Ep. 13: Australian Open QF Breakdown - Novak Djokovic vs Carlos Alcacraz

Alvin Owusu (00:00:00)
Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of the best of three podcast. I'm Alvin TH. How we doing?

Torrey Hawkins (01:40.071)
Good Alvin, good to see you man. It has been a crazy week of tennis at the Open. my sleep is just now catching up and I think I've consumed so much tennis. I'm literally about to be in overload mode right now but the matches are getting better and the matches are getting better. I can't wait to talk about Carlos and Novak amongst others but man, what a week and a half.

Alvin Owusu (01:44.63)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:08.172)
Yeah, it's been strong and we're getting to that time in the tournament. If you're on site, this is when you stop seeing the big names on the outside courts. All the matches get down to Rod Laver. Things kind of slow down. As the intensity picks up, there are fewer people on site. Now there more people watching on TV, because this is winning time, right? as we record this, are about to start the semis, I think tonight on the US time here, Eastern Standard Time.

Torrey Hawkins (02:23.205)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (02:27.302)
there.

Alvin Owusu (02:37.327)
So, but before that, you and I had some conversations, you know, right after watching Carlos against Novak, right? And we were talking about how people view these matches, how we view these matches. So I think in part one here, we're gonna talk about, you know, from a coach's perspective, how a coach watches a match. And then in part two, we'll start to look at the, kind of preview the semifinals real quick and...

Torrey Hawkins (02:58.874)
Yup. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (03:05.216)
see what we have what we've got left here on the tennis side. But I bring up the idea of coaches watching tennis matches because you you are you are an active coach. I'm a former coach. And but the way that we watch tennis matches is probably a little different. I would say I fall into the probably fall into the category of more so watching it as a fan, especially at the at the highest levels. Right. When we're talking about Novak and Yannick and Carlos, like sometimes I can't discern the nuanced differences and

what they're trying to do, especially on TV. Obviously it's lot easier to watch a tennis match when you're on ground level, right? And it has your full attention. So I put the question to you because when I watched the match, I thought, man, it just kind of left me wanting a little bit more Adam Carlos. It felt a little sloppy after that first set. But then all the feedback I heard was, man, what a tactical...

Torrey Hawkins (03:41.07)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (03:54.873)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (04:01.45)
game of chess that was almost an exhibition put on by Novak. So what I want to do is kind get your perspective of how you watch that match and then kind of take me through your process of how you would normally watch a high level ATP or WTA match.

Torrey Hawkins (04:03.172)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (04:08.836)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (04:17.934)
First of all, appreciate your deferring to me. don't know if whatever I provide, hope that it's beneficial to somebody. Right.

Alvin Owusu (04:26.594)
No, it's gonna be value because your takes were very different than what I saw, so yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (04:31.235)
Sure. Number one, and this is for the tennis juniors out there. This is for the tennis parents perhaps in particular, coaches perhaps as well. I've been coaching a long time. So I've done it a little bit longer than most. Still learning by the way. The biggest thing that I think I bring to most matches is objectivity, not subjectivity. One of the problems you run into as a fan.

is you are watching the match from one side and only one side. You're watching from your player's ability or inability in some cases to get certain things done. There is your side, there's their side, and then there's the truth, right? Or as I like to say, there's the match. The match is really what's in between. Some of the viewers, and I know you've heard me say this for years, it's the rock, paper, and scissors concept.

Alvin Owusu (05:10.274)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (05:23.65)
And unlike rock, paper, scissors, when you're doing two out of three or three out of five, it changes, right? You're not going to get the same thing. No one leads with rock all three times. I mean, at some point they know he always does rock. So therefore, hence paper. But I say it to say, objectivity is key. When you watch as a fan, you tend to only see the one side. Number two, there's matchups. And this is key. There are matchups, but often the matchup is the other.

because people know about the matchup, right? For example, I am a big serving Ben Shelton, right? You know he's got the big serve. I remember he played Brandon Nakashima. I think it was first round, second round, right? Brandon has played Ben a lot of times. Brandon knows he's got a big serve. The matchup was more about could Ben break Brandon?

