm getting better, I feel good about myself. As Yannick would say, let's see what's coming. As we have two back to back Masters 1000s ahead of us. So, wanted to get your, you talked about both of these gentlemen very beginning of the year. Yodar and Blox, right? I'm gonna, both of them get wild cards into these two, no.

Torrey Hawkins (40:07.588)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (40:21.445)
in the blogs. Alexander, Raphael.

Alvin Owusu (40:32.201)
Actually, Yoder might have directed, doesn't matter. They both got into home events, right? Barcelona, Munich, I think might have been both by Wal-Cart. I think that is correct. Blox, solid. Solid. Like, got some weapons. He will be a top 50. He will probably be a top 30. You think 20? 20? 20. Yeah, it's,

Torrey Hawkins (40:41.209)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (40:51.013)
20. Yeah, I think I do.

Big tennis.

Alvin Owusu (41:02.205)
Big tennis. I'm wondering, like he's 21 years old, right? So that's not old, but it's not young, right? He's on the older side of the next gen, if you will, when he actually played in the event. the majority, like he was in the Challengers all of last year, up until popping early this year. think he, round of 16 in Monte Carlo just recently. That's his best, like, he's very new to us on the tour.

Torrey Hawkins (41:05.785)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (41:11.204)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (41:18.821)
Thank

Torrey Hawkins (41:24.101)
Thank

Yeah, for sure.

Alvin Owusu (41:32.233)
But you've been bullish on him since you saw him at Next Gen. So what is it about his game that you feel is equipped to make that jump and become one of those guys, kind of week in, week out kind of guy?

Torrey Hawkins (41:38.405)
.

Torrey Hawkins (41:42.321)
And I don't think it will happen within the next 18 months, by the way. I think it'll be a steady improvement of him continuing to get there. He goes, he's all in, he goes big. If anything, I feel that's one of the problems with him and Yow, by the way. They have such a good way of playing that they play that way all the time. They don't have really a good plan B. And anytime you got a guy that hits the ball pretty big, they tend to lean on what that is.

Alvin Owusu (42:03.4)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (42:12.069)
Let's face it, that can be, it's it's like nitroglycerin, right? You're gonna blow, you're gonna blow a hole through the side of the mountain and you can blow your hand off. You know what mean? You you're just, you're playing with fire, so to speak. I think what I like about him is he reminds me of a lot of Tomas Burdick and he reminds me of the way that player that he played and...

He moves better than Tomas. He has the same type of tall stature, the same big serve, the same big form, the same solid backhand. comes forward well. And I just feel like that type of play, as you mentioned, has the potential to travel well at numerous events. Now, obviously, that's going to cater better on the hard court, on the grass, but between hard court.

Australia, hard court US Open, hard court US series, right, as well as the grass. I feel like there's enough good action for him and he's from Belgium so it's not like he hadn't played on plays. He can bring it but I like the fact that he has, he's about 6'4", not quite 6'5". He's range, he's got a live arm. I feel like a guy like him is only gonna get better.

Alvin Owusu (43:19.997)
Yeah, he's rangey.

Torrey Hawkins (43:22.315)
I think Rafael Nadal, Jodar is doing something very similar. obviously got, he's very, he's a very different Rafa, but he a, has almost, he reminds me more of Rodasco than he does of Nadal. And he reminds me of Fernando Rodasco a lot, but as far as that harder, heavier ball, not as heavy. you know, Nadal would take 10 balls to finally rev you up to get to maximum pace. Jodar is going big on ball three. I mean, he's like,

heavy heavy rip you know what I mean and I like but I like that style because he ain't afraid to go for it and for Dasco for those of us who remember you know he was he still could could hurt you know Rafa back in the day in the early days you know in the early five eight years before he was kind of getting up there I was privileged enough to watch him practice quite a bit together

lefty on lefty and he's got a little better back than you think you're I just like to see them both and I'm bullish on them because I feel like they have a style of game I've seen before it I've seen that game style do well before I've seen that type for Dasco was was you know top 10 probably close to top five at times Burdick was top five maybe even three at times was a perennial semi-finals of a bunch of slams on on multiple surfaces so I

that kind of game that's some very tall cod and I'm comparing them to I don't think that they will get there tomorrow but I feel like their game styles are very good and I like the fact that they have a lot of upside and I feel like the problem with the aggressive game styles you kind of all or nothing a little bit sometimes and you have to be able to get enough reps get enough depth

Alvin Owusu (44:43.43)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (45:03.693)
of matches and tournaments and just be playing well enough to play these guys on their off days. the way the tour works, especially with the guys, you bring a big ball, you can almost get a guy out of a slump. You know what I mean? Because you bring enough pace that that guy gets of attention. Like, man, I needed that. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I needed that tune up right there. I needed a little bit of pace to kind of me right.

