Ep. 04: Reimagining Year-End Championships in Tennis

Alvin Owusu (00:02.048)
What is up BOT fam? Welcome back to another episode of the best of three podcast. My name is Alvin and we are back at it again with my main man, Hawkins, TH what is good.

Torrey Hawkins (00:11.876)
Yes, sir.

Nothing much Alvin, nothing much. I'm very, very much looking forward to having a brief recap of the GOAT discussion. I've had more time to think about it and I've got a couple of interesting, maybe even controversial comments for you to throw at you. I'll give you the teaser. Tennis commissioner. Does tennis need a commissioner and a

Alvin Owusu (00:35.807)
Okay. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (00:42.639)
boy.

Torrey Hawkins (00:42.744)
better and the second one is a better way to establish the true year-end champ.

Alvin Owusu (00:51.449)
I really, you know, it's interesting. I really like those two. Interesting because I went to, know, we obviously we have a year in championships on both men's side and women's side. Both played, I think this year women were in Saudi Arabia and the men were in Turin. In Italy, I went to the event in Turin two years ago. I believe it was 2022. Indoor tennis is a funky thing.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19.755)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:19.897)
And a lot of the players come into that event a a little meh, you know? Like I think to your point of like needing a better way to, you know, there wasn't really much to play for. have, you know, we have a points based 52 week rolling point system. you know, if we don't get the two top players, you know, actually playing a match for number one in the world, like what does it,

Torrey Hawkins (01:25.997)
Yeah. Damn.

Torrey Hawkins (01:45.548)
100%.

Alvin Owusu (01:49.11)
What does it matter? Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:50.156)
100%. I would even tell you that it might even erode the Grand Slams effect on what it was for all along. And we're in a really weird period, in my opinion, of tennis. And I don't want to get too deep in the weeds on it. You recall college football years ago had the bowl system, not the FBS we have now. Right.

Alvin Owusu (02:15.276)
Yep, not the the BCS and FPS and all that. So yeah, just the actual season ends. There are bowl games. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (02:20.627)
The actual bowl, they, there are bowl games, they traded, you know, the Rose Bowl was of course the bowl back in the day. And the cotton bowl that one year had the champ and depending on what Sugar Bowl, whatever team had that bowl was in a sense crowned the champ. And there was always controversy, but you played all season to get to that bowl and so on and so on. Soccer to me does a great job of having a season. Everything counts. Everything is ready to go.

Alvin Owusu (02:32.077)
sugar bowl, so on and so forth, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (02:50.02)
Until you get to, course, that qualifies you for, you know, obviously Premier League and so on. And so at that point, you know, you're now in this higher level league and you can get booted out if you don't do so well and so on. And I'm not arguing one way or the other. I'm just saying, I think with the current Grand Slam structures, of course, spanning so long, there has to be a better way. I've always felt as a fan, as a coach to have the year end means something more than just an extra tournament with a lot of prize money. I'm going to.

put this out to you. If there were a tournament and I'm talking about this tournament takes place a week after the open, not through this, the rest of this whole year, the open, the US is the last one we were to have. Think of like World Cup with group stages. You have clay group, you have hardcore group, you have the indoor group and you have the grass group. You're four groups and you have your top two.

Alvin Owusu (03:45.336)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (03:48.787)
come out of those groups. a mini tournament of round of 16 going into boom. You got cameras on all three. You have a facility that has those matches built just for that tournament for that week. And you now have at the end, you have the four, these eight players coming out, but they each play here. You're like this best of three, but they play one on hard, one on grass.

Alvin Owusu (04:13.999)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (04:19.389)
They play one and the best of three. They're the best of three that goes to the player with the higher ranking points, whatever you want to call it. And that's what the third is played out. Boom. Make it happen. And then you have the same with grass or whatever the configuration may be. But then you'd have a true test of what it is and what it ain't. And now we really see the true gunslingers as a fan. I would love it.

as a player, think they'd love the format. It'd really see who is and who isn't. You're seeding all your ranking. You won, Wemby, great. You're seeded one. Even if your ranking isn't one right now, doesn't matter. You're the one seed in the grass group. I think you'd bring back some of these surface specialists to have a chance to upset some people. And you'd have a real way of understanding what that person did or didn't.

Just think about it, I know it's controversial, I know it-

Alvin Owusu (05:17.272)
Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, I like lots of parts of that. Anytime we're in a scenario when you're talking about changing surfaces in a very short period of time, like that's where I have some pushback, right? Not only is it, if you're going right after, obviously we have summer hard court here, season in the US leading into the US Open. If we were to do a very quick surface change, think you're going to, the quality of the tennis is gonna be degraded.

And then also if we go from something like a clay to a hard or a hard to a clay or even however you would manage getting grass into that, right? Cause now we're talking about like where do they have facilities time of year? Like the logistics behind it, right? Don't want to get too hung up on the logistics, but I think that is the tricky part. Now, if you consider this tournament or this event to be the true year in championships, and then you use

Torrey Hawkins (06:14.306)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (06:15.972)
your four Grand Slams and your Masters events as kind of like your different qualifying events to get into this championship, right? So like CrossFit does this, right? Like they have the CrossFit Games in August, but then they have these regional events, like big regional events if you win one, or global events, but if you win one, you're automatically in. Or if you place high enough at a regional event, you're automatically in.

Torrey Hawkins (06:24.675)
Thank you. That's right.

Alvin Owusu (06:44.834)
or if you do well enough at the collection of like five events over the course of the year, you're in. And then there's also like a true open qualifier that is five weeks long where everyone in the world, you, me, the best crossfitters in the world are all doing the same workouts on the same weeks, and then that's also a way to qualify to get in. I like a true, it is called the open. It's a whole thing. It's very well put together.

Torrey Hawkins (06:55.929)
Right?

Yup.

Torrey Hawkins (07:05.506)
Right? A true open.

Alvin Owusu (07:13.403)
But I think the idea of having ways to get into this event that are pretty set, right? So we have our ranking system, which means something, right? And the rankings essentially feed into the seedings, the rankings.

Torrey Hawkins (07:28.484)
Some would tell you the rankings are the problem. And to my point, that is what, and we don't want to get off topic, the tournament, something has to be used to establish the year in one. Boom.

Alvin Owusu (07:42.021)
Right, yeah, I'm there with you there, but I'm trying to think about the value of the existing ranking system, right? So the rankings as we know them allow a pretty objective cutoff as to who gets into tournaments throughout the course of the year and who does not, right? Cutoff line for this particular event is 48. Okay, I know that the top 30-something players that enter that are...

Yeah, above this line, we'll get in that it helps keep the trains on the tracks, right?

Torrey Hawkins (08:09.411)
Yep. It certainly is a great, I'm going to use the term turnstile for the tournaments themselves. I would venture to say, but it's all based off of last year and everything is based off of points, points earned. It's a 17 week. I think it's still 17 weeks of the year. No, no, but it's the player's best 17 weeks. I'm almost sure it's.