Alvin Owusu (06:05.112)
First round, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (06:18.273)
And what would he do tactically once the return got back in play? The match was not about Ben's serve. Ben's got a big serve. You're not going to stop that. Right? And I think we saw that a little bit in the Impesci-Pera card and Monfils match. Right? We know GMP's got a huge serve. GMP's got one of the biggest second serves on the tour. It's what wasn't about the serve. You saw Monfils go in early and block. You saw him back up and go heavy. You saw him do whatever he could to get the serve back in play. Now, say, let's say...

Alvin Owusu (06:30.413)
Right, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (06:47.24)
So the matchup was could GMP break Gale? Right? And that becomes the actual matchup. The other is so strong, you already know. You you've already given that. That's almost X'd out because it's so dominant. It's a given. You're not gonna, you you can say this in any sport, right? 100%.

Alvin Owusu (07:04.418)
You could go back to like Federer and Adal, right? Then the matchup was, could Raphael get his forehand to Roger's backhand up high, easier on clay. It's pretty straightforward after that. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (07:15.967)
100 % and and so on and so on and so on and I say that to say that's the matchup. So sometimes the weapons almost dictate you find different ways to get to that. I'd probably say number three and this is the and this is my personal favorite who's making the adjustment. You kind of come out of the gate typically in the first couple of games guys are getting started. He's kind of figured out and especially in this Novak Carlos match was Wendy. Neither player played that sharp to be honest.

I agree with your earlier statement about looked a little sloppy. It was very sloppy, but it was sloppy on both sides. Which lets you know two players at that level, the win was clearly a factor. You saw a couple of weird shanks from Carlos. She saw a couple of weird step ups from Novak that missed the mark by a long shot. Tons of missed first serves. Those guys don't have huge, huge serves to go for a lot. So to see them miss a lot of firsts, you know the win was messing with those tosses. But Novak made an adjustment. He made several actually, but he

The biggest one I thought that he made was he adjusted what balls he was going to give Carlos. And Carlos likes to play through the court. He likes to yank that first hard foreign cross. He likes to yank the next ball a little wider cross and he likes to take your line, right? Nadal used to always love his big cross court backhand, of course, to most guys forehands and then run around it, right? He never went inside in first. He always took you inside out.

Alvin Owusu (08:26.476)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (08:35.234)
Run around it, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (08:39.568)
and then did that two or three times until he felt like he had the inside in that he wanted or curled you with the lefty ball off the court. You knew it, I knew it, the guy knew it, the guy's coaches knew it, didn't matter. It was coming, you couldn't stop it. But that was his pattern. So, as I look at the matchup or who can make the adjustment in later years, guys started trying to match up more to Nadal's backhand. Chipt and Gears here back to our Novak-Carlos match.

I just said to say, because you knew the pattern was so good, you had to find a way to get away from it or not let him engage and get the pattern that he wanted. So what Novak did to me that was so smart was he first started trying to out hit Carlos. Carlos has the ability to, when he's moving on his own terms, he covers the court very well. When you run Carlos, ironically, it's weird. He's not as good of a mover.

He reacts more than he proacts. He hits a little bit cross almost all the time and his depth suffers because he now retreats two, three, five, sometimes six feet behind the court, which now opens up the court for the other person.

Alvin Owusu (09:37.454)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (09:48.44)
Would you say he doesn't, would you say he doesn't, that he doesn't read all that well?

Torrey Hawkins (09:57.478)
exactly what I would say. I would tell you that he reacts extremely well and when he gets the ball he wants, he plays what I call combo tennis. The combo to me is the one-two punch. He hits the ball he wants. He hits the ball that he knows will be the follow-up. And most people, and this is important for juniors to understand, the combo isn't always on your racket. I hit a good ball of you, Alvin, and you counter it.

Alvin Owusu (10:08.962)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (10:24.025)
And I think just because I've hit my good ball that my next ball is the bow of the combo. But I didn't hurt you enough with the first ball. So what I think Carlos does that's his genius, he knows, nope, not yet. Nope, not yet. He is patient on the calm of combo, the first half of it. And so he will run you, he'll move you, he'll continue to get the just the right combo, so to speak.

Alvin Owusu (10:45.389)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (10:52.229)
that he's looking for. So what happens is when he finally takes you line, he's been plotting that ball for six shots, right? Now, bring it back to Novak. Novak never let him get the combo that he wanted in the second set.

