Ep. 03: GOAT Talk & The End of an Era in Tennis

Alvin Owusu (00:01.112)
Welcome to Best of Three, I am Alvin. You are joined today. We've got Torrey Hawkins here with us. Tori, say hello to the people. Hey man, I'm doing great. I'm glad we were able to get together. It's a late night session and I feel good. It's interesting and I realize as we get started on today's conversation that the people don't know you, the people barely know me.

Torrey Hawkins (00:09.934)
What's up Alvin?

Torrey Hawkins (00:16.296)
Absolutely the best kind.

Torrey Hawkins (00:29.239)
Hehehe.

Alvin Owusu (00:29.3)
But they definitely don't know how you and I know each other. And it just got me thinking about that we've actually done this before. have very fond memories of us in Louisville, Kentucky, snowy night, probably either Thanksgiving night or the night after Thanksgiving at a Southern indoors or both. It was definitely both for a couple of years. Having conversations like these after all the kids have shut it down for the.

Torrey Hawkins (00:46.274)
Right. both. Yeah. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (00:56.938)
for the night and I think there's no better place for us to have these types of conversations. So I appreciate you joining me. Yeah, it's good to be here with you, my man.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02.859)
but.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08.695)
man, I could not be happier. No better host and no better friend of mine for all this. I appreciate you. This is great. Let me know. I'll lead. You'll lead, I'll follow.

Alvin Owusu (01:20.257)
Yeah, it's all good. It's all good. You know, it is in the real world here. It is the day after Thanksgiving in the year of our Lord 2024. And it's a great time of year to kind of, know, the both all tours have kind of shut it down at this point for the year, right? They're on there are many vacation here. The next thing of note will be like United Cup later in December. And then we hit Australia full thing swinging. So now is a good time in this off season to have conversations kind of at a macro level.

Torrey Hawkins (01:35.756)
But, but.

Alvin Owusu (01:49.941)
Right? We're getting out of the weeds of what's going on on either given torn. We can kind of sit back, look at the year as a whole and kind of, you know, extrapolate what we can about it. And you and I were, we're going back and forth about this and I thought it'd be a great, you know, a great topic of conversation is like, we just, we just finished a year where Novak Djokovic did not win a grand slam and we had two very young players split the slams. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:50.198)
Right, Right.

Torrey Hawkins (02:19.775)
Yep. I would tell you that, and if, and if I can jump in this, this year officially ended an era. We have had two different seasons, two different 10 year periods of a goat era. And by goat, of course, I'm talking about greatest of all time. And what you may see as the first time it didn't happen. Cause that's been your

Alvin Owusu (02:19.836)
So this might start to...

No, please do, please do.

Alvin Owusu (02:31.037)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (02:48.81)
reality. My reality is we just saw the finish of a goat era in its totality. that's, and if we could kind of almost think about this in terms of for the majority of the listeners, the majority of people out there that are your age, I've got a few years on you. They don't remember the rivalry of tennis that built tennis.

Alvin Owusu (02:56.779)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (03:17.846)
And we've been blessed with two great rivalries, one of being fed and of course, Rafa and one of course being unfortunately no fed, but more Rafa and Novak and all of the other also rants and all of the other challengers, right? To the, to the title belt. And all I can say is, we've been blessed. And the reason why I wanted to talk to you about a post goat era is because

Alvin Owusu (03:29.921)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (03:45.31)
You have to appreciate the area you're coming out of and appreciate the tennis that you've seen before. really can kind of understand where, what you, what you've been through and you're going to see not a lull, but you may never be blessed with what we've just had the last 20 years in terms of epic matches, matchups, rankings, titles, results. you heard it right here. No one will ever, ever win 20 or more ever again. And let alone 22 and 24.

and my humble opinion.

Alvin Owusu (04:16.823)
And you're, okay, so I think naturally when we start talking about this goat conversation, right, we always end up starting with Rafa, Fed, and Novak for this conversation. And I think there's, I think it'd be healthy for us to even take a step back, flip it around a little bit, and maybe start with what we saw on the women's side first. And then kind of take a step,

Torrey Hawkins (04:42.804)
Sure, sure.

Alvin Owusu (04:45.912)
back and define and maybe use our definitions through the lens of the women's game. So when we start talking about goat, think it's all, for us, Serena equals goat. So could you apply that that kind of same thought around what we've seen in the last, let's call it three years, and tell me what you think the era is that we're coming out of or coming into.

Torrey Hawkins (04:59.55)
percent.

Alvin Owusu (05:15.114)
on the women's side.

Torrey Hawkins (05:16.938)
You know, it's a great comment, Alvin. I'm going to tell you right now, Serena last played one of her best, I'm going to say her last good year, in my opinion, was probably.

Torrey Hawkins (05:35.38)
Probably 2017 give or take she was in and out of it after then Olympia had been born yet. I don't want to get into the weeds of the dates, but what we've now let's let's talk post COVID that may be a good breaker for everybody to understand. You have had. And I'm going to say this without checking the without without checking fully checking the stats. There has not been a repeat champion. They for two.

in the last five years and that being

Alvin Owusu (06:08.61)
Repeat champion as in like has won the same slam back to back or has won?

Torrey Hawkins (06:13.076)
to back, back to back or back to in particular, or has won a career slam or a grand slam. Sabalenka and Osaka have been the only two that have been close. There have been more one time champions in the last four to five years. You talk Bianca you talk you can go to Rada Kano you can go to Benchets you can go to you

Ash Marty, I hate to even go that far and I love Ash Marty. You thank you and make make phenomenal and if she had stayed in it for whatever reason she opted out that's she's almost she's almost an asterisk in my opinion but but again stats still show now you go back to there have not been and and and I look at Mitchie Rodricano as an example has not even made the top 10 cents.

Alvin Owusu (06:43.83)
Yeah, she didn't win as many slams as people assume she did with the run she had was actually pretty short.

Torrey Hawkins (07:10.026)
So let's not talk about, let's not talk about some of the ones that were top 10 that won a slam and didn't reach their own semi or final or maybe even their quarter of that same term of the year later. So what I'm getting at is, and you have this what? Post-goat era Serena. And now and only now can you truly appreciate what Serena brought to the game. I was doing some notes before the show and I started thinking about

And I even wrote you a note that said Serena versus the world because Serena, if you think about it, at Serena versus Venus when she first came on the tour, Serena versus Davenport, which is a huge rivalry. Davenport was arguably the best later player at time. Serena versus Capriotti. We all know about the controversy at the open and some of the bad calls. Serena Hennan. mean, Justine was arguably one of the best players in the world at that time. One of the best on

Alvin Owusu (07:48.75)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (08:07.236)
She was the she was the egos we are tech of clay in the early in the mid-2000s.

Torrey Hawkins (08:10.186)
100 % in the mid, in the early 2010s, early 2020s or teens. Then you had after her initial slam early, had, then she had a strong presence or return presence was Sharapova. So Serena Sharapova was the big matchup in rivalry. You had Serena Azarenka and you had Serena and Osaka, which in my opinion was the one of the matches that kind of put the few nails in Serena's, in Serena's coffin. However,

Serena was almost 40 years old, you know, a child, you know, if, if not, and so I say that to say, or the better part of 20 years, late eighties, early nineties for sure, all the way to late teens, early to early 2020s, Serena kept tennis going. And there is no bigger goat than that. When you can transcend generations and more than any other player in the modern era, Serena.

Alvin Owusu (08:42.532)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (09:08.967)
is the go and let me say this and here we are now. I'm going to say five years. It's roughly three years post her absence. And what do we have? A bunch of starts and stops fits and starts, if you will, of different players trying to assume dominance. But let's be honest, they could not hold her Nikes. Dismaconverse, I believe is the term that comes to mind.