Alvin Owusu (08:17.19)
Yes.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (08:31.708)
Well, 52, rolling 52. So it's...

yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (08:38.494)
It's whatever the normal weeks that may have changed. I used to be 18 weeks. I think it's on a 17 now. I'm bottoming. I could be off on that, but it's their best tournaments that they're counting. The other, your 19th, you lay a goose egg in the first round. Doesn't matter. It doesn't count against you long as your 19th term. It's fine. Right. And of course your best results, of course, go back to that. And so I'll give you a really good example because I know you're going to, we're going to segue back to your comment about year end players. And I know there's a lot of American players you wanted to talk about. We saw.

Alvin Owusu (08:45.7)
Yeah. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (09:08.054)
Due to some unfortunate injuries and again, back to our previous goal conversation. Many of the players, Rafa Nadal in particular, who did not play, we have a vacuum that has brought in some players. I think Tommy Paul is a wonderful tennis player and by all means should have been top 20 a long time ago. But I have a hard time with Tommy Paul being a grand slam semi-finalist with his game. And now he's dinged because he didn't get it back.

I have a similar problem with, I forget the young lady's name who won the US Open. Danielle Collins, if I'm not mistaken, a COVID year Grand Slam. to say she won Australia, Right when COVID was kind of ticking up. And I look at some of these tournaments and I could be wrong on who it was. Young American girl, maybe a Sophia Kennan. But the point I'm getting at is, is you're talking about a Grand Slam champ that she will now and hey, God bless her and she deserves it. She won that event. But.

The big asterisk is who else played. And now we're taking those results into the next year, into the next year. Rafa beat Fritz with no serve, Alvin, and retired the next round, giving Kyrios a walk over into the final against Novak and got beat Hanley in straight sets. Now here's my point. Does that, does that even count?

Alvin Owusu (10:20.229)
Yeah, he did. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (10:29.182)
No back. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (10:38.578)
And now he of course is.

Alvin Owusu (10:38.897)
As far as as far as does that count as far as if you if this is your result and then you go into this and we're reflecting back on this year in championship like should that matter? You know.

Torrey Hawkins (10:42.109)
rankings points.

Torrey Hawkins (10:47.519)
100%. That's what I'm getting at. Now that's my question for you. And now you look at those asterisks and there's more of them. There's more of them every year. What do we do now going forward? Taylor Francis, Teofil is now dinged because he didn't reach the quarters or semi of the US again the year before. And again, I'm all for giving that player the love that he or she deserves for last year's performance. At the same time, is he still playing the same level of tennis?

Not sure.

Alvin Owusu (11:18.515)
Well, I think once we get to the year, okay, so a couple things there, right? Things happen. Or as they say in the streets, shit happens, man. Like, you know, you can't fault a player for who they're playing on the other side of the net or what happens. Everyone shows up with what they got, right? So yeah, Nick Karyos found himself in a Grand Slam final. Okay, he also hasn't played much tennis since then. So.

Torrey Hawkins (11:25.593)
for sure. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (11:43.858)
hasn't played, didn't play up until that time. And his best tennis was five years ago when he got to the final and beat three former number ones. So to my point, I'm not slamming Nick. You get what I'm saying. At some point you have to consider the thought, just the thought, is the ranking system itself, which bases so much entry and it's the basis for the year-end championship is it flawed.

Alvin Owusu (12:09.674)
Well, it's only from the same point of the year in championship. I think it works because it is a snapshot of what happened in this year, right? By the time we, so we have the rolling rankings, right? But then at the, and then we also have the race, right? So by the time we, by the time they kind of true up at the end of the year, it's, it's, it is a picture of what has happened this year, right? And I'm okay with taking, you know, all the beautiful things that happened this year along with the flaws and saying,

Torrey Hawkins (12:20.145)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (12:37.92)
this is the product that we present at the end of the season. I got no problems with that. I don't care if who didn't show up to the event. I don't care if somebody got injured. I don't care if Novak was a late withdrawal and left an open hole in the draw, like, cause he wanted to, you know, he did it after the draw was already made. I don't care. It happened. Things happen. So we play it as it lies. But yeah, I got no problems.

Torrey Hawkins (12:53.904)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Right.

Alvin Owusu (13:07.347)
I got no problems with that whatsoever. But I like the thought exercise of changing, of definitely moving the year-end championships that I'm here for.

Torrey Hawkins (13:08.366)
If we used it as...

Torrey Hawkins (13:14.652)
So my three points were tennis commissioner. Number one, I think a hundred percent yes. And again, I apologize, getting off script. We need one. Number one for placing tennis in key down times of the year, not letting it fight with other major sports. I think just in terms of our sport, the brands, the people that are marketing the sport that are making money by helping produce tennis would benefit. Number two, a year-end championship that would run

fairly close to the end of the last major to me is essential. Number three, ranking system to help seeding for the next year. I'm all about that's what it should be. Forget the ranking. The result of last year should even trump that. know, some no name out of nowhere who wins Wimbledon should be seeded. Number one, period of the story. Now that's not to say that he gets the year ranking of all the tournaments. He didn't do squat the rest of the year. Now.

Alvin Owusu (13:50.74)
Yeah, that's what it should do.

Torrey Hawkins (14:12.155)
Well, I'd like to see that guy get beat in the rest of the field throughout 100%. But if there was a true start and finish to the year every year, I think that that's where the, going back to the first point, the tennis commissioner could come in and say, okay guys, the tennis, the first major of the year is Australia. We know that. But tennis season actually starts in December. All you challengers, all you futures, all you college players who want to get going, there is your open right now.

Alvin Owusu (14:31.2)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (14:40.962)
And we will have four tournaments leading into this event to really cut the snuff, so to speak. And we will, as they say, you know, it's your time to shine or not. And that is the challenger season and there'll be three others, but you will have a way to play into these parts of the year. You know, I will call it four different qualifiers, let those surface players, specialists have a way to play in.

Alvin Owusu (14:44.607)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (15:00.661)
like an open, a bigger version of your qualifiers, but we were gonna be, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (15:09.61)
And now you have the Opens themselves, Australia, of course, French, Wembe and US as the true tournament itself. You're have to pick, of course, there's not much time between Wembley and the French, never has been, that's understood. But how many players who grew up on grass are gonna really do well on clay? Not as many as we think. And if they're that good, they're in the tournament already, they got in through this system or another system, you get my point. What I am basically filling out is...

Alvin Owusu (15:33.269)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (15:37.045)
It makes tennis a little more exciting. You see a little more, in my opinion, of the tournament counts. I don't want Wimbledon not to count. I don't want the U.S. Open Cup to count. And I don't want the year in championship to reflect some guy who played great in January, but has been hurt since and hasn't been around, hadn't played any decent tennis until September, still around in November or December for the year in championships. Trying to get ready for the next year, I might add. If the tournament were there earlier.

Alvin Owusu (16:03.233)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (16:06.936)
I'm talking early to mid October, maybe even at the very latest, the very latest November 1st. And that is the year in, get the rest of the guys a true two month break. They can do their programs and their charity events as most of them do and they're right. But let's, but that's your choice because you tend to be on paper at two months off and the guys that crank it up. Now you start bringing the tennis channel and the other tennis channel too, and the rest of them, and you showcase the challenges you showcase.