Alvin Owusu (11:06.782)
Right, okay, so if we go through this match in a progressive timeline fashion, well first, before I do that, this is kind of one of the things where we talk about fed ball drills versus live ball drills. In a five ball fed ball drill, right, you're going to hit ball, hit ball, hit ball, hit ball, hit ball, and you know the pattern's coming so that when you go to a match or a live ball situation, you might.

Torrey Hawkins (11:18.798)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (11:32.731)
You might pull that inside in ball a little down the line ball a little too soon because it's not actually the right ball, right? So for all those yeah for all those players and coaches out there, right? We're gonna we're gonna be going more live ball than than fed ball here There's your there's your there's your free tip, but okay So back to the match in progression, right? Little ugly start from both players we get to about we're on serve about for all Novak pulls up lame, right? He gets a little hurt gets broken Carlos serves it out

6-4, we take the break, Novak comes back in the second set post injury timeout. It's now a slightly different match. Okay, now go on to your point about changing tactics there and not letting him get confident.

Torrey Hawkins (12:13.817)
So let's go back to that briefly on the end of the first because the first match was still pretty close. Novak in my opinion was winning most of the long points, ironically, but it was a death of a thousand cuts. He was getting more dinged up going for the longer points. And I felt like, you know, by the time as both McEnroe's pointed out was undefeated, he was starting to deplete his reserves a little quicker than Carlos was.

Alvin Owusu (12:22.574)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (12:41.11)
because the longer the points went, he expended too much energy to get there. What I felt like, and this is just me, Carlos actually hit the ball quite short in the first set. Novak, wanting to go longer, actually got more dinged up in the longer rallies, even though he won a few. In fact, the very player to he got hurt, his hip on, were long rallies. He was just, he went back behind him a few times. He got, you could tell he got knee, hip, whatever was hurting him, was...

aggravated while he was getting ran those longer points. He won the majority of by my count. So that also played into I can't keep doing this for three to four more sets. Carlos wins the first set. my opinion played a couple of good games. Novak had a couple of very uncharacteristic first serve misses. Had a couple of step before and said he missed. In my opinion just misfired. He really wasn't playing the wrong way.

He was playing Novak at 35, 33. He wasn't playing Novak at 37. Carlos then is playing the same kind of game and Novak said, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna bring the action to you quicker. We're gonna see if you can hurt me if I pressure you a little bit more. Carlos likes to control the middle the court. Everybody knows that. Everybody's seen that. The commenters did their job of explaining that. But that's off of his serve and off of a ball he can move inside the court on.

He doesn't do it well when he's neutralized. In fact, some would say his neutral slash defensive ball is actually quite mortal. He backs up, he loses court position, he goes with the high buggy forehand. And at that point in time, he starts to, I'm going to say, give ground, right? There are three big things you have to always consider on a tennis match. You are trying to take away time. You're trying to take away options. You're trying to take away court.

Alvin Owusu (14:11.928)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (14:32.469)
I don't care what situation you're dealing with. Time, court, and options. If I can take away your time, I affect your options in your court. If I can take away your court, I take away your time, away your options. And if I take away your options, even though you have court, you probably don't have enough time to actually work it out and get it done. So that's the Holy Trinity, if you will, and I'm not by any means a believer in the Trinity, but it's a whole other talk show. I just think you need to understand those three pieces always come into play. Novak took his

Alvin Owusu (14:39.702)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Think about your time and your options.

Alvin Owusu (14:46.894)
You don't have time.

Torrey Hawkins (15:02.036)
away and he went through the biggest part of the court Carlos backs up and guess who is on the move now Carlos Novak went behind him went in front of him and when the point got too long you know what he did he went back down the middle he did not keep running he did not want the death of a thousand cuts he had before go ahead

Alvin Owusu (15:21.592)
So, okay, so going back down the middle, so that was the kind of thing I was able to pick up, right? So earlier in the match, in the first set specifically, and then probably in the first half of the second set, we were still playing the space in which above the net that Carlos wants to play in, right? He wants to be in the middle, he wants to go a little higher and dictate out through our outside zones, right? And so Novak brought the height down.

and started shooting through the middle more, which made it very, very difficult. Carlos then had to pick the ball up in height and then with doing that, it's harder to then go up and out from the middle. And that's where I felt like Carlos got lost. Okay, here we go.