Alvin Owusu (09:32.239)
Yeah, it-

Alvin Owusu (09:36.741)
And so from my standpoint, like when you mention this topic, I started to think, okay, how do I use, because I'm a very data-driven person, so like how do I get my head around what we're actually talking about? So I took a look at some of the Grand Slam winners all the way back to the beginning of the WTA tour, right? So like we're talking 88, 89.

the modern version of the WTA tour. like, I looked at it as kind of two different time periods. When you go from like 1998 to 2000, there's a pretty clean break right there. So I looked at that 12 years, it's like, okay, in that time period of those 48 some odd slams played, who was winning those slams and what did Goat look like before Serena ever hit the scene?

Torrey Hawkins (10:30.145)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (10:33.7)
In those 12 years, right, you had four, in a year in which four different people won a Grand Slam, right? That happened five times. Five times. Five times, yeah. Which is like, which it looks very similar to now. You know, there were no instances in which a player won two Slams in a year, only two, specifically two. But we had eight,

Torrey Hawkins (10:44.491)
which is we're seeing now.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (11:02.075)
different years where someone won three or more. So what I'm, my point is, and that was Stephanie Graff, right? Stephanie Graff won, she did it three different times in that time period. Monica Seles did it twice in that time period, Hengis won three in a year at one point. So I think we have seen things like that before, but then the clean break being like 2001,

Torrey Hawkins (11:16.671)
Thank you. Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (11:31.304)
In comes Venus Williams, here comes like legit power and speed tennis. And then things changed very differently after that, right? You got all, you started, know, in the 2001 to 2024 space, 12 different times, 12 different years, we had four different slam champions in a year. That is, that is parody. That kind of became the new normal.

Torrey Hawkins (11:39.477)
Yup, yup.

Torrey Hawkins (11:52.067)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (11:57.32)
because the only other times where you had multiple slam winners in a year, like it happened a lot, 13 different times, two people, someone won two slams, and then only twice did someone win three slams in a year. Both of those were Serena, and not only did she win three slams in a calendar year, she won four slams in a row both times. So I think women's tennis, and I say that to say this, women's tennis has changed.

I think you almost have to take Serena out of the conversation. I don't think you can really compare anyone to her because what she did, not just when you're looking at the women's side, but what she did compared to anyone playing tennis was insane. Was insane.

Torrey Hawkins (12:31.147)
Okay, that's an interesting point.

Torrey Hawkins (12:36.555)
Get out.

Torrey Hawkins (12:42.272)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (12:45.931)
will interject this and you have to understand and this is I'm gonna go back on you right here because I went through some similar stats and let me tell you what I saw. Did you know that for Grand Slam singles totals two ladies share 18 each who happen to be rivals? Most of your fans my age and older will understand automatic Chris Everett and Martina right but now here's what's interesting.

Alvin Owusu (13:09.603)
Everett and Martina, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (13:14.217)
In the same stats, this is to help substantiate your point. On the same list, Serena has 23. Over a generation that saw, that the graph of 22, Monica Sellers with nine, Hengis, who doesn't even register on the, in the top of, with over 10, right? And now you come down to

something as, as, as, and this is, you know, and I'm going to come, I'm searching now. You haven't even talked about the Sharapova's the Capriotti's the Davenports who don't think about what I'm saying. Now you understand she transcended Venus Davenport Capriotti Henin Sharapova Azarenka. You see what saying?

Alvin Owusu (13:56.739)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (14:10.145)
I would even throw a sock in there. So you understand, that's why I agree with your point. She is so far ahead of the rest. And mind you, I'm going to say this, I hate to, I hope there's no relative living relative of Margaret Court, but Margaret Court did not do this amongst this level of competition.

Alvin Owusu (14:10.332)
Yeah, I

Alvin Owusu (14:29.489)
Right, and I think that's the, I think that is the, I mean it's a fair mic drop, I don't wanna drop mine, but I think the takeaway is, and I have this kind of working theory that on the WTA side, there's a three year peak that every quote unquote great champion is going to have. For some reason, and I don't know why, and this is probably a little bit out of my experience space here,

but for some reason it's harder to sustain greatness longer than three years. The demands, it's a hard job, I get it, it's a hard job.

Torrey Hawkins (15:06.323)
I think that is the quintessential area of peak, which makes the GOAT anything above five years.

Alvin Owusu (15:11.795)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (15:16.486)
Right, right, and so when you started talking about the Monica Selesis and you talk about the Martina Hingis and you talk about the Capriates, when you look at it from a timeline standpoint, it all happened pretty fast. Hingis wins her first in 97, wins her last in 99. Capriati wins her first in 2001, wins her last in 2002. Hinnan is one of ones that's close. She wins her first in 03, but she wins her last one in 07. That's four years, right?

When you start looking at like, I think this is what makes Serena's, mean, clear, I say clear. Serena's stake to the GOAT status is that she did a three year peak probably four or five times. It almost got away with a sixth when she finaled three Grand Slams before she ended up calling it quits after she became a mother, right? So.

Torrey Hawkins (16:01.708)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (16:08.44)
100 %

Alvin Owusu (16:11.755)
And we're just talking about Slams 1. She was right there. Osaka had to go through her. Yeah, Andresco had to go through her. So it's, I mean, could do a, this could just be a Serena appreciation podcast if we want it to be. I I have all the time in the world for it. I got all the time in the world for it. But I think that's the, I think,

Torrey Hawkins (16:16.716)
And end of the year championships, WTA, and mind you, Andre, thank you, thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (16:30.2)
100%. And there should be one in the future. And there should be.

Alvin Owusu (16:41.215)
But to bring it back to kind of present day, when we start talking about eras, as you mentioned earlier, I think what we're starting to see, and I'm gonna pose this question to you, I feel like we're starting to see a return, either a return to normalcy or level setting of what, this is what tennis is actually supposed to be.

Torrey Hawkins (17:05.59)
I think it's the same question level setting return. Normalcy normal is a new champion per surface per year with a different player peaking. All of them are about the same. And then there's the occasional good player that rises. They peak the tour. Kind of, if you think about it, the tour kind of, in a sense, assembles to take down this top player. The top player competes against the field. They, they match up to whatever.

Alvin Owusu (17:28.553)
Right. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (17:34.252)
weaknesses that were shown and the next year they come out and show you that they're not fully developed yet. They have the goods to go further or they don't. And they simply had a great year. Everything, the sun, the moon, the stars aligned perfectly. And we are now in this level where they were at the top at that point in time. And not to say they weren't rivals or they weren't relevant, but they were not at

They were not what I would have called a true contender two years out, which in this conversation, nixes them out of goat status, but it makes you really appreciate the players that remain relevant for five years or eight years or 12 years, let alone a 20 year goat like Serena, which is why I say the post-goat era is extremely important to understand because that goat

Alvin Owusu (18:21.694)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (18:31.958)
You don't fully appreciate the goat until they're gone. And that's, and that's just, and that's just a statement that I want to make that I feel like we're going to, we're going through it now with Novak, Rafa and Fed. There's, it's just not as fun to watch. You hate to say it. The rest of the tournament is playing out, but you are looking forward to a guy playing his idol. You're looking forward to a guy when Bavrica played Fed. You were.

absolutely watching what could have been a passing of the torch. Both from Switzerland. This guy's got a one-hander as well. Better one-hander, everyone would say, right? And you're watching who's grand slam worthy. Don't give me some new Jack guy that's playing well right now. Okay? We're talking about a legitimate has beat Novak on clay, has beat Rafa on clay.

Alvin Owusu (19:10.965)
Better one-hander, better one-hander, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (19:29.856)
Okay, this is a legitimate champion on the clay and now he's playing Fed. I mean, you saw him out hit Fed on the clay out hit Fed on the return of serve. You're like, wow, this guy might just and three grand slams later you were happy he earned three and

Alvin Owusu (19:45.619)
Right, and I think that's the big, as we transition away from the WTA side over to the ATP version of this same conversation, I think that is probably the main difference. There are very few, I mean we'll get to the goat part of it, but there are very few surprises on the ATP side. And I think this is probably a function of best of five in the Grand Slams.

Torrey Hawkins (20:10.85)
Sure, sure.