Alvin Owusu (16:20.329)
these ProAms. Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (16:35.187)
Indoor to showcase all the tournaments around the world and they could have again. I'd only get off the path too far. A satellite version of this leading to a big circuit championship. And then those could play into this. And now you have your true quote unquote world cup stage from these various events. All I'm getting at is tennis keeps the season. We have the ranking. It actually starts and stops and the year in championship means something. And my whole point with the, with the surfaces is, and I get you on going back and forth matches.

But these guys could play on a concrete slab if they had to. These guys are some of the best players in the world. And don't forget, it's even for both sides. They came from all clay in that group. They came from all grass. What you're really saying is, and this is only to me, what I like, is the guy that lost the first really has the option of playing on the grass or on the clay of his choice. And it keeps it interesting. If he doesn't want that, you know what? No, I got my chance to play this guy.

Now two out of three really means something because the guy has a chance to change the game. And that to me now brings in a lot more drama, brings a lot more tactics. If I lose the first, am I better off playing them on grass? I got a better serve. Now you start seeing some real tactics coming into to play in tennis. And now the players at the top are tested on all surfaces right then and there. And to me, you've got your real gamesmanship. You got your real, hey man, don't sleep.

I'm gonna play you on the other surface and you know I'm better than you on that surface. And now you really, but who and the third goes back to what the, whoever has the most points. Hey, sucks to be you. I won two championships this year, buddy. We're going back to my surface. We're going back to Clem.

Alvin Owusu (18:06.529)
You know what?

Alvin Owusu (18:16.068)
I'm excited to hear, well first of all, I'm excited to hear what our listeners might think about this one. So as you listeners will, please just throw your ideas in the comments. I think this is a really interesting idea. But I do wanna make sure we don't forget your very first point about the tennis commissioner, right? So this comes up a lot, right? Especially when we're talking about like,

Torrey Hawkins (18:20.863)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:41.14)
unification of the tours of both the women's and men's tours, WTA, ATP. And then you start talking about all of the government bodies that exist by themselves within tennis, right? You have your, yeah, ATP, WTA, ITF, you have all of the federations for the, like the USTA runs the US Open, right? FFT, LTA runs women, FFT runs Roland Garros, and.

Torrey Hawkins (18:44.627)
Mm.

Torrey Hawkins (18:53.234)
Right. IDF, ATP, USDA.

Torrey Hawkins (19:03.41)
Yep. LTA runs mobile. Yep. FFT. Tennis Australia. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (19:09.512)
Tennis Australia runs Australia, right? So, and then you have those, and then there's, think there's another one, maybe even the, there's also the ITA running around back here for college tennis, which does have some tie-ins with challengers and things of that nature into the professional ranks. with all of these people, all of these voices and entities that have a stake in professional tennis, the idea of one layer.

Torrey Hawkins (19:19.348)
Yes.

Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (19:36.269)
that goes across all of them or maybe even, it can't necessarily replace all of them, but I think if you unify the tours, you have to have one layer that runs across and from there, I think your tennis commissioner does emerge. So let me.

Torrey Hawkins (19:43.411)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (19:52.275)
I would go even further than that. The tennis commissioner is the CEO of the tennis board. Each of those people you talk to, ITA included, USTA, FFT, Tennis Australia, LTA, all have a seat on the board. But here's where the tennis commissioner comes to shine. He is representing another chair on the board, which to me is the most important, the networks.

Alvin Owusu (19:55.789)
Please.

Torrey Hawkins (20:20.41)
And at the end of the day, what the tennis commission's job is, to vote and to sit on and heavily weigh in on. He is the swing vote, so to speak, for any and all good ideas. He doesn't make anything. He's not a dictator. He is like any board. There's board decisions. There's decisions made. He is the swing vote. He has overwhelming majority to do this and that, but his job is also to make sure that it

plays directly to the best benefit of tennis. And he has to understand at end of the day, those criteria grow tennis, grow revenue, grow spectatorship, grow from a level of viewers, grow from a level of, I'm going to say, of the sports viability. That is what the commissioner is all about. I can't worry about you, ITA, because you don't want to change your college

seniors your college tennis format. But what I can do is tell you hey if you all wanted to do something like this it would fit in great within the tennis calendar as a whole. I'm not here to tell you you know WTA that this you have to play behind men or before the men or I'm not even even here to discuss equal pay and money. What I am here to discuss is viewership on TV and we know history's proven that tournaments do better when both of the guys and the gals were there.

And so what you start running it, it's not that close. So what we now talk about, it might behoove you to let's sync up the calendars as a result. And the commissioner's job is to make sure, and again, TV is the limited resource here. You've got to get those eyes on the screen. And I feel tennis has for far too long has not benefited from.

Alvin Owusu (21:48.797)
absolutely. It's a much better product. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:12.975)
having more butts in the seats and having more eyes and sense. Everybody wants to go see a final here and there. And I'm all for the split screen watching Justad and Abu Dhabi and whatever other tournament needs to bump up. That's great. Those are for two fifties, which are no longer. I'm talking about for the tournaments themselves. And there should be space in between for us to enjoy a Miami, enjoy an Indian Wells, enjoy a Spain, enjoy the rest of the bigger tournaments around the world because they are that big.

and they fit into perfectly two-week increments all around the year when basketball's done, when football shuts down after January, early February, when all of that, when October, when baseball starts to be done. There's these great holes. And the Matt and the Grand Slams themselves are already in those spots. They're already pretty good. You're just talking about some of the year-end and some of the other ones that have to change. And why are you changing? To get more butts in the seats. There's not a whole lot of.

whole lot I'm going to say competition for Miami weather. You know what I mean? It's going to be pretty good, know, about three fourths of the year. You know what I mean? California is going to be fine. If they moved it a week or two here, they're not a big deal. And the players will adapt to whatever. We know that. That's proven.

Alvin Owusu (23:18.32)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:26.343)
So I think the only issue is, so when you start, this is kind of a little bit of, this is a space in which I'm very familiar with how media operates within the sports landscape, right? So what you're talking about here is a system in which the media, he who holds the controls of the media actually hold the controls of this tennis situation here. But the problem, the problem about what you just laid out,

is we are talking about, from an American market standpoint, we're talking about having tennis fit within the schedule that we have for American sports, which is football, baseball, basketball, right? But tennis is a global product, right? So it can't always, if it had to worry about the US sports, it would also then have to worry about how do we work around European football, right? How do we work around

Torrey Hawkins (24:12.055)
Tone. Tone.

Torrey Hawkins (24:24.076)
Thanks

Alvin Owusu (24:25.21)
Australian rules football or rugby in the the South Pacific, right? It's I think that's the that's the one unique difference about our sport in that It's primarily played outside, right? So that dictates which hemisphere you're gonna be in at what time of the year, right? Everyone's coming from all over the world to also move around the world and that's the that is the that is the wasps nest that makes the tennis calendar extremely tricky extremely tricky

Torrey Hawkins (24:29.484)
100%.