Torrey Hawkins (15:47.742)
Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (15:54.024)
Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (16:01.043)
Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (16:05.073)
Let's add in another piece that people don't quite understand that they probably didn't pick up. None of the commentators picked up on this. Carlos is slightly Western in the grip. Not full on, but he's pretty close. There are two balls that the big forehand with the almost Western grip hates. Most people know the low ball. Here's another one and Nobat gave him a healthy dose of it. I think it came from Murray.

This is just me, but because he hasn't done this ball a lot up until this tournament. He gave Carlos the out wide sitter that pulled him wide enough in the alley. Almost everybody with a straight arm forehand does what Alvin? They extend. When you extend, what does the face look like on your racket? It's closed. And now you've got a ball that's about waist high that you're in front of and guess what? In the net.

Alvin Owusu (16:50.958)
You try to.

Alvin Owusu (16:56.6)
closed.

Alvin Owusu (17:02.316)
That's hard to hit. As someone who also hits a semi-western that's flirting with Pacific time there, it's so hard to hit that ball when you're stretched out. Because like you said, face down, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (17:03.476)
all day long. You just can't help it.

Torrey Hawkins (17:16.646)
Thank you. You have to have an Eastern grip or you'd have to continental it. Either way, why did he serve? I would almost like to say 90 % of his balls out wide to Carlos's forehand because of that ball and Carlos never heard him. In fact, all those multiple ad games, both ad in and ad out, Carlos missed the majority of the returns or flow to them on that due side. Right? He blew, no back, several ad points.

And Carlos played great on the ad for that same reason. Because he's playing better on the late ball than he's playing on the early ball. That's something to... Go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (17:47.406)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (17:50.959)
And that's, do you think that that is something that will, as I kind of think through that progression, something that will change on a surface to surface standpoint, right? Because if you're on clay, right, that out wide serve now sits up a little bit more. Carlos has a chance to load that right leg and really get underneath and behind that ball, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (18:00.753)
1,000

Torrey Hawkins (18:05.348)
Got that right. And Agable.

Torrey Hawkins (18:10.32)
Yep, and it's taggable. And we're on hard court, not so much, and on grass, it's gets, right? So you're in a whole different situation. The last piece that I think people don't realize that he did so well. When Carlos did back up, Novak served him volley. And he came in out of nowhere. He's now the new Pat Cash. I mean, he came in so many times, I was almost shocked, and got pretty good hands and pretty good drop volleys. One of the commentators said they saw him in warm up.

Alvin Owusu (18:15.372)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:25.761)
Yeah, he did.

Alvin Owusu (18:29.719)
Hehehehe

Torrey Hawkins (18:38.896)
tracks on his drop volley to try to run Novak and he did a couple but nowhere near to the extent that Novak survived and dropped volleyed him to run Carlos. Carlos had a couple easy ones when Novak laid up the droppers pretty bad but in reality I felt all these tactics were a way to just keep testing the fences so to speak of what Carlos was and was not comfortable doing. So in the third set I thought was the best that he had played. Hats off to that.

to the physios, they gave Novak some pretty strong, I'm gonna say medicine, whatever that was, but he wasn't even thinking about his hip. He was thinking about his strokes. He was back to arguing with his box. He was back to being salty and being the Novak that we've all come to love, hate, whatever you wanna call it, but he was in form, buddy. And I thought the third set was actually stronger than the fourth. I thought it was the best set of all four sets because he was back to his own terms, hurting.

Alvin Owusu (19:24.269)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (19:35.746)
taking the step up a little further inside the court, serving well, returning well, and I thought he took the racket out of Alcares's hands a bit. The fourth set, I honestly thought Carlos lost a few chances, was a couple of breaks early that I thought he played, just played sloppy, went to the dropper a bit early, just didn't play smart, gave him too many early errors in games and fought back, but Novik was still that really sneaky 15-30.