Alvin Owusu (20:12.679)
There's not a lot of, you get that many sets, things are gonna play out to the norm over the course of seven matches too. You're not gonna fake your way to a slam.

Torrey Hawkins (20:15.704)
All right, attrition, attrition.

Torrey Hawkins (20:21.46)
To your point though, to your point before we get out of the women, this is they are precursor in my opinion, or the men. There's just not been a Serena for the men. She is so far ahead of her time, so far ahead of, she was Margaret Court with competition. And I say that to say, you look at three people that were able to create an era and you look at one person.

Alvin Owusu (20:42.729)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (20:50.296)
that connected the heiress with Serena. And I don't want to, again, we can have, can table this for a Serena appreciation show, as you mentioned, but the point I'm getting at is that Serena was just that good. And we are coming from, and I mentioned this to you before, before we got on the air, three players that are the best of all time, 66 of 80 grand slams, sorry, 79 over a 20 year period.

I'd like to say 76 because three of those were all COVID induced and people weren't even playing. But 66 of 76, that's a lot of slams between three individuals. So as we said, which of the men now you have to put Serena in a category all by herself and then everybody else.

Alvin Owusu (21:39.401)
Right, yeah, yeah. think that's the, I think, that is probably the definition of the goat, that we can't even have a conversation with her in it and everyone else, because that's just not fair to everyone else. Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I could talk about Serena all day. She's, I think she's the one that she started to get her appreciation, like true appreciation outside of tennis.

Torrey Hawkins (21:46.378)
man.

Torrey Hawkins (21:50.776)
100%. Not good at it everyone else. 100%. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (22:08.655)
while she was still playing when people started to realize, well, I guess maybe tennis was starting to get cool kind of in the 2017 kind of space. And Serena was like a real figure with not even just in the sports space, but in the entertainment space. And she was carrying tennis on her back with her.

Torrey Hawkins (22:10.552)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (22:28.91)
would tell you it was 10 years earlier. I was on the tour with a few players at that time and I saw Serena with the cat suit. I want to say it was 2005 and all of a sudden whatever Serena was wearing became front page news. You started seeing the actors, the athletes starting to show up at the US Open. I was there for seven years in a row. You started seeing these people show up.

Alvin Owusu (22:39.039)
yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:54.764)
I remember bumping into Kevin Garnett on the way out of the US Open and there was just so many different people, A-Rod and I walked out my last open, I bumped into John Cena. I there was just so many actors, let alone athletes that were coming to the US Open. I say it to say, who drew them? Well, the men weren't American, right? They were there for Serena. Serena was on the episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

You know, Serena was in movies, you know, Serena, this is when she had her little deviation right in the middle for wanting to kind of get into purse design and fashion. Venus was, had her launched her fashion line in the middle. They were kind of contemplating retirement, a la, you know, baseball tangent for Michael Jordan and after 94, 95 or whatever that range was when he left after that first championship series. Now you're coming back to.

Alvin Owusu (23:24.007)
Oookay.

Alvin Owusu (23:47.362)
Yep, yeah, yeah, 9495, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (23:53.026)
Jordan with the next three, right? That's what I see Serena only that was in three years. And mind you, we all understand how Jordan's impacted the game of basketball. Now we're talking about, she did it for the next 10, arguably 13 years after that Renaissance, buddy. Woo.

Alvin Owusu (24:11.22)
Yeah, it's when you say when you put it like that, it's like you start to look at the the pace at which she was winning slams and she didn't she never had a Jordan two year break. It was people were looking at her sideways when she went a year and didn't win a slam like a one year. There was like one year she didn't win a slam and it's like, Serena needs to focus and then she'll come back and win three the next year. It's it's very

Torrey Hawkins (24:24.376)
Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (24:29.186)
Thank you. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (24:40.206)
Yeah, think we get two more years away from Serena. So we come back and have this conversation, know, holiday season 2026, and between now and then, eight Grand Slams will have been played, and I'm gonna venture to guess four people, different people will win, at least four people. You're thinking eight people are gonna win those Grand Slams, okay, all right. And at that point,

Torrey Hawkins (25:04.046)
If current precedent holds.

Alvin Owusu (25:10.408)
Right. you know, and if, if that becomes the trend, you know, at that point, that's eight years past COVID. then people are going to realize like, that was that thing that she did was not normal. That was not normal. yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (25:22.604)
Yeah, right. To my point, you only appreciate them once they're gone. And that's and that's a lot of things.

Alvin Owusu (25:32.822)
Yeah, mean, we need a little perspective. think we do need a little bit of time, especially for the general, when we're talking about general public having these goat conversations, I think on the inside, you can in real time, you can appreciate when someone's doing something, one, that's different, two, that is truly excellent, and then three, it's also great. You see it, you see it. think that's a good, that's a good.

Torrey Hawkins (25:36.686)
All right.

Torrey Hawkins (25:53.87)
Right.

Yep. It's it's it's a translate. I'm going to mention one thing to you. And this is a it's funny. It's funny because I was at the open one year. I want to say it was 2017 2018. I get my I might get my years wrong. We were part of an RTC regional training center here in Atlanta and they brought all the RTC coaches to the open and blah, blah. I've been there three or four years earlier with what you remember Jamie Hams, one of our top girl players and Jamie reached third in the world.

Alvin Owusu (26:02.318)
Yeah, please do.

Alvin Owusu (26:12.142)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (26:19.874)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (26:22.51)
I was there at the open five years previous and some walking around. There's all these new coaches talking about this, that and the third, and they're talking about all these new players. And of course the USDA has us there watching all the new young upstarts Americans. They've given a lot of cards to and so on. I'm on a court, right behind the new courts one through five, which at that point they had brought in almost stands to watch the practice courts on P one through five, right by the open.

Alvin Owusu (26:46.766)
P125, okay, yeah, yeah, by the broadcast booth and everything. Yep, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (26:47.886)
Right. So the very backside, right? Exactly. So the very backside of P one through five, there's these new matches and there's almost a little mini mini grandstand courts. And there's this young player that had hair. I can't believe how big her hair was. Why she wasn't a hair, what wearing a hair tie. And there was this Jamaican flag. And I'm thinking to myself who in the world has come from Jamaica of all places. And in the corner, there was also a few Japanese flags. And I'm kind of laughing like,

This girl's black. don't care about that Japanese flag says this girl looks black all day. Now we're there in the American section rooting on this young lady who was there from Florida top top American junior. And I turned to my USTA higher up my direct report and I'm like, dude, what do you want us to do? Are you want us to stat the match? This girl over here in the corner is going to be great one day. I said, I think she's going to be top 10, but then two years.

Alvin Owusu (27:19.212)
Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (27:45.836)
This girl you got here that we're watching, I don't know if she'll make top hundred. And the guy looks at me and he says to me, you've only watched two games. She's one of the top young players coming up. I said, God, buddy, buddy, I've been watching the game for 20 years. I said, I've watched a lot of tennis and I've had some players come up. It's clear when this girl buckles down our American girl, as good as she is, heavy ball, nice game, clay court game. She

is going to be good to get three games off in a set off this young lady. The guy comes at me like almost salty is that guy's name is David Ramos almost salty at me like how can you say that you haven't watched her you don't know about her. I said buddy you haven't been watching pro tennis long enough to know what I'm talking about. I didn't know Naomi Osaka at that time had no idea who she was. I'm watching a qualifying match.

But I had been to the open 10 times up until that time. And I saw the ball striking the court position and the shots she was missing Alvin. I said that ball if it had been in not only is she wrong footed the young lady. She was two shots ahead in the play. The world got introduced to Naomi Osaka two years later in 2018, 2019 whenever her first slam was.

I saw her on a challenger on a qualifying match. I went back to the open, probably my last time was there was right before the COVID hit. And I remember talking to the coach and he sent me this snarky message. Good call on the girl. Good call on Osaka. You know, it was kind of snarky slash a little bit more, you you you, you, you know, broken clock, you know, twice, you know, wrong, right twice a day kind of a thing. And I'm like,

Alvin Owusu (29:14.763)
Yeah, eight, yeah, yep.

