Ep. 27: Monte CARLITO Review

Alvin Owusu (00:01.162)
And welcome to another episode of the best three podcast. I am Alvin. That is Tory. Tory's a little pumped up tonight. He's clapping. I'm a little pumped up too. I love Monte Carlo TH. How we, how we living.

Torrey Hawkins (00:07.59)
Sir?

Torrey Hawkins (00:13.976)
Our goal next year is to be front row center at Monte Carlo next year.

Alvin Owusu (00:17.39)
brother, don't don't get me started. Don't get me started. I can

Torrey Hawkins (00:20.284)
Okay. Because I realized now, first of all, the tournament looks amazing. Whatever that Monte Carlo Country Club, if anybody out in Monte Carlo is listening, I would love to be the director at the Monte Carlo Country Club. Let me just say that right now. But my main goal, Alvin, is so I can get front row seats and watch this front row. And then we can deliver this podcast from Monte Carlo and talk about what I'm seeing.

Alvin Owusu (00:26.272)
It's perfect. It's.

Alvin Owusu (00:45.248)
Yeah. Yeah, serious.

Torrey Hawkins (00:49.527)
I was disappointed in the end of Miami, to be honest with you. And I think with all due respect to Alex Taylor Fritz, he was clearly dinged up a little bit and he's been dinged up since he pulled out some tournaments and whatnot. Jakub Mensik has had to take a spot in a few events. I was impressed with Jakub being able to come through. I was disappointed in Novak and that's hard to say for, was it 24?

Alvin Owusu (00:53.549)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:14.23)
In the, you told me in the final of Miami, prior to this one, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15.554)
In the final and, and I, and Alvin, know, I've said this before. Sometimes players peak a bit too early and that, in that Demetrov match, he played flawless tennis, not good, flawless. I think he might've missed six thirds the entire match. Okay. I'm going to back, be, be, be Gregor Demetrov and anything. And so good that I felt like he came down and played, played a very average, very human, which for no back that unfortunately happens all.

Alvin Owusu (01:22.616)
Sure, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:31.544)
You're talking about Novak when Novak beat Grigor, semi-finals of Miami. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:44.026)
you know, only every once in a while. But he played a very human final against Jakub Mensik, who of course played out of his mind with nothing to lose and played great. All that said, Monte Carlo showed me a bunch of things. I'll start off with the clay court season is a very different kind of a season. There are, and I'm going to just break this down, Albert. There are hard quarters that can play on clay, but they're not clay quarters.

Alvin Owusu (01:45.826)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:09.784)
Sure. Poor example, who would you say is a hard quarter that can play on, is Novak a hard quarter that can play on clay?

Torrey Hawkins (02:17.175)
Nope, Novak is a goat. He's he's, he's transcended. He's the avatar. He can do it all. Alex de Manar. There you go. Alex de Manar is your prototype. He is your, I'm a hard quarter. I take returns early. I like balls on the rise. And while I'm adept at clay, it doesn't mean that it's my favorite service. And I'm not very good per se with the extra time, nor am I great at going behind you, nor am I great at

Alvin Owusu (02:21.09)
Fair, okay, so more like a, okay, like a Alex D. Menor. There it is, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:39.105)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (02:45.645)
having a few clay court tactics. I was asked, go ahead. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:48.046)
I know we'll come back to Alex in a little bit, but to his credit, Alex is 27 years old, and he early in his career struggled on clay. He has made himself into a, I'm not gonna lose my ass out here on clay. I'm not gonna blow you away, but I'm gonna maybe hold my seed. I feel like that's probably his expectation going through the next two months is like, let's get to the quarterfinals and yeah, I think so, I think so.

Torrey Hawkins (03:07.084)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (03:12.241)
If so, he mission accomplished. Right. But my point is for a guy that's trying to push quarters or better, trying to beat his American prototype in Tommy Paul, he needs to really, in my opinion, be a threat on the clay as good as his wheels are, as good as his shot production is, as good as his returns are. He has an underrated serve. Serve's actually not bad. And he volleys okay. He comes out well, I don't think I don't want to get into it. He...

Alvin Owusu (03:35.234)
Not bad, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (03:40.309)
did not show me the level of tennis this tournament that I walk away saying, wow, watch out for Alex de Manon. He has a chance to be a threat at not only the clay court season, potentially even in the French Open. I walked away saying, on a given day, he can be beaten by a journeyman. On his best day, he's not able to go through a top player. And on his above average day,

It's a toss up and that's a very discomforting feeling for a who, Alvin, he had a chance to get to the semis of Australia. Let's be honest. I mean, he was right there. Home crowd behind him. That's not a small feat.

Alvin Owusu (04:11.704)
Fair. Well.