Alvin Owusu (45:25.861)
Right, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (45:30.807)
And those guys are bringing it, right? So I think that's one of the things that I see those guys that could be almost a pitfall for them. And I think the same with Yao. That's why I think Yao had the year last year that I was kind of looking for after he kind of burst on the scene. And you kind of realize, yeah, you got to do a little more of this back and big forehand hit a serve. You know, these guys are good, last I checked. And so I like the fact that they are bringing.

Bring up the rear so to speak with the vengeance and buddy, you make no mistake. They're going to be players to reckon with and I look forward to seeing their progress.

Alvin Owusu (46:08.68)
And Yodar is the, I think what you're seeing from Blox is more of a traditional, like if a player is going to become a top 20-ish player, they get out of the challengers, they win a few challenges in row and they pop and they quality to the grand slam and then they kind of break one at a master or something like that and he's doing it. I think Yodar is more along the lines of like busting through.

Torrey Hawkins (46:32.077)
Yeah, I agree.

Alvin Owusu (46:37.464)
He qualified, you know, quality is way in the Australian open this year, wins his first round match in five sets. It's like, shit. Like it's kids. know he's never played five sets before because he's a child and he gets it done and then loses the Yaka Vincic. But like in that match, he just looked like he was out of gas, which is, you know, that's understandable. But every time you check in on it, it's like, he's, he's starting to look like he thinks he belongs here. And.

Torrey Hawkins (46:39.172)
Yes.

Yep.

Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (46:59.384)
Exactly.

Alvin Owusu (47:05.03)
to be 19 years old and win your first 250. think he won a, was that, was it Marrakesh? I think he won a couple of weeks ago. Like that's, that's a big deal. went ATP event that early. That's, that's a sign and he's beaten, he's beaten Cam Norris twice this year. Like Cam Norm is a former top 10 player. That's, that's, that's no joke. Like that's no joke. Like the, signals are, are there. Like it's not, I'm not saying he's going to win at Grand Slam in the next two years.

Torrey Hawkins (47:09.957)
Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (47:16.037)
Thanks.

Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (47:29.572)
But.

He's trending for top 15, top 10 if he stays on this current track. And that's another thing you like to see again in the next three give or take years. And I really like that that's the way they're trending. Bottom line, that they are some good. And in that next gen, Nidai, I remind you, your favorite player, Lerner was in that same tournament and was down a couple of sets, some set situations down, lost some sets, I believe Yodar and blocks. that's before he came

Alvin Owusu (47:34.106)
I'm just saying if you're

Alvin Owusu (47:57.306)
Absolutely.

Torrey Hawkins (48:00.439)
out and finish the deal so I say that to say you know that was a very hard fought next-gen with Lerner 10 being a very proven up-and-comer that they were doing that again so that's another reason why I was very high on them both is I felt like it was a it was a good almost an all-star of next-gen in that particular draw you know what I mean and I really liked what I saw from them and don't forget blocks was had got dinged up in Australia and lucky loser Dan and almost won his first

match and had some good wins going in before he got dinged up and got hurt in his last match and almost and within a couple of days almost pulled it off and got the lucky loser coming in on Australia so he's right there there's a big thing about fitness to Alvin that I don't think a lot of the players understand you've got to be fit enough to play that high quality of tennis

night, day in, day out. And a lot of times, a lot of people don't understand the rebound ability that you have to have. It's okay to play that good match. I played that five Saturdays. talking about with Raphael, Raphael played. Now you got to be able to rebound and come back and do it again tomorrow night. You know what mean? You might get Wednesday start, but that means you're playing again on, you know, on Thursday. You hope to get the Tuesday start, get the day off and kind of, but Thursday, Friday, Saturday, you're off. You know what I mean? And that's, you know, the two-fifth.

especially the 500s they are not they are not two-week events you know I mean so you've got to be able to put up a shut up pretty quickly and the tournament gets tough rather quickly and from as in for first round on you know what I mean you're playing you're playing a guy top 30 or top 40 in the world first round

Alvin Owusu (49:43.184)
Right, exactly, exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (49:44.505)
You know, and so there ain't no peeking and playing into myself in the tournament. I'm playing for survival from the first match on. And so I think that's, but again, if that's the level of our low end of an ATP 500, Alvin, ooh, buddy, we're getting some depth.