Alvin Owusu (29:38.19)
You got that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (29:44.143)
And I was kind of pissed at her for not understanding it wasn't that I called it. I saw it. And I was kind of mad at him to say, shame on you for not seeing it. We then saw her two US Opens later beating Serena, in my opinion, her curtain call. And I say it to you to say, you have never seen a faster Serena, a better counter punishing Serena playing herself.

And what I noticed about that match was this girl had modeled half her game around Serena and was just that much better at it. Had a serve, had a return, had a transition, could counterpunch in the corners, was steady, was fast. Mind you, went through her old little nerves of steel, went through her old little, I'm going to call it mid-career Renaissance, right? I'm hoping she comes back like Serena does. Right now, my thoughts are, you know,

Alvin Owusu (30:29.906)
Nerves of steel.

Torrey Hawkins (30:42.243)
It's about 20 % likely, but if anybody can do it, it's Naomi Osaka. Why? Because she is as close to Serena, the real goat as we've seen. And you heard it right here. If she does, she's the only person in my opinion that can replicate what Serena did. Now I say that to you to say, I saw it in a qualified match. I know there's other players out there. I saw just Pagula.

three four years earlier, got friends that coached her got newer since she was 12 years old. Phenomenal ball striking. We're not talking about hard work and talent and just continue to improve. We're talking about goats. And I'm telling you that Naomi is of the conversation. We'll see if she has in her legacy, if she has the wherewithal to truly be at that level. But you heard it right here. No one will approach the arena's greatness.

In my opinion ever, certainly not for the next so many 10 or so years. that's, we can get into the reasons why, you know, I made them conversations.

Alvin Owusu (31:51.605)
Fair, fair. We kind of started to touch on the ATP of things and I do wanna kind of transition into that. But again, like I said, I could talk Syrian all day long. It's a pastime around these parts. So you mentioned earlier, 2023 Djokovic winning the US Open was the de facto end of an era and then we saw it.

Torrey Hawkins (32:08.609)
100%.

Alvin Owusu (32:21.927)
somewhat play out as such this year with Sinner winning two, Alcara's winning two, both of them going through Djokovic, a form of Djokovic to get a slam there. think, yeah, yeah. You gotta go through them. And Janik did in Australia, it wasn't pretty for Novak, and then Carlos did at Wimbledon, again, on one leg.

Torrey Hawkins (32:34.209)
get there. Right, right. A 38 year old joker bitch I might add.

Alvin Owusu (32:52.136)
So I think you do have to add the qualifiers there. But as we start to...

Torrey Hawkins (32:54.496)
Not Carl Olson's fault at the same time, not a 100 % Novak and certainly not a 28 year old Novak, which I think is fair to say.

Alvin Owusu (32:59.283)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (33:06.302)
Right. Right. So we've got to, mean, we can, we can or we cannot talk about the recent news of Andy Murray teaming up with Novak. I'm gonna, let's put a pin in that and we'll cover that another time. But from the standpoint of goats and eras, what say you moving forward from here?

Torrey Hawkins (33:13.001)
Hehe.

Torrey Hawkins (33:19.859)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (33:32.375)
Right, we've talked about the collective, the collective greatness of the big three and what they were able to accomplish in their 20 year reign over the sport. But when you, I think you have to look at what happened prior to, maybe from let's say 1990 up until about 2004 when Federer firmly hits the scene. To now, 2024 and moving forward.

Torrey Hawkins (33:54.334)
and

Alvin Owusu (34:02.1)
We mentioned that the big three on the men's side were kind of tag teaming and doing what Serena was doing by herself on the women's side.

Torrey Hawkins (34:11.647)
For For sure.

Alvin Owusu (34:13.93)
But what do you think that looks like moving forward on the men's side?

Torrey Hawkins (34:18.6)
As I was going through and doing some research for this, I noticed there was a couple of eras that did not have a dominant men's player.

After Rod Laver was the dominant player, he and Roy Emerson had some strong rivalries. want to say Emerson has 12 slams. want to say, ironically, Laver has 11 and Emerson was the, in a sense, was not as good as Laver. Laver was known as the goat of the sixties, early seventies, late sixties for sure. Won two grand slams. Ironically Emerson has 12 versus 11. There is not one.

champion, including James Scott Connors that has more than five more than five in the seventies as a whole.

Enter in, enter in, and there are three players that are legitimate players in this level. Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, and ironically, ironically not Mats V. Londer, not Jimmy Connors, not Stan Smith, not John Newcomb, not Arthur Ashe, which my personal favorite obviously, but I say it to say there's not one.

Alvin Owusu (35:36.436)
Same.

Torrey Hawkins (35:41.166)
Now guess who? Now Jimmy has eight. No question. Spanned over 15, 18 some odd years. Now here's what's impressive. Who was the next major standout champion of that era? After we're talking after Connors.

Alvin Owusu (36:03.288)
after codders but before whom?

Torrey Hawkins (36:05.926)
Dr. Connors? Now that's a great point. But for the next goat?

Alvin Owusu (36:12.386)
I mean, think it was probably by the numbers probably Lindell. Like Lindell had a full, think he parked seven or eight in there somewhere. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (36:17.648)
Lindell, Lindell, Lindell, Lindell had eight, Lindell had eight. So who was truly the next goat? And, this is what we have to start coming, coming back to. Lindell had eight over the course. Lindell also leads in most finals lost by the way, which is a nother talk show. That's 10, 10, which is a whole nother talk show. But here's the question. Even past McEnroe, as great as he was, did not have more than eight.

Alvin Owusu (36:33.376)
Okay, yep, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (36:45.691)
So here we are coming back to the goat. The first player that has more than eight is one Pete Sampras who has 14 and that started in 1990. Now here's why I bring this up for relevance. For a period of about 15 years, I'm not discounting eight slams in the least. Each one of those players, including Ken Rosewall, including Jimmy Conk, including Ivan Lindell, including Mackenroe, including...

Alvin Owusu (36:52.588)
Pete Zappers. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (37:15.45)
I don't know I said Jimmy Connors, but in that level Arthur Ashes three are no no small feet. We are now talking about goats. Pete now has 14 in an era that has V1 that has Lindell that has players of the level. Johan Creek has two. We're talking, Ed Burke is in the same is in the same conversation. Now he has 14. What propels him to 14?

Now, now here's what I'm getting at. And there's one Andre Agassi who also has eight who kind of transcends both the late eighties and the nineties and the two thousands. And in a sense defines Pete, hate to say it, defines Pete's legacy as a rivalry. And I want to talk, I want to challenge you on this. Is it rivalry based that pushes you or is it the player themselves? And I submit.

rivalry itself is as much of a push as the results themselves.

Alvin Owusu (38:22.527)
Yeah, so I think this is a really good place to spend some time because I think there's one thing that is what we learned in the 90s with the rivalry between Pete. so Pete wins his first in 90 and Egg Bird still picks up two more before Pete really hits his stride in 93, right? So it's like Pete, and then don't forget, exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (38:45.559)
said, say it's 20, 2003 Wimby, and then he picks up charges and runs, for sure. For sure.

Alvin Owusu (38:50.559)
Exactly. But then you also had, you also had courier in there who, you know, he jumped in and grabbed three more before like in between Pete's one and two. So I think the thing that we're missing, the thing that is different now from then you still have rivalries, right? And I'm looking, I'm looking square at how do Alcaraz and center move this game forward and what is different today than we had in when Pete was

Torrey Hawkins (38:56.289)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (39:19.215)
when Pete and Agassi and US tennis was really competing for slams, Pete did all that work on two surfaces. He got all those slams on two surfaces, right? Never really made a dent on clay. So this was the space and time in which we had surface specialty, which I think made it, Pete didn't have, let's put it this way, Carlos can win.

Torrey Hawkins (39:32.673)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (39:48.438)
any of the four Grand Slaps. Pete could only win three of the four Grand Slaps. There were other really good hardcore players, but he...