You know, when you go back to 1540, you're down, you play a phenomenal point for 3040, but you're still down 3040. You know what mean? It keeps you in the coffin. You struggle and have this, you know, unherculean effort to get back to deuce. You play a sloppy point at deuce, you're back down, out. I mean, it's just, you're just never really seeing daylight. And I thought the pressure of the moment and him not playing his best, best tennis hurt him a little bit. He also missed a lot of first serves.

Alvin Owusu (20:06.659)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (20:25.933)
I thought that Novak just kind of used the pressure of the score in the moment. Of course, he's up two sets to one. I thought he did a lot of work to really kind of apply the pressure, so to speak, that let that overall had the cumulative effect of making Carlos fade a little bit in the fourth.

Alvin Owusu (20:40.715)
Yeah. And like we talked about this, you know, probably in our, our preview of the tournament that the profile about profiles of players that tend to that, okay, someone like a Carlos or someone like an EGA, like they will struggle with a certain type of player, but they've gotten so good that there's only a handful of players that actually fit that profile. Right. Carlos is Carlos is kind of kryptonite profile is, is someone who plays someone who's generally tall will serve big.

Torrey Hawkins (21:00.908)
100 %

Alvin Owusu (21:09.782)
and will also force him back and turn and make the court very long. Right. So that is not necessarily Novak except for Novak is a wizard, right. And he's the goat. He almost morphed into that player. Right. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (21:12.512)
Thank you. That's right.

Torrey Hawkins (21:23.018)
I use that term a lot, morph. He has the ability to morph in between styles to be whatever he needs to be at that certain time. And that's exactly what happened. He served like a guy 6'6", 6'8", 6'9".

Alvin Owusu (21:30.296)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (21:33.941)
Right. And so like, feel like I've seen that serve and volley tactic work against Carlos, but it was like, it came from like Alexander's Vera of last year's Australian Open or Medvedev and last year's a US Open, right? Make the court long, right? Make the court long and maybe center doesn't, mean, yeah, center doesn't come forward that much, but like, if you, if you're making the court long and you're seeing your opponent back up, right? And this is something for players to, you know, younger players or whatever, even adult players to recognize it. When you're talking about position again,

Torrey Hawkins (21:41.067)
Thank you. That's right. Or Center.

Alvin Owusu (22:02.358)
and you're talking about time, your volleys don't have to be great if you come in at the right time on the right ball, right? So if you can push them back and you can sneak in.

Torrey Hawkins (22:04.041)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (22:08.514)
Correct. With the guy that's slicing or the guy that's floating and backing up on the serve itself, you know, and that's the beauty of Novak's serve. Very underrated server, by the way. I feel, I believe one of the macros, think it was John mentioned it, his biggest shot that he's improved on, agree, 100,000%. In the first five years of his career, I felt like his forehand got better. Still had a weak serve. His on the rise started getting unbelievable. I mean, you talk about pump.

Alvin Owusu (22:14.101)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (22:29.986)
Yeah. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (22:36.884)
Pong as your reference. He plays Pong with the best of them. But he still wasn't starting off points on his own terms. Got a good kick. He got decent slices. Kick would definitely get to the tee. But it was manageable. You could get around it. He just was uncomfortable at times. Now he can serve anywhere. Has a good degree of pop. He's in the low 130s. He's certainly not, he's certainly no Ivo Karlovic or Andy Roddick, but it gets the job done. And he...

When he hits his targets and makes his first serves, he handles the ball afterwards. Dare I say better than anybody I've seen. So you take a very above average serve with perhaps the best second ball follow up and read of all time. And you've got to, you've got to adjust the unstoppable combo. That is the definition of a combo, right? Can you put the two shots back to back that take away an opponent's time, court and options? That's a combo.

Alvin Owusu (23:19.103)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:32.567)
And then you add in the, he's the king of five set tennis, right? So like we saw this last year, French Open is one example against Sarundalo, right? My man tears his meniscus in the match, still figures out a way to win the thing, right? Before withdrawing after, that's last year. But if you go all the way back to 2020, Australian Open final, he's playing against Dominic Thiem.