Alvin Owusu (04:25.816)
Well, let's go back a second though, because I want to kind of put us in place here. We just finished up Monte Carlo, men's only, Masters 1000. We were kind of talking about this Monte Carlo Country Club, just nestled, nestled on the French Riviera, on the coast there in Monaco. It's gorgeous. I've always been just visually attracted to watching.

Torrey Hawkins (04:41.385)
Beautiful.

Torrey Hawkins (04:47.488)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (04:53.196)
the Monte Carlo event on television, because obviously I've never been there. But I think it's, kind of hit me this morning actually while watching the final. It's the contrast of the red clay and the blue sea. Like that is very, very unique. Like there are lots of tournaments that like will release this kind of visceral reaction of, you know, what is it that's unique about either it's being there, but for most of us it's watching a tournament on television. Australian Open for me is I'm watching

Torrey Hawkins (05:04.731)
And the water, Right.

Alvin Owusu (05:21.838)
hardcore summer tennis when it's dark outside where I am. And that's the thing. And French Open, more or less, right, well the French Open more or less looks just like all the other clay court events on court, but you have Monte Carlo is different because you can see the water. And that's very unique. And I have a...

Torrey Hawkins (05:23.759)
Right. When it's winter, where you are. Sure, sure. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (05:33.557)
It's almost reverse, right?

Alvin Owusu (05:48.759)
Affinity for that for that tournament. I guess it's I got goals. We've got goals. I just want to be there It's a lovely event. So I say that to say we're we we've officially entered the clay court season, right? There's a couple of US events the prior week women were in Charleston men were in Houston and then you you come over to Europe and now we're We're getting in the dirt for real for real So yeah, so we get to you. I think I cut you off about your point about about Alex de Manure

My view is that he is who he is and you know, he's ranked eight-ish in the world. So that's about quarterfinals when everyone's healthy and involved and you maybe you think he beats a Lorenzo Masetti.

Torrey Hawkins (06:20.02)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (06:33.467)
You'd like to think. Here's how I always like to look at it. Right or wrong? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Because he is good enough of a player to not have a hole in his game on the clay. Let me ask you this out. If we were talking about Australia, would you give the advantage to D-Minor? Would you give a straight set victory to D-Minor? Because I would.

Alvin Owusu (06:37.601)
On clay?

Alvin Owusu (06:54.936)
Sure, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (07:01.944)
Probably, it wouldn't be more than four. But yeah, probably, don't see any, any, Moosetti gets in trouble when he gets rushed. So yeah, Alex, Alex can, okay.

Torrey Hawkins (07:04.751)
Okay. I would say.

Torrey Hawkins (07:10.404)
I would say straight sets going away. A three, two and one, right? A four, three and two. You get my point. It would be a, I got a plan to catch. I'm out of here. A fair.

Alvin Owusu (07:14.956)
Ooh, okay.

Alvin Owusu (07:22.304)
Right, leave the in case it's the quarterfinals or something and maybe Musetti, he's obviously done something to get there so maybe I'll give him one. But first two rounds, yeah, one way traffic for sure.

Torrey Hawkins (07:34.234)
Now, on the clay, is Lorenzo Mousseti that much of a clay court baller that you say to yourself, wow, on the clay, this guy's a different player? Exactly. Your pause answers my question. I want you to finish, but you understand what I'm getting at.

Alvin Owusu (07:45.903)
That's an interesting question. No, no, Yeah, okay, so he comes on the scene in Rome maybe like four years ago, Miss Eddie. Everyone is praising like, this Italian kid with this backhand, this beautiful one-handed backhand. And I know we're gonna talk about that. It looks good, it looks good. No championships are built on backhands. But I really think...

So I think he makes up the majority of his points on clay for sure. But then he did also, he semi-final? He semi-finaled Wimbledon last year. I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is. He gets dinged up on hard courts pretty good. I don't, you know, he's crafty-ish. He can't really go through you. I don't know what. I, I, I, I, he,

Torrey Hawkins (08:40.223)
Hey, hey, Alvin, keep fishing for ways to explain Lorenzo. Hey, I like the kid. There you go.

Alvin Owusu (08:46.446)
I can't explain him. That's thing, I can't explain him. I've seen him play in person and I still can't tell you he's a shot maker, but like you can't really make a, can't, ish. He's ish. He's ish. It's ish. Fair, okay.

Torrey Hawkins (08:53.475)
Ish.

Torrey Hawkins (08:57.134)
He's ish. His whole game is ish. Alvin, Alvin, I'm going to call it like it is. I could be wrong. I could be right. I'm just calling it like it is. I'm a tennis fan. I'm a tennis coach. I know the game. I know what I see. I would never take anything away from these players. These guys are all for none. I've said that multiple times. So we're comparing them to the other greats of the game. We're not comparing them to me. We're not comparing them to you. We're comparing them to To them. All right. There's a certain expectation.