Torrey Hawkins (39:50.145)
Great.

Torrey Hawkins (39:57.175)
but may have been one of the best on grass to have played the game.

Alvin Owusu (40:01.592)
Absolutely, absolutely. he was, I mean, he was a walking, he was a walking Wimby for almost, almost seven years, right? But then again, so was, so was Federer. And then again, so was Novak. Hey, Novak's right there. Novak has, is he tied with Federer for most Wimbledons ever? Something of that, of that nature of that. He's right behind him. But any...

Torrey Hawkins (40:07.669)
Thank you.

was Borg, so was Borg. Right?

Torrey Hawkins (40:22.133)
So number of wins, number of wins, and I have it pulled up here. 41 wins at Wimbledon for Bjorn Borg, 40, 40 for Federer, 34 for Novak, Rod Laver and Pete Sampas are tied at 31.

Alvin Owusu (40:30.522)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (40:39.194)
Okay. Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (40:40.373)
There's your numbers. Which helps you appreciate the five Wimby's from Borg at that time at a whole not to mention the other years before and after. 76 to 81.

Alvin Owusu (40:42.692)
So I think that...

Alvin Owusu (40:53.414)
So when I'm, there you go. When I'm looking at Pete's, the bulk of Pete's run though, it's a seven year window, right? Which seems like, it seems like a flicker of the eye when you start talking about the big three who did it for almost 20 years, right? We're talking about seven years. So we're talking about a difference in length of careers, right?

Torrey Hawkins (41:15.029)
100 %

Alvin Owusu (41:22.991)
So that's, know, Novak's gonna play twice as long as Pete did. Pretty close, right? Same thing with Roger, same thing with Rafa, right? So more time to get that work done. I think we can't have that conversation without talking about, I'm gonna use, advancements in technology which allowed for those kind of, the court specialties to kind of normalize.

This is what lets a guy like Rafa be able to turn around and do what he's doing on clay and then come and make that work at Wimbledon, not to mention they slowed the courts down. So I think there are some things there that the opportunities probably weren't as great then, but you also have to say the competition, actually I'm gonna push that question back on you. Was the competition better?

Torrey Hawkins (41:52.733)
Okay, okay.

Alvin Owusu (42:22.251)
in let's say when Pete was winning his Grand Slams compared to what we've been looking at since I want to say 2020 or at least coming out of the big three era because I sir have thoughts but I want to hear what you have to say first.

Torrey Hawkins (42:23.219)
Mm.

Torrey Hawkins (42:38.131)
My thoughts go back to, let's start at the beginning of that era. Pete Sampras came on the air at 1990, give or take. If memory serves, he won the US Open right at 90 or 91, if I'm not mistaken. I'm pretty sure it was 90. Came out of nowhere, you know, in most people's minds. So I look back to who was there before. You had Lindell, you had Ed Berg, you had Grand Slam champs, right?

Alvin Owusu (42:51.259)
Yeah, 90. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (43:06.682)
You have some of the best, best player. You have the peers who are still arguably ready to play at that level. That's Vlondra, you know, at that level, have Boris Becker still playing at that level who can still was anybody's nightmare draw on Wimby, especially you have at 1990, some of the greats still playing, you know what I mean? Including, including John Mcamill, including others who are still at that level.

Alvin Owusu (43:35.74)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (43:35.953)
So you're now at a point where you're saying yourself, hmm, let's not forget some of the best of the game. Pat Cash is coming down, Pat Raptors coming up. I mean, there's players who have won slams who are at that level, right? So there's a lot of different talent, which to me also speaks to, and this is another talk show. You're talking about players that were good. Dare I say great, just not goats.

And so now you're in a point where we'd be remiss to talk about one of the best big servers lefties, Gorni Ivenicevic, who only won one, but was arguably one of the best players. It was right there. You you got a guy, you got a guy like my main man, mean, who was the big tall, the Dutchman Richard Krejcik, you know, who won mid nineties, you know, these players are not terrible.

Alvin Owusu (44:04.71)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (44:15.237)
Right, yeah. He was there. He was there. He right there.

Alvin Owusu (44:27.549)
Where's your cry check? Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (44:34.257)
These guys, and that was one of the one-off slams where people happened to beat each other on the way. So you look at the nineties as this era where people are moving into, to your point, technology, fitness, tactics, are they, and Pete's got a 19, he's got an 85 square inch pro staff with lead tape that weighs, you know, I think one person told me, well, somewhere upwards of 400 grams, you know, almost 18 grams with gut, right? So you got to understand.

Alvin Owusu (44:47.206)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (44:58.269)
Jesus. Hurts my shoulder just hearing that.

Torrey Hawkins (45:04.203)
Isn't it ironic that a guy who's almost a throwback is playing with an old school racket with VS gut and wins 14. So to your point, was it technology or was it hand dye and skill and was it just absolute feel and he was in a sense a better version of the Johnny Mac of years of his old era. And that's where I'm getting that.

Alvin Owusu (45:28.019)
Well, I bring up the technology to say that the technology that was allowing those players to succeed on clay, I'm looking at the Carlos Moyes, I'm looking at the Gustavo Curtins, Even like the Spanish Armada of Juan Carlos Ferrerro, Albert Costa, these guys, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (45:42.062)
100%. Three French in a row.

Torrey Hawkins (45:52.578)
But for him, and Sanchez.

Alvin Owusu (45:58.214)
Yeah, these guys, if they were playing later, I think would have been able to do more damage on other surfaces that your polyester strings allowed them to then carry, like, you know, what they could do on clay over to another surface that hadn't quite happened yet.

Torrey Hawkins (46:21.387)
think the real question you're asking, your time is correct. I think what we're really starting to get into is what defines the GOAT, is who his competition was. I'm going to go off on the limb and I don't know Bill Tilden. I don't know Don Budge. I don't know that era, but I will say that I don't know their competition and I will admittedly say I don't know. therefore maybe, and I know Buck Collins when I was on the tour, I had

Alvin Owusu (46:23.014)
if my timing is correct.

Alvin Owusu (46:37.342)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (46:49.47)
many conversations with Bud and his colorful pants and his, and his, very inquisitive mind and he's a, he's a walking tennis historian, but Bud Collins may be the one with few people who was around who knew the level at that time. I will say for myself that they did not have big Bill Tilden did not have the competition that Pete Sampras had. Don Budge did not have the competition that Andre Agassi had. I will say

that Roy Emerson and Rod Laver were starting to get into the rivalry era. And this is with Pancho Cegura, Vic Satius and others who were starting to become good. Tony Trabert, were starting to get in that level where guys were starting to really get good. John Newcomb, Stan Smith, all these players that are starting to in the sevens, starting to push themselves to become some of the top players. Guillermo Vilas, who I think is one of the most underrated players of this whole era.

We're starting to get guys that to your point are good on certain surfaces.

And now you then get a goat who's winning grand slams to your point on certain surfaces. But isn't it ironic that the fastest surface of grass and the slowest surface of clay has won Bjorn Borg who won, if I'm not mistaken, who won six, I want to say Bjorn Borg won five Wimmy's and six French. So he won 11.

Alvin Owusu (48:20.863)
Is that... Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (48:22.375)
on the two very most different surfaces of all time. And you got to keep in mind Australia used to be on clay, the US Open used to be on clay, right? So you got to kind of put this all back in perspective as the tour was changing. These guys weren't surface specialists. The tour changed the surface. Forest Hills is on clay. Now I say it to you to say they didn't pick the surface. They didn't say I'm better on this than the other.

Alvin Owusu (48:25.758)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:29.791)
Okay. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (48:43.594)
That's a good point. That's a good point.