Alvin Owusu (50:08.488)
Let's go into that fitness part a little bit more because there's this thing I think that a lot of people don't understand about base level of strength and conditioning. If you look at someone who is the age 24, 25, they have, and they've been on tour for, let's call it 25 years old, and they've been on tour for five years. They've got five off seasons worth of strength building. They have five years.

worth, season's worth of conditioning, which includes building the body up to be ready to go week in, week out, high level match, high level match, high level match all the time. So if you work your way backwards to someone who's 19 years old, right? If you are 19 and producing, right, you're producing without all of that time.

to build up that base level of fitness. Like five years ago, Rafael Yoder was 14 years old. And it's quite possible he was in a tennis-based educational program where he's allowed to have four to six hours of court time and training per day. But when you start thinking about the, go to drills two hours a day after school, I take a lesson a week, I play tournaments, and then coaches are,

Torrey Hawkins (51:08.25)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (51:19.353)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (51:29.317)
Yep. I see a goodness because...

Torrey Hawkins (51:36.728)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (51:37.448)
Right, exactly, exactly. And yet I also want to have University of Virginia as an option on the back end here, which is where Yodar was, did he go there for a semester? think he was right there. Yeah, but still, when you think about that, players who want to be where he is at that time, you gotta start putting that work in at 15, 16, and building the body up for, you

Torrey Hawkins (51:39.429)
That's it.

Torrey Hawkins (51:45.003)
I think it's a semester, not quite a year.

Alvin Owusu (52:06.085)
the winter that's ahead, is professional tennis is not just hitting a professional ball, it's having the body that allows you to move and hit professional balls at a high level day in and day out for 40 weeks out of the year. it ain't easy. that's why, you remember like Felix, Felix used to have a tough time finishing, he did not finish a lot of matches his first year on tour. Novak go all the way back.

Torrey Hawkins (52:26.521)
I'm sorry.

I say it's Right.

Alvin Owusu (52:36.249)
Yeah, Novak, go all the way back, Novak had some issues with withdrawing from matches and whatnot early in his career. It's not easy. And that's the part that you don't see how much it takes, how depleting a professional tennis match is and what you need to do to prepare to do it all the time.

Torrey Hawkins (52:37.423)
I'm serious.

Torrey Hawkins (52:48.773)
Any professional sport, Alvin, in my opinion. I've talked to guys that their first year playing pro basketball, first year playing pro football. Each of them said it was an absolute, it smacked them in the face. You you go from playing, you know, so many games, you know, I think college football is what, 16? They may play 17, 18 games total. You know, I mean, you know, and, you know, your maybe conference, maybe got eight games, you know what mean? And then you go into playing a full on, you got the three or four preseason

games then you go on to play you know really pretty much close to 18 20 games on top of that and it's with the best competition in the world basketball college you your plan 25 maybe 30 games NBA 82 BAM you know baseball college off 30 40 games you know 160 or whatever the number is in baseball a little sudden you're like whoa you're like

It's it's it's staggering, you know the volume difference That's why I say it to say it's tennis is very similar and all the matches are at a high level There ain't no punches. There ain't no

We got easy first round coach gonna sit me this week because we're playing such and such nobody. No, everybody's good and everybody's out there playing, playing for money and playing for and playing for that for that point. And there is there's no slouch. There's no there's no ramp up. You know what I mean? It is shut up and I think that you don't know that until you see it. The great show of night in the trade of the copter. You never know what you need until you need it.

Alvin Owusu (53:55.291)
All of them.

Easy first round.

Torrey Hawkins (54:22.759)
So that's they don't know they need that level of conditioning until they realize that five setter and they are they are low in the tank You mentioned you mentioned Arthur Arthur is a better tennis player because he's a more fit tennis player right now I think feels the same thing this over the you know the toward the end of last year I think Ben looks come much much stronger and much more stable And he don't he doesn't look like he's flying around slapping balls like which to me is also a sign of not a

Alvin Owusu (54:26.439)
until you need it.

Torrey Hawkins (54:52.679)
great core strength, not great leg base because he's slapping around and leaving the ground. If you've got good levers, you've got good legs, you look like you're on the ground. You look like you can do that all day long. And that's what it comes down to. So, we don't even want to talk about Carlos and Janik's fitness routine and what their regimen is. And even the great Novak Djokovic, those guys are, man, their worst day might be your best day as far as fitness is concerned. And so you go into that match,

against those guys that you got a 30 ball rally and a long point you played the point of your life and they're looking over like 15 love.