Torrey Hawkins (23:46.598)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (23:57.607)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (23:57.793)
and the same situation happened there. I think he wins the first set, loses the second set, gets himself into a weird, of like, had to go off court. The whole process of like, okay, I know that I need to get treatment, something's hurting, I'm gonna need time for these meds to kick in, right? So like your anti-inflammatories or your steroidal type medicines, take about 20, 30 minutes to kick in, right? So like, if you're savvy about it, on tennis court, like,

Torrey Hawkins (24:14.971)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (24:21.799)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (24:25.294)
20 or 30 minutes can be, if things are going bad, that can be a set. But if you manage the time well, that can be two games, right? And so you're just buying, again, you're buying time, right? And he knows what to do more so than anyone else out there. So he just got himself, and he almost kind of stole a set he didn't deserve, right? That was all happening in the second set. That's when Carlos needed to shut the door, and he let Novak get through a time. He's supposed to go into that third set.

Torrey Hawkins (24:29.158)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (24:35.931)
Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (24:44.455)
100 %

Torrey Hawkins (24:48.449)
Exactly. And led it back in strong.

Alvin Owusu (24:54.103)
Novak's supposed to go into that search that down two sets of love and then needing to do like the Herculane Novak thing. But Carlos let him go into a two out of three set match at that point. Like, okay.

Torrey Hawkins (25:03.653)
Let me add two things to that. Number one, you're 100 % right and I don't think that Carlos attacked it from that perspective. He didn't realize that he kind of stole the first. He was still kind of getting his legs under him, still dealing with the wind, still wasn't the ball right, which is part age and part of savvy. He's still playing off his own bravado. He's not playing off the tactics and the savvy of the match. The two points I want to mention. One is one of my favorite stories that I talk about Novak.

Alvin Owusu (25:05.912)
Please do.

Torrey Hawkins (25:32.422)
back when Scoville was playing. Small note, Australian, Sco played with Novak Australian doubles in the juniors back in 04. It was about two, three years later. One Novak Djokovic is playing one Gale Monfils in the first round of the US Open. This is way, way back. Maybe 04, had to be 05, maybe 05, 06. I'm not, you have to go back and check me on the draw and find the years. Well, Novak

Alvin Owusu (25:54.349)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (26:02.65)
gets sick in the match. Conditioning is not what it is now. This savvy Serbian throws up on the court.

Alvin Owusu (26:04.462)
Hmph.

Torrey Hawkins (26:17.317)
Alvin, you and I have been in New York a few times. You know some of these ball guys get paid, right? How many of them do you think grabbed the towel first to clean up the puke on the court? Not a one. Not a one. While they're arguing with each other trying to figure out who's going to clean this up, Novak sits back in his chair, puts a towel over his head.

Alvin Owusu (26:27.392)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (26:42.996)
and sips water for the next 20 minutes nursing the time that he has available. I want to say Gale was up two sets to one and won that or two sets to one. They have a long epic battle. I'm going to say in the fourth but by the time this all shakes out or maybe it was early in the fifth. I'm not sure. I think it was early in the fifth. Momfice is now cold. Momentum gone. Novak. I want to say won the fifth. 6-1.

or it was pretty much a rollover in the fifth. Novak comes into the locker room beating his chest and I quote, because I'm there, this was not conditioning. This was tactics. And I say to myself, you've got to be kidding me. He's savvy enough to know.

Alvin Owusu (27:14.785)
Right, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (27:19.51)
Hehehehehe

Alvin Owusu (27:28.482)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (27:38.967)
Don't just throw up and get a medical. Throw up on the court, let them clean it up, and get a medical.

Alvin Owusu (27:47.926)
and get a medical. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (27:51.331)
at that point I realized this dude is savvier than most and I said to that that was the first part now you understand that that's how he's approaching a match and he's done that for 20 years Alvin you and I are ready I mean there are a few there are a few that are seeing it the way he sees it now here's the second part of that that people need to understand Carlos is still playing

Alvin Owusu (27:57.102)
Oh, I mean...

Alvin Owusu (28:08.866)
Right, exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (28:21.234)
off of his cape. He's still playing like I can do this. I can make that happen. I have beaten him before. I'm playing with Dude, we all we know that already. What difference are you going to make and what adjustment are you going to make? Carlos is not the best adjuster. So guess what? Once Novak knew that he wasn't going to change, put that feather in the cap of

Novak Djokovic as well. And that's the piece that I feel like the young players, they come in there with a little too much bravado, a little too much what they can do in the moment. And they put so much trust, confidence in what they can do, not in the matchup, not in the pressure I'm going to create. I have a saying that I say, don't, it's about pressure, it's not putaways. But a young player likes to think putaways on their own racket.