Torrey Hawkins (48:51.092)
the tour changed the surface and they chose to play the tournament. So now here we are in 1990 when we have an official true different hardcore in Australia, rebound ace. You got true clay and red clay. You got true grass. You got true hardcore. Yeah. Now you can say there's a different surface of all for the slams and guess who happens to come out on top with this 14 is one Pete Sampras. So I say it all to say

Isn't it funny how we have an expression I'm sure you appreciate in the brother community game recognizes game. So what is it that they pick or did they just happen to play the event and just let the let the cards fall where they may. So that's my issue. That's my statement back to your question about was it surface and was it surface specialist. Rafa Nadal. This is another tangent. Rafa Nadal spent

Alvin Owusu (49:27.615)
Game-breaking this game. Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (49:49.704)
Eight to nine years, not getting past the second week. He did not enter the second week of the U S open from three to 2010, 2011, not one time. He got beat second round, third round, fourth round, never made it to the second week of the U S open when he was doing his streak of the, of the French. Think about that for a second. What he did to change, adjust, improve his game.

And he's got, let me look it up, how many Grand Slams on the US Open. I'm pretty sure.

Alvin Owusu (50:24.997)
One, two, three, four, four, four, five, five, four, four. God, no, I'm missing one. I'm missing one in there somewhere.

Torrey Hawkins (50:29.511)
I'm gonna look him up, let me put it. I'm gonna tell you that Mr., let me look up here. I will say to you this, Mr. Rafa ad, how many Wimby's?

Torrey Hawkins (50:53.847)
streets. That's consecutive. Sorry, 14 French.

Alvin Owusu (50:54.005)
So two Wimby's, two Wimby's, 08 and 10.

Torrey Hawkins (51:02.471)
Or 4 US Opens.

And ironically, ironically, look, it had to be two because my chart stops at three. So he has to have two. He has to have two, but he's got 14 French. And of course, you know, just so we understand each other, that's the level. That's the level. you, go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (51:08.107)
Two, two picked up two Australians.

Which is two.

Alvin Owusu (51:17.738)
yet.

Alvin Owusu (51:29.537)
I, know, talking about tangents in, in, Rafa Nadal on, on, and in the Australian Open, probably two of my favorite finals, but definitely one of the greatest back to back set of semi finals and finals victories that I've ever seen was Rafa Nadal in 2009 at the Australian Open where he goes balls to the wall against, was it for Dasco? He beats for Dasco in the semis.

Torrey Hawkins (51:57.671)
Yep, Fernando. Yep. Who was a hitting partner and good friend, by the way? Yeah, both lefties.

Alvin Owusu (51:58.763)
Five setter. Roger goes, don't remember, right, yeah, yeah. And Roger was a pretty easy semi and then they meet in the final and then they go five and it all still outlasts him. I was like, going, this was in my die hard fed days, I was like, okay, there's no way. My man just played a five hour semi, like you had to roll him off the court, he's not gonna be ready to go. It was a quick turnaround too. No, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (52:15.247)
Right?

Alvin Owusu (52:28.873)
right there for it. That's the quintessential greatness of Raffanadal.

Torrey Hawkins (52:33.163)
And, and, and was, and was getting better at every match. And, and this is, this is where we really come back to greatness and the building of a goat. One of the questions I will pose to you is let's picture the Olympic rings as symbols of, as abstracts, as, as quantitative, call it, call it what you will criteria. What are the five?

And now you get to gain physical skills, Actual strokes. come down to mental. We're talking everything from their mental, what drives them, their hunger, their work ethic on the bottom, on the bottom right side, you have what I call execution in the moment. You know what I call, you know, player intangibles, right? Execution.

And then on the top right, have what I call just hunger will drive.

Riven to be the best and the middle, have just this little bit of tennis genius that can just see an, and, just for whatever reason, can just, they just sees it as such a high level. It's the same thing that separates top quarterbacks, same thing that separates top boxers, same thing that separates top soccer players. The game is in slow motion for them for longer periods of time. That's my five ranks. What? Right. What?

Did the other players at that level, Fernando Verasco, not have? What did a Gorni Viniciusvich not have enough of? We could always see he was a little crazy, but the dude was 6'6, 6'7 with a monster with 145 mile lefty serve. You know what saying? What did Raptor have for just a length of time that was better than anybody else? And that's to me really where if you really wanted to kind of...

Torrey Hawkins (54:37.953)
You know, and we may never have those metrics and the ability to quantify them, but you now then measure them against other greats like the, like the Lindles, like the max, like the Agassiz, like the San Francisco. And now of course we're talking about the three, the top three. And now buddy, you are in a whole different level of, of, of tennis with of course, Rafa fed and Novak. that's, that's my five rings. What?

In your opinion, made those, what are your five rings and which of them allow these players to truly propel themselves to the top of the game? And that's, that's a big question.

Alvin Owusu (55:23.197)
Yeah, I think that is a big question. I don't know if I'll be able to come up with five rings, one on the spot or two that are better than the ones you provided. But I will say that, take it away from the player and what does, more so what does a goat career make? And I think a lot of it has to do with maximizing opportunity.

Torrey Hawkins (55:47.162)
or better yet what makes a goat and I think and that's really where I'm getting at right

Alvin Owusu (55:50.337)
Well, I think the five rings is the five rings is talking more so about what makes a goat. But I think that I think that when you started to talk about him and you mentioned the Gorn Ivenicevich and you mentioned the Pat Rafters, I think in that time period of 1990 to 2000, there were a lot of guys that could have. That could have Pete got 14 if it weren't for the Raptors and the Kofelnikovs, the guys who reached up and got one or two, Pete could have had 20.

Torrey Hawkins (55:55.497)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (56:20.052)
percent.

Alvin Owusu (56:20.132)
Right, and I think, so I think what we're talking about here is the opportunity. If you look at 90 to 2000 and then you look at 2020 to 2030, who else is there? It's who else is there to get in the way? Because we touched on this briefly earlier, but we always look at the big three as one conglomerate, right? One of those gobstoppers that are just mixed together, but when you,

Torrey Hawkins (56:36.489)
Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (56:48.285)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (56:48.805)
when you really zoom in, right? There were windows within those 20 years where those guys were doing different things, right? Roger comes out of the game from 04 to 07 and just starts, I'm winning three slams a year. Like, those four years, he won, what was it? I think it was 11 slams. Yeah, he racked them in the first three years. Before Novak even showed up, before Rafa knew how to,

Torrey Hawkins (57:07.039)
Nine of 12, nine of 12 in the first three years. Yeah, 05, 06, 07, I wanna say in the maybe even 04. T1, 05, 06, 333.

Alvin Owusu (57:17.509)
So yeah, it was it was 04, 04 he won three, 05 he won two, six, seven he won three. So this all happens like lightning fast before Rafa even figures out that there's tennis played not on clay, right? And so that's, that is its own, that's its own four year window before we even, this is when it's a big two, right? And then Novak answers the scene, things start to even out a little bit between 2008,

Torrey Hawkins (57:31.561)
Thank you. Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (57:35.954)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (57:40.135)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (57:46.565)
In 2012, you have Andy Steele one in there, Delpo picks up a US Open, it's still mostly, well, Warrinca did get one in there as well, but it's mostly Roger Rafa, sprinkle in some Novak, and then Novak goes gangbusters, or gangbusters in 11, wins his three, and then now we're shifting. The second part, right, now this is the true Novak versus Rafa space where Rafa can't.

Torrey Hawkins (57:53.085)
We rank up, right? Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (58:04.701)
Right. What I call, what I call the second part, part two. Right.

Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (58:14.213)
can't beat him anywhere that's not the French Open. And then I think about 2015 is where it gets a little, actually 2014 is where it gets a little crazy and you have for the first time in a very, well 2012, 2014, those are two years where you have four different slam winners, right? It was like, whoa, okay. We've got Federer with his, at that point sitting at 17, but now Andy wins his first. Novak's on five. Rafa hits 11, right?

Andy comes back, picks up another one. No, back picks up another one. Like, and now we have this, we start talking about the big four, right? Andy's popping in that conversation and just as quickly he showed up, he's gone, right? Same with Stan. Stan picked up his kind of two and three in that space as well.