Alvin Owusu (55:35.867)
Yeah, yeah. Let's change gears here. We'll leave the men to the side. Women were in Stuttgart. Elena Rabakina ended up closing up the tournament in typical Elena Rabakina fashion, taking down Carolina Mojova in the final. Had herself a bit of a scare against one Leila Fernandez. Whew.

Torrey Hawkins (55:41.795)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (55:56.825)
Tell me you saw that match.

Alvin Owusu (56:04.133)
didn't see the match. The one match I did watch of Leila's was Leila Fernandez versus Alex Ayala. That was a special, that was for the fans only. That was a special, special tennis match.

Torrey Hawkins (56:08.133)
Rob.

Torrey Hawkins (56:14.277)
Was that Junior Orange Bowl 16s, what was that?

Alvin Owusu (56:24.667)
I would, it was, one of them looked like it. Layla stomped her down. was a Alex, I mean not that I wanna talk about Alex Yala today, but Alex is a fantastic counterpuncher. And Layla was having none of that. She's like, I'm taking that feather ball and I'm shoving it down your throat, like with the intensity that Layla brings every single match.

she brought it like it was personal. Like no, no, no, I was before you were you, I was me, and I'm still here, and I'm ranked the hell of you, so you're going home. You're going home. And it was like, it was, think that second set got interesting towards the back end. so, Rebecca versus Fernandez, I didn't see the match, but if I had to, like when I saw that score, I thought to myself, okay, scores like this,

Torrey Hawkins (56:50.053)
Right.

What was it? Waterford? Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (57:17.263)
Elena Rebacca has scores like this against a certain profile of player. It has been Mboko, Pugula, the players who will run around and make her hit enough balls to where she almost hits herself into a headache, right? Yes, Elena is queen of first serve, first strike, but

Torrey Hawkins (57:21.519)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (57:30.223)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (57:34.041)
Right, of punches itself out. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (57:41.144)
for sure.

Alvin Owusu (57:47.089)
First serve first strike second strike third strike. She gets a little the closer she gets to the net the Footwork gets a little less refined and she starts. Yeah, she starts looking up the other side of the net Especially these little these little water bugs are running around running down balls Yeah, so I could and I feel like I feel like Laila's either beaten her or taking a set off from her before I'm not even gonna look it up. I feel like that happened last year but

Torrey Hawkins (57:48.261)
right yep right this little punch yeah yeah 100 %

Torrey Hawkins (58:15.203)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (58:16.582)
got it together, she won the match. It's her first match on clay of the season, her first tournament on clay of the season. She won the match, she wins the tournament. That's two Porsches in the garage. And nothing cooler than playing for your Porsche back there. They put the.

Torrey Hawkins (58:27.237)
First of all, I've seen this how cool does the Porsche layout look with those three ports in the background? And it's indoor whatever I mean it's that they got they got that whole thing looking like a darn Porsche showroom. by the way, there's

Alvin Owusu (58:38.054)
It's great. It's great.

Torrey Hawkins (58:48.675)
God, it looks great. mean, the other terms are great, BMW and I don't know, it's Lexus, guess, on the Barcelona. They gotta step it up because Porsche's absolutely throwing down the gauntlet. mean, it's like, is that all you got? You got a little ramp over there? good for you. know, Porsche, the cars are glowing and levitating in the back.

Alvin Owusu (58:50.86)
tennis match yeah yeah it's

Alvin Owusu (59:05.2)
yeah.

Alvin Owusu (59:11.554)
Yeah... the-

Alvin Owusu (59:16.484)
The juxtaposition between the Porsche open and the BMW, just like one's outdoor, one's indoor, right? And the BMW is like in the corner, like it's there. If you're there, you can obviously see it all the time, right? But like, the Porsche event, is, you can't miss it. They got three Porsches just sitting back there opposite side of the camera. This is the Porsche open all the time.

Torrey Hawkins (59:21.388)
Right, right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (59:31.469)
Buddy, right here. Buddy. Buddy. The head of Porsche marketing is looking at the camera angle. Little to the left, little more to the right. We're gonna get these three colors. We're good. I I wanna get one just for watching them for that long. my God.

Alvin Owusu (59:51.28)
Yep, yep, you're not centered. Yeah, they crush it.

Torrey Hawkins (59:56.037)
I get more force because they look too awesome back there in the back. mean, anyway, great tournament for Rebekah. I thought it was a solid match. Mojova is a very tough matchup for her. Sorry, Mojova is a very tough, Rebekah is a huge bad matchup for Mojova. And she just has a...