Torrey Hawkins (24:54.227)
I would, I would add to that. also is the calendar that allows you the most flexibility because they're traveling, because they will travel for the knee. And to your point, I don't care about the local match between, I'm going to give me, give me two rando teams in England that aren't part of champions league or not part of, premier league. You know, I say, champions like, premier league, think is England. I'm talking about working around premier league, right? I don't care.

Alvin Owusu (25:01.339)
That's yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (25:15.175)
Out of my depth there.

Torrey Hawkins (25:24.155)
about La Liga and some other, which are some good matches. When those matches come to or the World Cup, we already know. Eyes are going to be on the World Cup. When at that time, in my opinion, that's a great time for challengers. That's a great time for the guys who are trying to get up there. It's a great time for the mixed championships and any other tournament we can put in that time to be a viable option. But we know 80 % of things are going to be watching World Cup as they should.

It's a worldwide deal. Olympics may be similar. Now I'm talking about outside of your big four. I'm talking about the rest of your bigger tournaments and building more participation, more spectator, more viewers. That's my point. And I think a person would almost have to have the world TV schedule, so to speak, in his mind. No different than a, than an editor of a top magazine or newspaper has to decide which, which articles get cut.

which articles make for my page. And to my point, I would even put you up for that job, Alvin. I think a person like yourself...

Alvin Owusu (26:26.429)
You know what, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. You know, I mean, this gives me another thought and I'm gonna, I wanna keep going down this path. Our rundown for today be damned. I feel good about what we're talking about right now. As a spectator, right, there's two forms of spectators here that we're talking about when we talk about tennis spectators. We're talking about butts in seats at actual tennis events and we're talking about eyeballs on screens watching on television.

Torrey Hawkins (26:36.497)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (26:48.925)
Yep. Yep.

Yes.

Alvin Owusu (26:53.896)
I love traveling to tennis tournaments. I love it. I'll you get, I've got a nice little, nice little laid out plan for, for Q1. I might, might go out to Dallas, check out the Dallas open. I usually make it down to Miami for the Miami open. I want to get to Charleston. I went to Paris not too long ago. I've been to three of the four Grand Slams. I love being on site at tennis tournaments, but, but I don't like watching live tennis matches for in a stadium. I like going to tennis tournaments.

Torrey Hawkins (27:03.89)
Right.

Right?

Torrey Hawkins (27:22.779)
I think.

Alvin Owusu (27:23.56)
because I like to go to practice course and I like to watch these professionals put in work. I like to get my feet same level as them as a former practitioner of the sport and as a current player of the sport and as a lifelong enthusiast of the sport. I know how much better they are than I am. And I wanna see all the little things that go into them being better.

Torrey Hawkins (27:48.338)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (27:48.457)
than I am. I remember, this was probably, was this last year or the year before? I can't 24, 23. I was in Miami and I walked down by the, know, the practice courts kind of lined up in the back down there. There's this one little walkway that you can go between like practice courts one, two, three, and then four, five through the rest of them. And I'm watching Shelby Rogers is getting ready to, she's warming up to hit with, it might have been Irina Sabalinka, like random pairing. But they're warming up short. First ball.

Torrey Hawkins (28:04.658)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (28:17.277)
I had never seen feet work that fast. Actually it was Azarenka. was not Sabley. It was Azarenka and Shelby Rogers and both of them just feet. And I was like, is, if you don't know, that is, it's so hard to be that good on your feet. Right? And I say that to say this, like as a tennis fan, I love going to the events just to feel the ball and to watch them work. As far as

Torrey Hawkins (28:27.643)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (28:46.344)
sitting down and watching a match, the best way to watch a match is watching it on TV, in my personal opinion. They figured it out, it's the best angle. That is the way, it may be a little lower if you can get it, but.

Torrey Hawkins (28:58.264)
Right, but a little better camera angle on some of the other stadiums outside of the Grand Slams. You are 100 % right.

Alvin Owusu (29:03.888)
Yeah, just bring it down. want to see the action on the ball. I think that's when people who... Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (29:05.926)
Right. And, and, and the flight of the ball is something that I think is very underrated that you see where the angle being a little bit above the court sometimes skews that you think everybody's hit 50 bombs and they're so heavy a lot of times, but I don't want to cut you off. Go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (29:17.373)
yeah.

Alvin Owusu (29:22.451)
No, yeah, and so I say it's like when we're trying to, when you talked about improving spectatorship, which side do you think matters more? And I know it's probably a per event thing, but which do you think is more important for tennis? Eyeballs on screens.

Torrey Hawkins (29:36.025)
viewership all day long, viewership all day long because that eyeballs on screens. And I'll tell you why, because that's going to make the most money for the people involved. And when you talk about business, talk about sponsorship is all about ROI. They're trying to get their brand out there. They're trying to get the things going. And I think that's where the game is made. And that's, let's be honest, that's, you got to take care those who taking care of you. I also think that you could do more for the events themselves to have more butts in seats as a result of this. but

To answer your question, it has to be viewership over actual ticket sales as a, if I had to choose one over the other. It's not to say that they're mutually exclusive though. I can certainly have a lot of things there. And if anything, you heard it right here, the busiest weekend for the US Open is opening weekend, not the finals, right? You got more people actually walking through the grounds and watching qualifying matches and watching kids day at the open and so on. Those are the things that people would love to go watch.

Alvin Owusu (30:26.763)
More people, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they've even started, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (30:35.603)
I had a similar story with you when I went to the French one year and this is early 2000s. was there with Scope. Gustavo Queridin. Of course, we try to get there as early as we can. Gustavo Queridin is already there. He's about 45 minutes in. It's still morning. Freshly groomed red clay. Alvin, is, there is a, there's ball marks in the ad corner.

Alvin Owusu (30:54.091)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (31:04.203)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (31:05.335)
that if you didn't know any better, you thought they were serves. They were backhand angles. There was a massive, looked like somebody had just done the cha cha cha, where the normal ball marks were cross court deep. And then you saw one, maybe two balls in the net. You could see the ball trail from the net where the ball was. And there were 30 balls, give or take, on the side, near the flowers.

Alvin Owusu (31:11.174)
God.

Alvin Owusu (31:27.21)
Yep. It's a net rolls off. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (31:34.464)
where the angle went off the backhand side. I watched for five minutes to watch him do it again. There were no words. There was just

Basically do it again. Vest. Yeah, it's not in Portuguese, but the point he was cross cross with the backhand angle. Alvin, I watched and I said, that's how you win three French's right there. You have a backhand angle that yanks you so far wide. You have to come back to the forehand and boom. there were literally, gotta be that good. And the backhand was, I'm talking, know, Google was just as loose.

Alvin Owusu (31:46.591)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:53.001)
YAH!

Alvin Owusu (32:05.931)
where it doesn't even have to be that good at that point.

Alvin Owusu (32:11.411)
Yeah, big big mmmm

Torrey Hawkins (32:13.665)
just as loose and as clean. And when I saw 10 straight rounds, I said, wow, wow, that's a backhand. And to your point, that's what you don't see all the time. You don't see that. And you don't see that level of ball control. And to me, to your point, going from it is huge. I recently went to, I'm a Chiefs fan. I went to the Falcons Chiefs game here. It may have been one of the worst.