Torrey Hawkins (58:51.237)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (58:55.995)
Yep, same with Stan. And so I will add to this, I did a chart on this. 95 to 2004, you can appreciate this. Sanpras 14, in that time frame. Agassi 8, in that conversation. Querton 3. Daphn 2. Cuit 2.

Alvin Owusu (59:15.035)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (59:23.258)
2005 to 2014 Fed 16 of his 20 Rafa 14 of his 22 Nole 27 of his future 24 during that time Murray 3, Virinka 3, Chillich in order Gaudi 0-1 Del Potro 1, Gaudi 0-1 2015 to 2024 Nole 17 of his 24 Rafa

Alvin Owusu (59:35.9)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (59:52.558)
The remaining eight of his 22 and fed, which is not to be discounted. The remaining four of his 20 Alcaraz again, talking about 2024 or thinner two. And of course you have team and Medvedev each with one. Now you understand that's 2024. If you were to take out COVID, which knocks out team. And if you were to take out 2024, that takes two out from Alcaraz you have.

of the 76 slash 72 without COVID, 66 of the 72 or three players. And that's

Alvin Owusu (01:00:31.529)
Right. when you talk about recognizing the greatness in real time, think we also have to recognize, take the information we have available to us now, knowing that that 15 year, 20 year run of the big three was not 20 years of the big three against each other all the time, it was Federer by himself more or less in the beginning.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:00.824)
Sure, Rafa came on, right? Right?

Alvin Owusu (01:01:01.466)
And then, and then fat in the doll and then all three. then at some point fed falls a little bit and it's Rafa and Novak. then, and then this is the part where it gets tricky because then then it was Novak all by himself, not all by himself. Rafa was still getting his French ovens here and there, but between, you know, 2019 and you know, 2023 Novak essentially pulled a 0407 fit, right? I'm just going to, I'm just going to take two or three of these a year until anyone stops me.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:27.096)
100 % after a fed, after a fed retired, mind you, and Roth was hurt. So no, make no mistake. We're taking nothing away from Novak and he spanned generations. you're, we're on the same page. I think the PR, I think that we're going back to, in my opinion, two crucial questions you asked them to get it. Who are the goats? What made them the goats? Okay. Number two, the post-goat era. And we talked, we started talking about Serena,

post Serena, we've now had several Grand Slam champs in the meantime after her. And I think that's what really helps me understand how you can't appreciate greatness until greatness is gone. Should Rafa Nadal retire in likelihood, he will retire fairly soon, he's having this fair. Right, he's had ceremonies, he's had this third, Fed retired a few years ago. And on cloud is 100%, the better because of his retirement.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:14.482)
He's done, yeah, I think he just had the ceremony, Dave's Cup, I think he's done, that's it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:25.879)
Now you have Nole, which I think Nole will probably retire in my opinion within the next year and a half, if not year. He's trying to push it to the physical limits of his body. And he's going to pull what I call, what Serena is trying to pull and trying to beat the top top. He's trying to beat Don, beat Tilden and Bill Tilden and, and, and Margaret Court is trying to win that 25, 26 and maybe gets there great. but let's be honest, if he, if he doesn't do it, he's still the greatest of all time. The, the prop, the, the,

One I'm getting at is that we are about to enter the next four years of a center Medvedev. A, a, Giovanni, you know, I'm a full boy in there. I think he's going to have one. you're going to have Alcaraz. You're going to have center. You're going to have Medi. You're going to have, you know, four, three other players soon to be determined are going to win the next.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:10.813)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:24.618)
Well, grand slams over the course of the next four, three to four years. Like we've seen the girls game, the women's game, me, in the sense post Serena. You're going to see the Raticano. You're going to see the Bechish. You're going to see the, the Kvinifas. You're going to see the, what's the, Von Juskas. You're going to see all of the, in a sense, come out of the woodwork.

on the surfaces that they prefer on the various things that they're good at. And unfortunately, you're not going to see them return much. It used to be before these guys winning three grand slams meant you were really good. Quirton was a clay court master. Tomas Mooster, who, who Nadal beat his record at like some ungodly number, like 40 weeks, 40, 50 weeks.

on clay unbeaten, which is like three years in a row unbeaten on the clay. Right. So you're talking about these kinds of players, Raptor, you know, on the grass or so on the grass. There's that used to be the benchmark before these guys came into the conversation. So now in my opinion, what we're about to see in the post-goat era, we're about to see three to eight different champions over the course of the next three years is what I see.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:23.015)
Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:46.899)
See, this is where I'm gonna push back on that. And this is part of the, I think this is part of what GOATS do, or what we saw the big three do. They swallowed up generations of would-be champions that were not worthy of winning Grand Slams. The Kenishakoris, the Grigor Dimitrov's generation. They also took the Sitsipassas generation, right?

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:05.263)
That's a big statement. That's a big statement.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:15.113)
three consecutive generations of, okay, if we lived in a world in which a player only played for 10 years and then they retired because they got to age 28, 29, 30, and they just went away, there's another generation that's supposed to step into their place. It doesn't matter how good they are. Someone's gotta win these Grand Slams. Somebody's gotta win it, right? Unless the guys just don't leave and say, you know what?

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:27.121)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:34.673)
Right. Somebody's got to this championship. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:45.394)
You're going to have to beat me first and I don't think you're good enough. I'll just stay here and when you prove it to me, I'll leave. And that's why your, that's why your sanghas didn't get any championships. That's why Roddick only got one, right? That's, that's why only one, only one. Hey, if you're going to, if you're going to, you want this, if you want this grand slam, you're going to have to rip it from my cold hands. And this is, and this is why I don't believe we are going to have three to eight different.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:47.793)
Right? Right?

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:58.023)
Only got one. But the problem is you're saying only one. You say only one.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:15.199)
winners of Grand Slams over the next few years is because I don't think these guys have it in them. I believe they haven't, unless there's someone coming out of the woodworks that I have not seen yet, right? The one that you think should win one would probably be Alexander Zverev. My man's been out here for a minute.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:21.736)
Why?

What?

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:36.048)
is when those passed. I'm sorry to say it.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:39.499)
His window, you know, he, in my personal opinion, gram slams are taken, they are not given. Outside of that 2020 US Open, we're a team, like literally, he just got, hey, guess who else was there? Guess who else was there? Exactly. So his game style really matches that to a tee too. He doesn't wanna go take anything. He's like, I'll be here. If you drop it, I'll be here.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:48.592)
Groot that.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:53.86)
Get, get, get center from the swash. Yeah. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:08.287)
But there's always, there always seems to be enough greatness around to not drop it. He can, he can get to, he can get to a final, right? He'll, he'll, he'll do what he's supposed to do. Yeah, go ahead.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:14.198)
Here's-

Here's my question. Here's my question. Because you brought up two very crucial points. Given a earn not given. And you also mentioned that weren't worthy. I would tell you and I'm gonna push back. Isn't the not worthy

More about the player who transcended your sport. Who's on the other side of the net from you. I often, I often go back and forth with my brother on this about basketball. I am a physical relative of Carl Malone, who was one of my favorite basketball players. played small forward and power forward in college and Carl Malone is a relative and one of the best to play the game. Carl Malone deserved an NBA championship. Emmen Stockton,

Alvin Owusu (01:07:48.632)
absolutely.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:10.904)
perhaps perfected the give and go more than any twosome in the NBA. Malone never won an NBA championship. Karl Malone just so happened as if he happened to himself to come up an era of the Los Angeles Lakers, the Boston Celtics, the Chicago Bulls and the Detroit Pistons. So he was not gonna win one because his team wasn't as stacked as those teams were. I was at a

Alvin Owusu (01:08:18.774)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:39.502)
four star Nike camp years and years ago when John Starks and other players were there at Oklahoma State. John Starks won the best point guards for New York for the Knicks. Why was he not a NBA Finals and NBA Championship player? Because he was in the same era with the same guys. It's to me, Becker would have won seven. Pete could have won a few more.