Alvin Owusu (59:59.303)
Boom. Worth it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:19.685)
Rebacca in his backhand is as big as her forehand is, her backhand is just as good. Her step in backhand can literally take you anywhere she wants. And I feel Mahova is one those players that needs two or three shots to get you going. She needs a slow roll, forehand needs to run around. Rebacca gets to first strike so quickly.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:21.38)
Right, right, right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:39.608)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:41.347)
and then she attacks you again so quickly. Her plus one, plus two, to your point, is the best in the world, period. There's no no ifs, ands, buts about that. If you are good enough, physical enough, strong enough, tall enough to defend three times, you can be competitive. If you can defend it five times and make her go toe to toe for four or five points a game,

she can come down and be a little bit mortal and if you can do the same on your serve well then we call that player Arena Savalinka. So there aren't many people that can do it.

And unfortunately, Carolina is not one of them. And so I felt like it was just a battle of, it was just a matter of, I was actually surprised that she kept it that close in the first and just kind of hung in there. I think Rebecca has stormed off to early lead and I was actually impressed that Carolina made it, a, know, kind of kept it close in the first, but the second set, it just didn't happen. And there just wasn't enough depth, enough power, enough countering, enough anything. And that just shows you the level that Rebecca is playing.

at right now.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:54.727)
And going into this match, Mojave had a oddly, fairly favorable matchup. their head-to-head was 2-1 to Mojave. But that's career, right? I think the first time they played was like 2019 and then 2023. So you kind of take those out of the way. But then Mojave beat her in Brisbane beginning this year. Or was it this year? Yeah, it might have been this year.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:59.109)
Mm.

Well, let us say, if I was back in the day.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:20.038)
But still, it's like a lot of this is on, it's on Rebekahna's racket. It kind of depends, like, if she's there, is it the Rebekahna that we've known for the last six months? Or is it the Rebekahna, you know, when she was in the lurch for a little while? So.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:30.981)
I would love to this album because it's funny you mentioned that. Indoors, Rebecca is unbelievable. mean outdoors she's you know again obviously I know she's from Australia but even then. Indoors, you saw that we saw the run she had at the WTA you know the finals. She is darn near if when conditions are perfect and she can strike.

And this was on clay indoors. mean, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:05.944)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:05.988)
Indoor clay is so weird. it's, it's, like, the two things are juxtaposed against each other, Indoor, perfect conditions, clay court, nothing normal. So it's like, you put indoor clay, it's, I don't, I don't understand it. I don't understand it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:10.617)
Right. And I'm just saying that, but outdoors, could see Wendy, you got, you got Mahova in there slicing and dicing, moving around the ball's low and we're backing us right, hit corner, hit the service, sideline, you know, service box, you know, single sideline corner, you know, on ball three, little bit of wind, little bit of grid on the court. I could see her not being as sharp per se, especially in a tune up.

for Australia, but indoors, buddy. I mean, she can dial it in. She can absolutely, like a sharp shooter fixing, know, tweaking the scope. You know what mean? She's all there with two more, not two more notches, two more clicks. Okay, we're good now, we got it. You know, I can hit this target from 300 yards, no problem.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:05.401)
Yeah. it's so kind of the, the rest of the tournament had a lot of, we got a lot of interesting matches, like considering that this is a very compact drawing, you know, usually you're getting a lot of the top players. this is the first European, you know, high level women's clay court event. obviously a lot of the American women play, Charleston, which was the week prior, two weeks prior, but then you come over to suit garden. It's like generally the, the, big dogs show up and it's,

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:08.004)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:15.363)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:34.691)
It's all hands on deck. Interestingly enough, Amanda Anna's mobile. Like she didn't play Charleston and then she's not here. She hasn't announced a new coach. I wonder what she, maybe she's just at home working, just working, working, getting ready. I don't know, put that to the side.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:37.539)
Yeah. What was that, too?

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:48.101)
and putting in that work, you know what mean? She needs to, she's got a decent, you know, and she's one of those players I'm talking about. She's, you know.

good on clay ish, you know what mean? But she's gonna have a big wimpy to defend coming up. If I'm her, I'm just gonna try to get in better shape, so I'm not looking... She's in good shape now, but she needs to be top five in the world shape and be able to play the level of ball that she can. I get your point though. This tournament here about the big matches, I was very happy to see the...

The Andreva-Svantec matchup, was happy to see the Mojova-Svitalina matchup. Obviously the Mojova-Golf matchup. I don't think she's had much success against Coco and had some success this time. it's been some really, it was just a.