Alvin Owusu (32:24.939)
See that, that's it right there.

Torrey Hawkins (32:41.823)
visible experiences and we had great seats. I'm in a suite. I'm a friend of one of the players. I cannot tell you how awesome our seats were. But between the TV timeouts, between not knowing what the call was, between not having great understanding of what's happening, which the TV has spoiled me to help me understand everything's going on, I found myself multiple times going back inside the suite to check the TV to see what was going on.

Alvin Owusu (32:44.147)
god, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (33:09.993)
No, it's that's it is you can't really appreciate sports without context and we are we are so I mean, I don't care how many games you go to. It's never going to equate to the amount of games that you have watched and listened to on television. You have someone always giving you the context of what you are seeing. Right. And I mean, I was was a Hawks season ticket holder for three seasons up to this one. And we had really good seats about 15 rows back and

Torrey Hawkins (33:38.28)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (33:39.152)
Anytime I would take a friend, would just, I'd ask them like randomly, hey, without looking, what's the score right now? And they'd be like, or who's winning? And by how much? They're like, I have no idea. I'm just watching, like the basketball is happening and I'm kind of watching it, but there's so much else going on. And it's all part of the event. It's an event, right? The whole thing is a spectacle. It's not really about the sport, which is why I like.

Torrey Hawkins (33:44.7)
Right. Right.

You

going on, yeah. The spectacle, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (34:05.6)
Watching at home is the best way for me to watch a tennis match Go Going to a tennis tournament is like it's like going to a tennis festival I'm there to do all that. I want to see and touch all the tennis things I don't actually need to sit down and watch a tennis match because that's at that point. It's kind of irrelevant I can do that at home. It's like the one thing I can actually get not being here Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (34:08.254)
Right. So watch the actual match.

Torrey Hawkins (34:25.212)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, and this goes back to my whole thing and that's and the tennis commissioner's job is to help lay that out better. I also will tell you that in my opinion, there are a lot of people that are still tennis and something else fans, right? We don't, I would say unlike Europe, which I think tennis is probably top three.

Alvin Owusu (34:49.175)
Sure, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (34:53.918)
Right. Soccer, course, being the all time number one, tennis may be number two in some countries. Tennis may be number three or in a very close third at that, especially if they have a country person who was from there. I guarantee you, viewership for tennis in Serbia has exploded over the last 20 years. Right. And I would guarantee you that tennis, unfortunately, may have gone down a little bit, you know, up and down on Andy Murray's years in Great Britain and so on and so on. Spain, of course. I mean, who wouldn't want to watch their Michael Jordan?

Alvin Owusu (35:09.495)
Sure, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (35:22.609)
you know, tee it up every other weekend when he's playing on clay every day and every weekend during the clay court season with Rafa. It's just something, now they've been blessed with another young champ and Carlos. So I think we're, if you are a tennis and something else fan, I feel you didn't have to split your time. There's only so much time. We know the tennis calendar right now and I'm not suggesting change it as well, but just saying.

Alvin Owusu (35:43.192)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (35:49.05)
finals are on Sundays, right? We know that we get that it's been that way for a long time. The women's I think did a really nice job of putting the final on Saturday to kind of break it up a little bit. So you can actually appreciate the women's final. I have my thoughts on that with Grand Slams and maybe have more matches on those days. That's another talk show, but I do feel, I do feel that one of the problems with tennis is the viewership. Unfortunately fights various things. And in my opinion, college football, pro football fights, which is an international.

spectacle. I won't necessarily call it an international sport just yet, but certainly an international spectacle. Arguably the probably number three behind the Olympics in the World Cup of sports watched with the Super Bowl. You have to appreciate football counts and you have to appreciate, especially for the American viewers, there is something to be seen. And as we're not saying that we're taking it off the screen, we're saying we're trying to dictate to major markets for various events and filling in holes that are lulls. You know, there are certain weekends, Alvin, that there's nothing going on.

You know, I don't want to bass fishing. I'll be honest. I don't want to watch, you know, the 50th golf tournament this year. And to me, in my opinion, golf's got something to figure it out. I want to watch the key golf tournaments when they matter. I want to watch some breakout tournaments and the same thing that golf's figured out. We're going to put this on TV. We have our calendar and I feel tennis is still playing a bit of catch up in terms of how they.

how they factor on the world scene. There's a lot of tennis fans, there's a lot of athletes that love watching tennis for the gladiatorial aspect of it that don't watch because something else has happened at the same time. So that's where this idea came from. And again, I apologize for our rundown and I know for our schedule, our tenure.

Alvin Owusu (37:17.474)
Yeah, yeah, yep.

Alvin Owusu (37:31.778)
No, it's, there's a lot of that stuff we can get to and I think we'll get to it probably in the next episode, but I think there is one part that I do wanna make sure that we do cover today and which does, I think, play into this quite nicely is coming out of this year, we did say goodbye to a couple of legends in our sport, right? Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray both hanging it up and I think,

Torrey Hawkins (37:53.924)
Sure, Yep.

Alvin Owusu (37:59.652)
You know, we didn't get a chance to talk about Rafa, you know, properly when he did retire a couple of weeks back and we weren't up and running yet when Sir Andy Murray called it quits at the All-England Club this year. But I think we can also bring, I guess for the sake of this conversation, I also want to bring Roger Federer into this as well. And I'm in my early 40s, right? This is my first generation of tennis players that I have seen start, like hit the scene.

Torrey Hawkins (38:05.306)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (38:11.919)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (38:28.632)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (38:29.422)
become champions, and then retire. Like when I, can, I just have kind of put it all in place. Like I was a, you know, was a teenager, a middle schooler when Sampras and Agassi in the 90s were battling it out for supremacy, right? And so when Sampras won his last US Open in 2002, I believe, and rode off into the sunset, I remember watching that match very vividly with all of my teammates on my college team.

Torrey Hawkins (38:44.012)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (38:53.464)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (38:58.832)
We all came back from summer break just like a few days early to watch that final together. But I was a sophomore, rising sophomore in college at that point in time, right? So I didn't, I was not a tennis consumer the way I am now. There was no 365 coverage of tennis at that time. Like when a tournament was happening in Gstaad, right, you weren't watching it. You were maybe reading about it in the newspaper or three weeks later in tennis magazines.

Torrey Hawkins (39:18.648)
Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (39:23.266)
Right. Right. Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (39:29.007)
The way I've, you know, but now I also vividly remember Roger Federer winning his first Wimbledon. And I say that to say this, this, as I've grown, grew up with these three gentlemen and Novak included, he obviously still playing, but I'm going to include him in this, four gentlemen. They've taught me so much about not only the game of tennis and the way to approach tennis, but Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal specifically taught me how to feel.

when watching sports, like really caring. And I guess it's the interplay between the, between the player and me and, then the spectator and me. And then also, you know, my time as a coach as well. they, they taught me how to feel. went, I was, I was a Federer stand. I went through it, man. I went through it and to the point where it used to hurt when he would lose like every, every final he lost to Rafael Nadal, like

Torrey Hawkins (40:00.566)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (40:18.602)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (40:27.628)
and they were in the race, right? It's almost funny to think about it now that they were battling each other for top supremacy and lo and behold, there's a guy.