Alvin Owusu (29:08.429)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (29:18.126)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (29:18.356)
indirectly they put pressure on themselves right they put pressure on themselves to do the big thing instead of letting the situation I put you in put more pressure upon you so that's what I get at when I say I think Carlos had too much pressure he had too much put away not pressure on his brain Novak of course was savage know what was going on don't get me started on him and centers long medicals and and no real

officials have been a little bit subjective on when they started that playing clock a little bit in center's match as well as in Novak's match. So I feel like a final should come down to the both of them for abusing the clock. But let me just put that off to the side. But I feel like they took advantage of what was allowed and that both of them in that obviously center and against Rune and again obviously Novak against Carlos really took advantage of the situation and did not and kind of let the momentum die a little bit.

Alvin Owusu (29:49.784)
Sure, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (30:15.026)
and really came out, you know, I saw Carlos out there shadowing serves, didn't even talk to his box, he's out there bouncing around, not thinking about, okay, wait, let me go check in with JC and find out what's going on. Hey, he's done this before to you, right? What's he doing? You know, let me kind of get my head on that. Go ahead. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (30:31.471)
Well, let me ask you this, let me ask you this and then we'll wrap up after that. But Juan Carlos Ferreiro has shown, has guided Carlos Alcáez up to this point, right? Juan Carlos is a one-time Grand Slam champion, right? He got Carlos to, I think very quickly, understand what it means to be a professional and what it means to then...

Torrey Hawkins (30:54.568)
Agreed.

Alvin Owusu (30:56.227)
perform at the highest level, manage your way through a Grand Slam tournament, so on and so forth, and we see what Carlos is now. Are we getting to the point where the utility of J.C. Ferreros' knowledge is starting to run out? Is Carlos at some point going to need another voice that allows, that will then help him as he moves past this phase of like, I have all these amazing tools to

How am I gonna stay at the top for the next 10 years?

Torrey Hawkins (31:29.384)
You're asking two questions. is Juan Carlos's voice still potent to Carlos's ears?

Alvin Owusu (31:36.194)
Well, like you said, he didn't go back to the corner like that. That seems like a mandatory you get over here. We're having a conversation about what Novak's doing right now.

Torrey Hawkins (31:44.551)
Thank you. And that was Carlos's fault in my opinion. Thought too much about his own cape. Didn't check in with his box. Rune did the same thing by the way when that long break with center. His own fault. He's got a coach there who's coached him since he was eight years old. Both of them chose not to engage with their coaching staff to get their mind right. That's a youth issue and a lack of maturity. Not a coaching box was not there ready to get them through.

Number two, will he need somebody? I'm sure they will add a few pieces. I was actually very impressed that Novak had Andy Murray of all people in the box because you're not only having the people that you trust who've known you and coached you for years, you're bringing in an outside consultant, so to speak, AKA former opponent and rival to bring in a new nuance. What am I missing?

What did you think about when you were playing me that I'm forgetting? Which tells me that coaching never really goes away. And who's doing that? The 37 year old veteran, 24 slams and counting. He's taking full advantage of all the info, whether he wants to hear it at that time or not, just to make sure he has it if he needs it. And I feel like he, Carlos, had it and didn't take advantage of it. I feel like he, Novak, used it, had it in his box just in case he needed it.

That was just the difference of youth versus maturity.

Alvin Owusu (33:11.158)
Yeah, and so Carlos has added, not a lot people don't know this guy, Samuel Lopez, who was a public creative boosters coach and has worked with Carlos and team previously. He's now with the team for this season at least. So maybe that helps, maybe that's something to keep an eye on. But that was fun. So I think what we're gonna do here is we're gonna take a break. We're gonna come back in part two and do a...

Torrey Hawkins (33:30.267)
Cheers.

Alvin Owusu (33:39.222)
a formal look ahead at the two, at this two matches in each semi for the men's and the women's. And yeah, so TH we'll take a break here and we'll come back and join the people in part two.

Torrey Hawkins (33:51.417)
Even better.