All of your you know, I'm gonna call it the 5 through 25. You know what I mean? It's like Everyone was here at this tournament and buddy. I mean even you know some as I think beat be Jasmine first round I mean you had yet such good, you know, had such good matches early You know what I mean? I mean, no school to go Alex Adrova I mean you you got it was buddy you you better read it You better be ready and then a lot of these are European type players as well So they're all fairly adept on the clay

Alvin Owusu (01:05:49.636)
Right, right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:09.447)
So you know, anything can happen.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:16.079)
Well, let's kind of take, I want to spend some time right there. Like speaking of adept on the clay, our reigning French Open champion won Cocoa Golf, came into her matchup with Carolina Mahova. I think she was 6-0 against her lifetime. If it's not 6-0, it's 5-0, something to that effect. Had only lost one set to her lifetime. All of those matches were on hardcore. So we now were playing on claycore, which typically, you know, obviously like I said,

you know, reigning French Open champion. Coco was also finaled the French Open prior to that. She finaled Rome last year. She's a very accomplished clay court player, but just enough. Hell, think, think Coco beat Carolina in Miami this year. Like I she just played her. Um, but enough of us, like the surface change does just enough to that matchup to make it hard fought. Um, and in this one,

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:48.709)
Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:59.032)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:07.684)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:14.169)
Carolina was able to turn it over. So when you look at the two of their game styles, right, what would you say from your coach's eye, what makes that matchup so comfortable for Coco on hard court that would then turn it into something a little trickier on clay court?

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:24.74)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:31.909)
So I'll start off, Carolina loves her inside out forehand. Coco loves her backhand. So that's not work. And on hard court, I could see Coco having the ability to redirect line or cross at will. And Carolina, as aggressive as she is, I'm gonna throw some numbers at you Alvin, scale from one to 10, 10 being the absolute best. I think Carolina Mahova's pace is at a seven.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:44.633)
That don't work.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:01.653)
I give her speed about a six and a half. So she has this ability to, if she's not careful, can hit just big enough that if she's moving well and hitting clean and hitting her targets, she can catch up to the speed of her returned ball. Coco is a nine five on speed.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:08.869)
Mm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:21.631)
and her ball pace is so let's just say her ball speed is an eight. So you now have a player that really doesn't have coverage area that she can't handle and if she's ran she's actually better. On hardcore Carolina Mahova is gonna hit her nice kick serve, look for forehands, got a nice backhand but she's gonna look for shots to take you to the backhand so she can do her work from the outside. Unfortunately Cocoa Golf loves the outside and pretty much owns the outside.

And that's why that matchup was 5-0, 6-0, whatever you said it was earlier on the hard court. Now you enter the clay, okay? The footing, the going back behind.

The person now has the quick player is actually a little bit at a disadvantage because you have to go if you can counterpunish which is great on hardcore because you're using the ground as your leverage on the clay the grounds moving so you don't have that leverage anymore and once you hit it big and you over recover too far you left a little too much room to the left and Carolina Mahova will come back on you she's a very experienced clay court player and that's one of

Alvin Owusu (01:09:03.001)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:28.293)
things that I could see that may have just got cocoa a little bit got a little bit under

under her skin a little bit that kind of didn't give her the true matchup. Maybe that now causes you as a Cocoa Golf to go for more on your backhand that you need to and then of course start going on the forehand. Now you're playing some balls and some plays that you didn't that you don't necessarily have to do against a Carolina but if Carolina stays in the point long enough it's going to show up some things and the the step in strike backhand on the run where you can just kind of rip and go and know you're going to make the shot on the clay you got to make that three more times and again three steps

right it was it was it was five seven third good match I see that being a very very close match and if and you know I will go back and kind of look at some of the stats and take a look at it myself but if I had to guess Carolina did a great job of going back behind her

Alvin Owusu (01:10:10.361)
Yeah, there's that match.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:20.813)
If I had to guess, she probably did a great job of lengthening the point out and you know in the clay court while Coco is very very good with her feet you know the fast players tend to they tend to struggle with players that know how to redirect and go back behind you because they can use your speed against you knowing that you're you know that you're so fast you're already moving one direction and the ball behind you is absolute death so

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:49.989)
Thank

Alvin Owusu (01:10:50.457)
And I think that's the right read. I watched a fair amount of that match and it's not just the, not only did Carolina do a really good job of, to your point, going behind Coco, right? She would run a couple of those inside. Instead of going inside out, she would go inside in enough where Coco would start running, cheating over there, and then she would go behind her, but she also has the other options of going behind in front as well with the drop shot to the backhand side there.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:57.103)
it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:02.809)
Yes. Right. And keep it honest. Right.