Alvin Owusu (09:09.614)
Have a

Alvin Owusu (09:14.382)
Absolutely, it goes without saying, sure.

Torrey Hawkins (09:27.413)
if you get that good in the game that you have the level of game to speak to your ranking slash level or result or it was a bit lucky you had a good draw and you know what hats off to you bro the history will remember you as your best result good for you right Allah the Shang Shulkin's of the world from way back in the day Allah the the main man who was the guy that took us that took

Alvin Owusu (09:49.87)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (09:55.71)
Safin, I want to say it was in the clay, Swedish kid. I just forgot his name. Down two sets to love, end up coming back. Bjorn, what was his name? No, not Bjorn, Bjorn was the Phenomenal Doubles player. This kid was a shorter, crafty, Swedish kid. Started serving in volleyball and he was doing so poorly against Morad. was, and I want to come back to Morad Safin by the way.

Alvin Owusu (10:09.614)
Borkman. It wasn't me, it was Borkman.

Alvin Owusu (10:23.24)
I got time for Marat right now.

Torrey Hawkins (10:24.835)
Let's just make sure we save a little bit of time from my all time, one of my all time favorite players. Johannes, give me a second.

It'll come to me. I'll come back to it. I'll look it up.

Alvin Owusu (10:37.048)
Was it Johannes Borkman? Like, was it Johannes Borkman?

Torrey Hawkins (10:40.653)
Yeah, but Jonas Dortmund is who I think you're thinking of, is for the doubles player. Anyway, this guy here is, it'll come up, I'm gonna look him up. This is back in the late 90s, early 2000s, when this kid was playing. Bottom line, he was there. He was kind of the Mikey Russell of the Swedish contingency. Not as, clearly not the Mats V. Lander and Edberg and Lovell, but great, kid. Found himself deep in the draw.

Alvin Owusu (10:51.202)
Okay. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (11:05.55)
Was it Engel- Engelts- Engeltson? Was it Engeltson? Nah, he's younger.

Torrey Hawkins (11:08.297)
No, no, was, it was something. was either Johansson. Johansson sounds familiar, but I got a, I, I, I'll pick a second. Sure. So my point being these are guys that overachieved went a little bit past what they thought and literally stunned the crowd as the, as the expression is with what he did. Right. I think the Mossetti camp would like to think that he's not a stun the crowd kind of player.

Alvin Owusu (11:16.248)
Well, someone in the comments will let us know. We'll leave it to the people.

Torrey Hawkins (11:38.484)
He's not a Jurgen Melzer, which I think was a great player. He's not a Katchanov. He's a player who thinks he's top 20, top 10, top five potential material. So as such, I have to put him in that realm. And you're talking about Simi Zawimbi? Bro, you've got to now be top 20 in the world. Now, let's go back. take nothing away from his final, by the way. He reached the final.

Alvin Owusu (11:56.377)
He did it. mean, yeah. mean, my, yeah, my hesitation was like, what do you think he is versus what he thinks he is?

Torrey Hawkins (12:07.532)
Let me say that of Monte Carlo over 1000. So clearly kids grinded the whole time. mean, remember who wrote that song? mean, my main man. So 100 % 100 % Jazzy Faye was in there. He was grinding from from day right when he showed up. Now I want to say this. I felt Alex de Menor lost the match more than Musetti won.

Alvin Owusu (12:10.68)
grind it all the way there.

Three setter after three setter after three setter. that's Pharrell in the clips right there, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (12:34.379)
Now I think that's more than fair and I'm trying to be very honest and very clear with both people. Alex de Menor had an opportunity, in my opinion, to notch his belt to get to a final himself at the ATP 2000 on clay and really set a standard that, hey, I can play on clay as well. Alex de Menor did not knock down the door of that opportunity. I felt like he tried to attack the backhand so much so that he brought the backhand online.

And this is something that I think a lot of players do in singles for junior tennis, perhaps in occasion singles and ladies' Alta and men's Alta and even T2 that I watch at my club. The strategy seems pretty clear at the beginning. the guy's got a weak backhand. After a hundred backhands, the guy's backhand, you've kind of resurrected the guy's backhand because you hit so many that the guy's backhand's actually getting better now. So you have 100%.

Alvin Owusu (13:26.242)
we taking an impromptu trip to Coach's Corner here? Okay, so this is the how to break down a weakness segment, right? yeah, go for it.