Torrey Hawkins (40:35.702)
for the better part of 10 years and one could even say 12 before the third leg, you know, himself came and assumed his perch atop. Exactly, exactly, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (40:48.21)
Mr. Let me know when you guys are done and I'm gonna show you how we actually handle this. Yeah, so it's a good time to properly acknowledge, like we had the goat conversation last time we got together, so I think it's a good time to properly say how much I personally appreciate them for what they've done for the game. They will be missed. They leave extremely large shoes to.

Torrey Hawkins (41:01.386)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (41:06.976)
Mm.

Torrey Hawkins (41:14.578)
immeasurably.

Alvin Owusu (41:17.591)
extremely large shoes to fill but I will also yes can't be filled we are we are we are so we're so lucky to have been around to see this because I think it's

Torrey Hawkins (41:19.146)
Can't be filmed.

Torrey Hawkins (41:28.56)
I don't think I'm going to pick up your baton and keep going. Number one, number one, tennis has benefited from their being here. We've we're the better for it. We are better players, better watchers, better spectators, better fans because of their dedication, because of their prowess, because of what they pushed each other to do and to see.

Alvin Owusu (41:32.667)
Yes, please do.

Alvin Owusu (41:43.365)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (41:55.572)
You had mentioned in the previous, I don't want to say it, itinerary, you were talking about, you know, some of the ones, know, Mack and Borg and obviously even, I think you had mentioned Martina and Chris and some others. And we had some great legends. At 52 years of age, I now look back and say, what is sports without the rivalries? And tennis has had some great ones. San Francisco, I can see, in my opinion, kept tennis off of life support.

Alvin Owusu (42:15.675)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (42:25.041)
Mmm. Okay. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (42:26.226)
They were so close in my opinion to going down. I love Ivan Lindell. Okay. Love Johnny Mac. But you heard it right here. Some of us were just tuning in to hear Johnny Mac's tirades and his, are you serious? And so on. Lindell was so stoic and so robotic at certain times that you didn't want him to win as a fan. And yet you knew he was almost part cyborg in your, in your mind. Now later on,

Linda was a person trying to channel his inner motions and trying to get his mind right. I think he leads the stats in most finals and Grand Slams, which means he lost a lot in the finals. There was a story I heard once that he locked himself in the hotel room two weeks after the opener, 10 days after the opening. Didn't even come outside. Didn't even come outside. You know what I mean? Now that tells you how much he hurt for losing that match in the final. And that as a player.

Alvin Owusu (42:59.837)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (43:21.521)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (43:25.774)
I'm like, that's what I'm talking about. I was pissed myself. I don't know about not coming outside for 10 days, but just saying. But that just shows you how Lindell, but watching him on TV with the sawdust in the pocket, you're like, this guy. I mean, and who played with an AT with Adidas racket? Nobody, you know? But I say it to say, that was the era I grew up watching. And Mack and Ro, as much as I hated Dunlop, I of course practiced with a Dunlop once or twice just to see.

Alvin Owusu (43:37.597)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (43:54.882)
I hated the Sergio Toshini shirts with the little high sleeves and the soft collie was terrible. But of course I had to try one on and so on because Mac was Mac. Headband? Who didn't play with a headband in the 80s and early? Come on, now Mac brought some steelo to the mix. And then when the Nike found a way to have a shoe and the little cross trainer, Joan came out.

Alvin Owusu (44:09.372)
Right, yeah, yep.

Alvin Owusu (44:19.846)
yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (44:22.146)
And then they followed up with Agassi and Pete. my god. And they finally nailed it. They had two different looks that were in a sense competing. Right? And so now you're, it's almost like the styles were contrasting. You had the new, you know, and let's face it, Pete was better, at least championship wise, but Agassi was more fun to watch. And so when they nailed the commercial with the Times Square, bringing the Nets out,

Alvin Owusu (44:27.954)
marketing perfection.

Alvin Owusu (44:35.315)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (44:41.224)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (44:49.775)
and hitting the ball, I'm buddy, that commercial will live in the top five of all time of sports commercials, let alone tennis. So we found a way to have, what does this all come back to? Rivalries. And then you enter Roger Federer, who in a sense took the game by storm in the early 2000s, 2000, I want to say four to 2006. I think he won 12 of the 14 slams or 12 or 16, whatever, whatever that.

Alvin Owusu (44:57.33)
no, was a classic. It classic commercial.

Alvin Owusu (45:15.909)
yeah, yeah, somewhere in that space, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (45:19.055)
or 10 of the 12, whatever my numbers are. But I'm pretty sure he lost, only thing he lost in those few years, I think was maybe one Australian, of course both French. And I want to say nine to 12, give or take, but you're talking about, that's putting tennis on lockdown. I mean, straight up lockdown. And then you have Nadal. I don't think Nadal has lost, but maybe three or four matches on clay in 15 years.

Alvin Owusu (45:26.878)
and the fridge.

Alvin Owusu (45:41.459)
And they had that same contrasting, both Nike athletes, but that same contrasting Pete and Andre thing, one cool, one loud, yeah, but for longer. And at the top consistently.

Torrey Hawkins (45:43.96)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (45:48.115)
for longer for longer and now yes and you look forward to the next iteration those of us who saw Pete come on the scene were happy that he had finally had a real contender then then Rafa figured out the the kryptonite on the backhand side with the left he serves out wide and the slice you knew it was going to be over then you hoped and there was a few big matches where Pete where where Roger got came over the top you're like

Yes, finally. Even then you felt like it might go another five years. You knew he was getting older. You knew he was a little bit long in the tooth, but you're like, just one more, Roger. Just give us one.

Alvin Owusu (46:18.686)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:28.565)
Man, that 2017 Australian Open Final, I I happened to be in Portland, Oregon with some buddies that weekend and we were flying, I was flying home that Sunday early, but like the final was happening. We came home, we came in from a night out and the final was on TV at like three o'clock in the morning. I'm like, I'm in and I'm like watching it on my phone that like later on going to the airport, watching it in the airport, Pete gets over the line, I'm bored, like I'm on the plane getting ready to take off and he wins the thing and I'm like, I'm emotional.

Torrey Hawkins (46:31.187)
wasn't that bad.

Alvin Owusu (46:58.423)
It was, it was, meant, I think it probably meant a lot to a lot of people. It was an amazing.

Torrey Hawkins (46:58.667)
I cried. I literally cried.

Torrey Hawkins (47:04.645)
it meant a lot to tennis because you Rothel wasn't giving it up and you knew that Pete, that Roger had to do so much to get over that hump. But I don't think we all knew at that time that that might have been his last tournament. You mentioned Pete Sampras. I was at the 2002.