Yeah,

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:17.091)
with.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:19.713)
And then the same thing with the inside in drop shot on the forehand side. So it's like you don't really, and especially with, this is Cookless first tournament on clay court, right? So like, obviously she's a fantastic, very well accomplished clay court player. I'm chalking this up mostly to a nothing burger. Like, it's fine, it's fine.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:32.161)
Right, right. And she was probably playing on a normal day and Moevo had a phenomenal tournament. I was going to say, I looked at the same thing when I looked at that Jazz and Paolini against Zinap Sumnes match. I can see that being the same thing, right? Paolini, very fast, good on the play slides well, but again, so fast that she almost leaves open court because she's left that situation so early. And those are matchups where, you know.

you could see a player like her, know, lose, being so fast works against her. If I looked at six players in this whole draw that were, that are crazy fast, those three are those three, you know what I mean? know, Jasmine, Coco, and who was one those I was looking at that's pretty quick.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:19.054)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:23.504)
I'll look at one more even a a a Schneider I mean she's not she's not slow you know I mean so you got you got a few other players I could see that being a not a great matchup for those kind of players ego you know let's go it goes fast you know I mean so I could see that I could see her getting getting real behind every once in a while takes balls early if she hits one or two balls it's a little thin just a little thin and she's already taking early taking and she's gonna get ran I could see I could see

I could see a mirror and that ball just just you didn't hurt me enough with that on the rise you didn't hurt me enough and now I can extend the court if I this ball clean enough and get you on the wings.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:07.598)
So that's an interesting call out there on the, I wanna talk about that match a little bit before we get out of here. There were some slight tweaks, and I'm speaking about Iga versus Mira here, slight tweaks in Iga's approach. Obviously she's been spending time with Rafa at the Nidale Academy, and Francesca Roy is now in her bag, and we're double clicking into Clay Court Iga here.

and you started to see a little more extreme right leg load on the open stance forehand, like really trying to generate some more RPMs and try to use that to link in the court and push players back. not, something's not there. Either what worked, that time might have passed us.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:51.493)
you

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:59.907)
Mmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:04.802)
And I'm still buying all the Eaga stock. If you got Eaga stock you're trying to get off of, call me. I still believe. But there's also the whole idea of this game moves, it moves quickly. And we are in the, I'm not gonna say we're in a big babe era, but all of these women are hitting the crap out of the ball. And they can all handle a variety of types of balls. And so what Eaga did when she was, you know,

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:08.089)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:23.674)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:29.903)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:32.676)
at the most dominant end of the sport. Crazy match win streaks and four French opens and year on year on year as number one, That was before your Rebacca. That was before your Sabalinkas. was before your Anasimovas and even well before your Andrevas, right? But these women are all six foot ish, right? And they can handle that ball. And I saw it within that match against Mira.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:42.959)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:54.682)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:02.01)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:02.552)
where Eka was doing her normal thing pretty early and then at some point in the second, like coming out of the second set, like it's like Mira's just like, I'm just gonna hit through you. I think I could just hit through you. And so she started flexing a little bit more on the first serve and she started going a little bit bigger on the forehand and Eka looked a little caught out. Like I don't have a secondary plan here.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:08.943)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:19.56)
Thank you.

I don't have an answer to that and I don't have a second way beating you. Yeah, that's what I've been saying. I told you before and I hear what you're saying and you have to understand this perspective comparison, sorry, this comparison and perspective. She is that Martina Hingis of this era. I could not give her a higher compliment in that sense, but when the bigger hitter started to show up.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:30.72)
Right, I can't, yeah I can't.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:49.655)
Capriates, Davenport, Cicerenas, obviously Venus. They were just going through her and Hingis could no longer be the court magician that she was. And that's and I just I just see a lot of similarities in that game to Ega's game now. And it's not to say I think Ega's taller. that Hingis looked shorter than she was actually about 5'7". She wasn't crazy short, but she was certainly not as tall as Venus, wasn't tall as Lindsay, wasn't tall as...

some of these these these footers that were out there but I say to say her ball wasn't as big and I feel like her ball if anything I think I personally think that Hengis was a better court magician than than Ega I just feel like Ega takes the ball so early and he just kind of plays a little bit of early smash mouth from the return side especially that I feel like if you got a big enough serve though you can kind of hold that off and my problem with it is Alvin like you there's a lot of things she does well