Quite frankly, feel Pete won more than he should have in 2002. You look at guys like, Edberg should have won a few more. Even Nizovic for darn sure should have won three, if not four. You look at other players, Roddick should have won three. Juan Carlos, and don't get me wrong about who I feel was a player who really got caught in that era. Guillermo, I just had his name. Argentina.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:19.999)
Roddick probably should have won another one or two. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:36.27)
I'm not conious, but

Alvin Owusu (01:09:39.948)
Korea?

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:41.003)
Guillermo Correa. Correa to me was, in my opinion, a better Juan Carlos. And you haven't even got me started on Morat Safin, who I think should have won five, six, seven, easy eight, if he had just been in right mental space to do so. So, worthy? I'm not sure I'm gonna buy worthy. What I am gonna buy, what I am gonna buy is they weren't at

Alvin Owusu (01:09:42.572)
for you.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:53.013)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:56.81)
Yeah, that guy. man.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:09.868)
that time, top of their game in the right head space, playing the best tennis, you name it, which is no fault of the champion who won it that year. Now, why I say that is that this also makes the GOAT. The GOAT decides that this game, you're just not ready for the, for the history books. You and I are both

from Atlanta, at least you from Atlanta. I've been here for 30 plus years. I feel I'm from Atlanta. The Falcons and the Patriots years ago. There's no reason the Falcons should have lost that game. Why did they lose the game? Because the Patriots knew they didn't put them away and had been there six times previous to know you don't have what it takes to win this. There is a part of this that

Alvin Owusu (01:10:49.42)
Yep, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:05.002)
speaks to your point. Are you worthy to win this? We're the benchmark. We don't deem you worthy. And there's a part of this that says, you're good, but you're not that good. And you're not good enough to be great on great's bad day. And that's where we come to this rivalry and the goat and the whole conversation. No one misunderstands the Patriots being a great team and a dynasty. No one misunderstands

Alvin Owusu (01:11:16.718)
You're not great. You're not great.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:33.989)
My Chiefs just today won another nail biter. All right, now 11 and 1. Off of what? A miscue at end of the game. But wasn't it really the pressure of beating the top team and the Phoenix football champs? So are you ready for that moment? Now, I said to say it, and I'm a harsh, very harsh Chiefs critic. Anybody will tell you, as much as I'm a fan. I'm from Kansas, so I deserve to be. I have the right to be. But I said to say, and I'm a fan.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:59.832)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:02.825)
I'm a fan on our best day and our worst day, but I say it to say back to our conversation of goats. Don't the goats raise the level? Don't the goats push this, push the standard higher than you thought were needed? And don't the goats, I remember being at the 2002 US Open where Pete Sampras was down, was down two sets to love, match call due to darkness.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:11.48)
They set the standard.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:31.571)
came back and won the match the next day three of five. And I say that to say these are the against Greg Rusetsky by the way, and these are the kind of matches you probably saw a similar match against Joe Billy Songa and Novak. I want to say 08, 09 in that range. Match got called to darkness Novak won the fifth 6-1. 6-1 was getting hit the break speed off of it. What happened on day two?

Novak Kane was almost chanting on the darkness, protested for darkness. What happened? Novak won that match. Novak went on the tournament. You get what I'm saying. Now I hear you on protest. I hear you on worthy. I also hear you on the top. Just know you're not ready. You're not ready to take this from me. You won't be given this. You will have to take it from me. You can take it from me. You can beat me if you're good enough.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:31.568)
And that's the beauty, I think that is the beauty of the marker that we use for GOAT. We have all decided that it's the Grand Slams that we're tracking and the Grand Slams matter, especially, we can get into the best of three, free plug, versus best of five debate, but one of the benefits of best of five is that it's a long match. can fluke your way into,

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:50.009)
Yeah Sure

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:58.767)
match and it's a long year.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:01.038)
You can fluke your way into a set. You might get two. could, hey, two out of three will win you Miami, right? In a good week. But you gotta, if you've gotta get three, we're in New Wales, but if you've gotta get three out of five, you gotta mean it. And the beauty of the Grand Slam and the beauty of the way that our sport is laid out is I need you to do it for two weeks, my man. I need you to lock in for two weeks, my guy. And that is how we define good.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:08.037)
Right, right. Or any else.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:29.009)
Can you or can you not?

Alvin Owusu (01:14:30.946)
And great. then when it gets to day 14, and we're all a little beat down, and we're all tired, a little dinged up, but hey, hey, now the Royal Box is filled. Or hey, Rihanna's right here, where it's the lights are on, everyone's watching. I feel good, I feel good. I've been here before, how do you feel? You're not ready yet. You're not ready.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:37.927)
a little dinged up, a little, you know what mean?

Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:55.077)
Novak is watching his, is looking at his poster saying, I'd like to get one more. And other players are saying, wow, I'm playing the guy that's won this five times, seven times, eight times. And that's a different situation. Now it's a different situation. The, the, the real question I bring up, and this is a, and this is perhaps the quintessential. Does the moment make the goat or does the goat make the moment?

Alvin Owusu (01:15:10.298)
That's a whole different situation.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:25.658)
I love that question and I think this is probably a really good one for us to end on because I feel that we are given these moments, the amount of moments are fixed. have four opportunities a year and you have to be special within those four opportunities every year. So the moments are predefined but you have to fill it. You have to meet the moment.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:38.04)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:49.061)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:54.414)
And that's what the goats do. They meet the moment consistently and over time. That is how you go from good to, that's how you go from no grand slams to one, one to five, five to good, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:59.279)
Yup. Yup.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:07.437)
I would say good to great, great, great to multi-Grand Slam winner, which is a very key level in between goat and multi-Grand Slam winner to goat, which to me is multi-Grand Slam winner over time, including over other multi-Grand Slam winners, which is why I would say the goats are truly special because the goats themselves.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:17.189)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:29.424)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:36.322)
are multi grand slam winners playing against each other, others, and you and I both know Alvin, if I'm number one in the state of it in the state and you're number 10, I'm your biggest win coming up. I know that you know that even if I'm having a bad day, I had been number one before you may not have been. And guess what? That alone makes me a little bit tougher of an opponent.

You beat me three times in a row. You become that number one. And I come at you four more times in the back and you beat me all three. Buddy, you are now the number one because you've earned that. You do it four more times. You are the goat and I'm just happy to be in the conversation. Isn't it funny? Isn't it funny what the perspective does to change your status?

Alvin Owusu (01:17:29.106)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:30.594)
Good conversation. I look forward to this. This is a good volley. This is a good reflex volley exchange back and forth between, you know, at the end of the day. And you don't know who has the better opinion, but you just know that it was a good rally, you know, and at the end of the day, isn't that really what it's about? So I look forward to our next episode.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:33.284)
Yeah, I think-

Alvin Owusu (01:17:53.458)
A wise man once told me you really have to appreciate the way the ball feels when it leaves the racket if you really appreciate tennis and that's a true exchange. Well, TH, I appreciate the time today. I really look forward to us doing it again really soon. Any last words for the people?

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:13.876)
I would tell them one of my favorite quotes slash comments is, what is the most important shot in tennis? And it's the next shot. And that transcends life. The next, the most important thing you're about to do is what's coming up next. And hats off to everybody who's been in the rally, been in the game long enough to make what they're doing worthwhile.

May you continue. May your legacy is yet to be defined. And your next rally, your next match, your next grand slam could be something that people will be talking about after you're gone. And only when you're gone will they truly appreciate you. Give it all you got right now while you have it because you could be that goat in your own field, don't even know it. And unfortunately, the press, the media and everything else may not give you that same.

Give it all you got because buddy, you could be that goat don't even know it. And if you are that goat, do know it, buddy. Those of us who really know, we're watching and we're appreciative and we are raising our standard because of you. There's my last comment.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:22.132)
Absolutely. Absolutely. And with that, we'll wrap it up for today. For those of you out there listening who haven't quite followed us yet or subscribed, do that now. We'll be back in your ears really soon. TH, always a pleasure. That's the three. We're out.