Alvin Owusu (47:20.374)
Well, wait a minute though. He didn't, he, was the, that was that last Renaissance though. Like, so he goes, he wins 17, like he was a pretty low seat as well. When's the 17 open comes back, skips, skips French wins the 17 Wimbledon comes back around wins Australian open again in 18 and then loses. it, was it loses the final to, was that, no, that was the next year when he lost to Novak and that tough one, but regardless, yeah, it was that, it was that last little bit that we got.

Torrey Hawkins (47:24.663)
Exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (47:32.877)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (47:37.803)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (47:46.101)
No back.

His last hurrah, and I think we all thought it was going to go for longer. I was at the 2002 US Open when Pete almost lost to a guy named Greg Wasetsky. And the match got big lefty. Mine, check this, down two sets to love. Down two sets to love to a big, serving lefty. The match got called to the darkness. Now this is the same open. He's going to end up winning, but nobody knows the time. Nobody knows that the call was for him to retire. He was done.

Alvin Owusu (47:51.743)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:00.058)
big lefty.

Alvin Owusu (48:13.95)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (48:18.667)
blah, blah, blah. He comes back and beats Greg to a tough third, pretty routine fourth. I want to say the fifth set was something like six one or six. I mean, it was, it was, blistered him. He was literally, literally on his death bed. Tooth that's not, you're almost like, match is done. You know what mean? And to see him come back and not just to win that match, to win the entire tournament. Of course he bowed out afterwards, but I saw it to my point. There was 14 slams there that you knew.

Alvin Owusu (48:18.984)
Even,

Torrey Hawkins (48:48.275)
You were looking forward to and quite frankly could count on tennis being high quality. When you saw pistol Pete take the court, you knew Agassi was always anybody's bad day. Even when he was older, heck played smarter when he was older and you knew that tennis your day would have been better. You might even say that the tour banked money off of Agassi's play because they knew.

They could put a match in before and a match after and have viewership because you're going to tune in and watch Andre. I say that we are talking about Serena. We won't give her any more time in the men's space here, but they, think the entire women's plugged in off of Serena's iPhone, off her outlet and off her charger. They literally were, I mean, everybody had a USB out to plug in the Serena because they were like, let's just, let me just draft off of some of your juice. You know what mean? So then you have Roger and Rafa that

Alvin Owusu (49:33.993)
Yeah. yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (49:42.249)
in different different timeframes. Net 2000s for Roger, obviously 2009 through you can we can arguably say 2005 or through 2015 that Roth pretty much had tennis on lockdown himself, especially on the clay court series and started to do well on grass. And of course, sprinkled in there. You can't you cannot take away Novak. He didn't get 24 in one year, obviously. So he got 24. I think honestly his first Australia was in 2007 if memory serves.

And I know he won a couple in 2009 and then he started kind of establishing his dominance. So I say it to say, going back to all of it, Roger, we all miss you. I had the pleasure of meeting him on a few occasions and talking with him. Just a great guy. Very humble, very soft spoken in terms of you knew who he was. Right. But one of those guys that would introduce himself, hey, nice to meet you. And you're like, yeah, I know who you are. I know who you are, buddy. But to him, it was just, hey, it was just you and him.

Alvin Owusu (50:35.383)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (50:41.288)
know, still had the chance to play Roger and had the chance to play Rafa. We had a night in 2005, I want to say it was a rain delayed match and I'm in the only me, Sco, uncle Tony and Rafa in the locker room for about three hours off and on with rain delays. And I'm sitting there chatting it up with, with uncle Tony on the third rain delay, like, you know, this is how much longer, you know, and could not have been a nicer guy that Rafa still doing sprints and, and, and turns and.

Stutter his feet, making juke moves to himself, changing the shirt 15 times. mean, but you saw then in 2005, the level of energy he brought to a match. And you heard right here, didn't play bad, you know, in that match. It's one of, and it had set points on him in the second, just to show you that on, even on a normal day, perhaps even a bad day, the guy was going to bring some energy that you had not seen. And then I then of course watched from Sco being that close to

Alvin Owusu (51:12.344)
Hehehe

Torrey Hawkins (51:37.316)
you know, to this player going on to win 22 grand slams, you know, couldn't have solved that at that, couldn't have solved that in 2005. You now appreciate how he also kept tennis off life support for many, many, many years. And I think in some ways helped really establish Novak's dominance. That's taking nothing away from Novak. But because of, because of the way that sports are and rivalries go, we now assume the top is here.

So when you are then a little higher than here, you must be really good. But I think that's what sports are missing and what tennis will miss, nothing against Carlos, nothing against Yannick, what tennis will miss is they will miss the benchmarks that these players brought to the table. They will miss the level of consistency, the level of quality, and the level of year in, year out, we are going to make you

Alvin Owusu (52:10.573)
Right. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (52:32.686)
realize this is the level tennis has to be played at or you're not good enough to be called a top player. We will do it every year. We promise you that. And now that you have these players that have in a sense emerged, I will say that have outlasted or happened to be born at the right time. I know that may sound like a dig, but they have happened to be born at the right time. They are in a situation where the benchmark is now set and removed.

Alvin Owusu (52:52.152)
Nah, fair. That's fair.

Torrey Hawkins (53:02.518)
And we are now in a situation where the vacuum now backfills. You have to be good enough. You have to be on the right draw. You have to not run into so-and-so and get you your quick little quarter here and your semi here and then find a way to, hey, hey, I'm top 10 now. Where back in the day you had guys that should have won five slams. Andy Roddick should have won five slams, Alvin. Andy Roddick should have won five slams. He was...

Alvin Owusu (53:25.304)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (53:30.539)
I agree.

Torrey Hawkins (53:30.967)
just unfortunate enough to come up during the best era of tennis of all time. Andy Roddick is a phenomenal tennis player. And you look back, he's lucky he won in 2003.

The guy beat Carlos Moya. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (53:44.154)
Can I tell you a funny, can I tell you a funny Andy Roddick story? And this is, I was gonna wrap this up, but I'm not, I'm not gonna wrap this up. I gotta tell you this Andy Roddick story. So some years ago, I was coaching at an academy out in Austin, Texas. This is after Andy, Austin Test Academy. Andy Roddick was out there working with Ryan Harrison. They were hitting, it was on 4th of July. I will never forget this day, because I'm like, okay, I'm gonna knock out three, four lessons in the morning.

and then we're gonna go out and we're gonna have a day, right? And Andy's retired, this is probably 2013 or something like that. And I'm on court, court four, he's on court one, just right over there, and there's no one else there. So he's hitting with Ryan, he's hitting with Ryan, and at one point, there's two things that really, really I took away from being on the same side of the net, just a few courts down from Andy, and I would see him fairly frequently, is that one, for a person who,

could not volley, quote unquote, for you guys who are listening and not watching, could not volley. I've never seen better volleys in my life in person. One. Two, they were doing a drill where Ryan was just working on second serves and then playing the point out, right? So at some point, it's like second serve, boom, point, point, point, serve, point, point, point. You just kind of, they were in a bit of a rhythm. And at one point Ryan goes,

Torrey Hawkins (54:45.203)
Right.

right.