Alvin Owusu (01:16:34.514)
yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:45.935)
but there's a lot of things that I don't think she can tweak too much. I don't see her forehand ever being able to flatten out. I don't see her serve ever getting to the point where she can just hit big. I think her backhand has, it's always been been world class as far as being able to hit certain shots and it sets up her ball, but she has such a load on that and grip on that forehand that she's hitting that ball so thin.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:57.57)
Right, right, right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:13.253)
When she's hitting it right, man, it dances. When she's not, doesn't have the right time. Every time you take away time, Alvin, you're taking away time from yourself as well. Robbie Genevieve taught me that. I never had really thought about that. I always kept looking at it as a net positive, if you like taking balls on the rise. But Genevieve made a great point to me. He was top 10 in the world, so of course he's got a good eye on it. He says, you gotta be careful, because you're taking away time from yourself too. And what he was telling me at that time that I didn't fully understand was,

You think you are good with less time because your shot worked. But at the same time, let that ball come back twice. Right? You're saying the shot worked, the person hit the next ball weak, you can go forward. Yeah, works. Good. Good for me. Right? Yay me. Then the ball comes back deep and you're taking the on the rise back middle or maybe just hugging the baseline to redirect back center of the court. And you're good enough to run one more down to either corner.

And then you realize.

You can't run the ball down that is going away from you because you're so close. You now have to run backwards. You are now a victim of your own court position, right? And so that's when it hit me. And I think that's what Ega struggles from. Now, you and I both know she's not going to back up eight feet now. She's not going to back up eight feet, change her game. And so I get with Roy and Raffer trying to get her to do. I just think it's going to take a little longer. Play the long game on that one. I agree with you.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:23.873)
Right, you're so close.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:38.083)
Ha

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:43.623)
She's certainly not done. I think somewhere in the middle is where that needs to be I think if if I'm in that coaching camp, I try to get her to hold serve a little better I try to get her to maybe get a true kick or a true flat body or true slice body that's gonna really neutralize, know 80 % 90 % of the top 20 and be okay at the top five and just you know, Grin and bear it for the for the top three or four and then really get her

unbelievable at center shots. She's very good three steps to the right or left off either side. She's not a good, she's not great at center shots and she's very good on the run one direction either side but in that one direction. She's not a great counterpunisher. She's a great punisher ironically even though she isn't hitting the biggest of balls. She punishes because she hurts you so early you will cough up that first shot. If you don't cough up that shot

she becomes a bit of a matador situation. And I really feel like there's two or three other things they need to maybe address first before they start kind of going more heavy open stance, in my opinion. I just feel like there's a, the production on that side just looks thin to me. And I feel like if I'm six foot tall and you're a heavy reset to my backhand, that's still wheelhouse. You know what mean? And by the way she stands, I'm so close to the baseline, that rip is going past me.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:06.573)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:08.133)
You know what I mean? mean, don't, and I don't, there's no answer for that. You just cannot take that beeline of a ball that's landing a foot from the baseline, it 90 miles an hour on the rise back. There's no more, no one hits that ball.

going direct lines. Direct lines work. Direct lines work. I'm saying if you're going heavy open, you said right foot, heavy open stance. If you're going heavy open stance to reset, the backhand going strong cross, you're going to be late every time. You know what mean? So, anyway, I feel like she's got another good grand slam run in her for sure. She's got top eight.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:29.323)
or even going at a direct line to try to cut it off. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:54.895)
for the next three to four or five years as long as she wants to be out there. I don't know if she's got another clear path to the slam unless one of them plays each other and knocks them out like what happened at Wimbledon last year with Anissa Mova and such. this is gonna be, she's at the point now where she needs some help in the draw to be able to find her way to get to the winner circle.

in my humble opinion.

She's a six, seven year vet at 24. She's, let's not miss her.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:29.667)
Yep, you know, again, she's still 24, but like you're...

Yeah, that's true. Your point about Hengis, it lingers. It's like the voice in the back of my head that continues to get louder and louder. I'm like, I'm like, shut up, shut up, shut up. But you're not, I'm not saying you're right. I'm just not saying you're not wrong either. That's what I'm saying. Unrelated, Shots and Neps. Either I have the wrong number or Robbie doesn't want talk to me because I've got two unresponsive texts. So I might put the ball on your court to reach out to him.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:44.515)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:54.99)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:00.802)
I'm sad. I'm sad. I'm sad.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:07.812)
because those kind of those kind of those kind of coaching nuggets is what we're all about here on best of three and West Cobb's finest needs to needs to pull up with us one good time. I think that's a that's a good place to put a pin in it. We've been out here for a while. So yeah, let's end it there. Please like subscribe all those things I never asked you to do because I never forget to say it in beginning. But that's that's the best three rap. I'm Alvin. That's Tory. That's the three we are out.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:08.526)
in a person.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:14.324)
No, okay, no. Yep.