Alvin Owusu (55:12.451)
Andy, how many returns have you made? And Andy goes, 31 out of 33. On the spot, and I was like, one, that's a pretty high percentage, two, my man's been retired for a few years now and he's keeping count. I love it, I love it, I love it. Before we get out of here, I do want to make sure that we get some space for this. A new little segment I wanna throw in here, call it Coach's Corner, right?

Torrey Hawkins (55:16.647)
Hahaha!

Torrey Hawkins (55:25.043)
And it's still countin'. Still countin'.

Torrey Hawkins (55:39.955)
Okay, Yep. Yep. Yep. Hoping to retire.

Alvin Owusu (55:40.795)
I am a retired coach. Well, currently retired coach. You are an active coach. We are practitioners of this game. Yeah, I hear you, I hear you. I think we would be doing the people a disservice if we didn't give them an opportunity to grow as tennis players as well. So, Coach's Corner this week, you did mention that Rafael Nadal, you know, the amount of intensity and effort that he brought to not only his matches that we could see, but you the intensity in the locker room as well.

Torrey Hawkins (55:53.281)
Hmm

Sure, sure.

Torrey Hawkins (56:09.899)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (56:10.126)
And we can always talk about his lefty forehand or slice or the way that he dug on the court. But I think, I think we can all agree that his superpower was the intent and intensity that he brought to everything that he did on the tennis court. So how can players at any level from a junior level, striving for excellence to our adult players who may be playing, you know, three, five USDA or, or B five Alta, how can they work?

Torrey Hawkins (56:20.947)
me.

Torrey Hawkins (56:32.119)
All right.

Alvin Owusu (56:39.217)
to bring an increased Rafael Nadal-like level of intensity to their game.

Torrey Hawkins (56:43.999)
Tough question. I'm going to break it up into the levels because I think to your point, it means different things to different people. I will tell you one of the hardest things to do is to hit the exact same ball. If you understand how difficult that is and by hitting the same ball, mean a very good ball and then do it again.

Alvin Owusu (56:54.045)
Sure thing.

Alvin Owusu (57:12.753)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (57:13.241)
I think you have to understand the level of

preparation, footwork, then this is a weird one, calmness it takes to duplicate that action. The fourth is of course the repeat of said action. The 3-5, the B5 alto, right? This guy is a good player. He hits a nice serve. He hits a nice forehand. I've seen some guys that played 3-5 that had 4-0.

four, five forehands. They had two, five backhands, unfortunately, right? Their forehand, when you watch them warming up or hitting with their buddy, looked amazing. They get in the match and they tried that ball on a return of serve only to miss, you said 31 out of 33 Andy made. They might have made two of the five on a good game. And so there's just this ability to not understand that you have to hit

Alvin Owusu (57:52.091)
Hehehehe

Torrey Hawkins (58:17.991)
three shots before you can even find the groove in this point on that shot. And the guy's not poaching the ball that lands on the single sideline. If he does, he's just, he's just running. He's not poaching, you know, and he'll do it once, you know, miss the next 10. He will just the ability to hit that same ball and let yourself find that ball again is part of the genius of the game. You talk about the aspiring junior.

Alvin Owusu (58:22.823)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (58:47.335)
Can you hit the exact same ball in the exact same contact point or strike zone? Don't let the high ball, don't adjust your forehand for the shot, adjust your feet and adjust your feet for what the ball is telling you. You got to get preparation, your footwork and then find that contact point to not have to change your forehand 18 times over the course. You're asking for breakdown. And I think for the transition pro that's out there,

that's out there really playing some good ball. Maybe a kid playing some college football ball. Pretty good player. They're in the nines, tens, elevens. They're starting to really hit the ball pretty clean, pretty well. How calm can they be? Don't endure a rally. Enjoy a rally. Be so calm. You can hit this ball cross six more times and the better the ball comes, the better you get, the lower you are, the more you're feeling it and you're just.

Alvin Owusu (59:33.758)
Mmm.

Torrey Hawkins (59:45.918)
on it you're ready you're hoping hits it bigger and then when and only when you realize you have the opening and you've handled the guys best shot do you try do you decide to change direction and do something you think that at that point will shift into your favor it all comes back to hitting that same ball again again i'm gonna say that same good ball again and all too often i feel like we try to microwave being good

Rafa Nadal taught me as a coach. What's wrong with hitting eight balls before I get started? What's wrong with me getting a rally going before I choose to do anything? You thought with a big lefty forehand like his, he would be the first to yank you up the line. But in reality, how many times did he start off most points hitting backhands? He had a good backhand. Solid, stayed cross, stayed cross.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:16.126)
Mmm, okay.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:40.649)
Right. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:45.058)
When you ran him, Much to your demise. He would then hit you one of the best buggy whip forehands cross court you could find. You would go line again. He would rip the open stance cross pulling you wide deuce. And now you thought he pulled inside in. Not yet buddy. He would yank you six more inside outs just to pull you wide enough. And then you knew it was coming.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:06.323)
one more time.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:13.527)
The inside in buggy with the fist pump. And before you know it, was up and it took you 15 balls to be humiliated, out of breath and frustrated. Now every ball he hit, got better. He got more groove. He never went for a lot of shots until he was ready. And what I take from him was hit one more ball, hit three more balls, hit six more balls.

Before you know it, you're going to have your groove. Don't pull that trigger so soon. And each ball got better than the previous. Your three-five, your local weekend warrior hit more balls, especially in singles. Hit more balls. Doubles different game. They shouldn't be called the same sport. Doubles and two different sports as far as I'm concerned. You're talking about your junior 14s playing an L5. Make six more balls before you go for something big. You don't have to do something big.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:58.803)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:11.16)
And you might hit bigger if you hit eight more balls. That real good college player, senior going into college, you ain't got to be flashy. No one said you had to be flashy. We're not talking about a short ball off of big first serve. We're not talking about a second serve return. Make sure you're 15-40. Those are special times to be able to do something a little more out of sorts because the score and situation have given that to you. But the random 30 all, the random 15 all, the first point of the match, make balls.

and hit that same ball again. Don't get too creative. And quite frankly, get good enough that you could hit that same ball a lot. And out of that, you get solid. And there is not a better compliment in any tennis player than the guy's just solid. And the more you think about it, the more you think about that's hitting that one more ball, just the same way you did it before. And the guy feels that off your ball that buddy, I'm not going to miss, you know, and I know.

I am missing this next ball. You better be something.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:10.689)
Amen, amen. And I think that's a, those are wise words to wrap on, TH, I appreciate the time. This was fun as usual. For those who are watching and still jamming with us, do the things that you're supposed to do to make sure you know that we're up here. mean, like the thing, subscribe to the thing, follow the thing, and we'll keep bringing the thing. Leave comments if there's something you'd like to know more about, or you're trying to get ahold of one of us, and we'll catch you on the next one.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:20.051)
Looking forward to the next one.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:39.861)
I'm looking forward to it. Alvin, as always, my pleasure. Peace.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:41.429)
Peace. Peace.