Torrey Hawkins (13:37.883)
100%. Let me just jump right in. Number one, you know the weakness is there. It's clear he's missed three or four balls in the warmup or she in the warmup. You now know you have clearly it's a deficiency on that side. Your tendency is to go there so often that you will get a cheap point, free point and so on. But the problem is

you have to go there and put it under stress. If I go there so often it's not under stress, the person may actually find their timing. So how do you do that? Well, I'll tell you very simple. Let's assume it's the backhand. I'm going to serve to it for sure because that's a stressful situation that God may or may not find his timing on that ball. After that, I make first strike to it. Okay, first strike's another shot.

Alvin Owusu (14:29.944)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (14:35.174)
He may have to slice again, block again or something, which again is going to give me the opportunity. But after ball three, my ball three, it becomes a little more even. We're now see sawing. We're not in tug of war. We're not in the, the imbalance is not in our favor. You might have to in fact run the ball to the guy's forehand to open up the backhand. And if you go to the backhand some more, you might just give the guy time.

to find his footing, find his time and really connect on one or two, in which case with each successive shot, he or she gets better. And shame on you for going to it too early and too often. So number two, you have to now find a way to attack to it. Forehand to forehand cross, approach down the line on any given opportunity. Forehand to forehand, drop shot to it. Okay?

Bring the person in, rip a ball to it. These are all stressful opportunities that the backhand may not be what it is and shots that he or she is not looking for. And here's number three. You have to do it at great moments when there's more stress involved. Go there at 30-15. Serve and volley to it at 40-30. Go there at points where the stress is higher when he or she is more likely to be a little more,

that shot. If you go there at 15 on when there's no pressure he might be as good as anybody else when a given day on that side. He must be weaker and he gets confidence from it because the score is not in the deficit. So in a quick review don't overdo it. Attack it more than go to it often and attack it at key times. Run the forehand to go back to the backhand.

Alvin Owusu (16:10.711)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (16:32.363)
attack to it on approach versus off the ground stroke. Bring him in. You attack that ball yourself even off returns and at keep times in the score, attack that weakness early but don't do it so often that he knows it's coming and don't do it 30 shots out of 35 and bring that shot online or you've wasted the opportunity to expose the

Alvin Owusu (16:57.422)
That's well put, I appreciate you breaking that down. I'm gonna add one thing and then maybe even give a couple of examples. It's not only, sometimes it's not as simple as like, oh, hit it to their backhand, the backhand's weaker. It's like, okay, there are different types of backhands to be hit, right? Especially if you get past the, let's say a beginner level, let's go intermediate, maybe advanced level, right? Everyone's gonna have a weaker wing, but it sometimes comes down to like, okay, maybe the backhand,

Torrey Hawkins (17:14.178)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (17:20.556)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (17:27.362)
they don't hit it, they don't step up and rip it very well. So maybe you can, right, you can check there if you get, they're gonna miss it, but they're not gonna hurt you there. Or if you wanna go hard into the backhand, they can handle pace really well, but what they don't like to do is back up or hit it higher. So there's levels to this. then also timing is a big one, and here's my two examples. When I...

Torrey Hawkins (17:31.075)
Or to your point, they won't hurt you with it.

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (17:47.159)
Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (17:55.727)
more so in my more competitive days, but even so now as a lefty, I'm gonna, if you can't handle the lefty slice out wide, I'm gonna hold it for very opportune times. I don't have to hit it out there all the time, right? I'm gonna wait, because it gets better when you're not looking for it, right? So at 30, 15, yeah, I'm probably gonna go T, because if I have to come back again at 30, 40, or 40, 30, that's when you're getting that sliced cheese out.

Torrey Hawkins (18:14.339)
Thank you Yeah Right you wanted we want it protected and and unadulterated so to speak

Alvin Owusu (18:26.519)
yeah. Yes, I want you to struggle with it.

Torrey Hawkins (18:28.788)
and let that be a time when I have to find the goods on that shop.

Alvin Owusu (18:33.25)
I want you to struggle with it and I want you to be surprised by it. So that's my personal example. An example that I saw in Monte Carlo that it comes up often, Matteo Baratini, people will go to his backhand all day. You know, does, yeah, he just open stance, using those little legs to just kind of like get that thing back. And then also his slice backhand is pretty good too. So it's like, it's not really, he's not gonna hurt you there.

Torrey Hawkins (18:51.201)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (19:01.919)
Right. Yeah. Right. And he has the slice to be able to redirect you down the line to bring you back to the old forehand. And he's like, as we were saying, let's get back to that, what I was talking about.

Alvin Owusu (19:02.158)
But at some point, if you hit one over there that's, you know, maybe not getting all the way to the D side of the court there, he's gonna hit that forehand and he's gonna rip it. He's gonna get around it. And so Knight, exactly.

Alvin Owusu (19:19.574)
Yeah, right, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, there's ways to it. It's not as straightforward. You got to know when to hold them and know when to fold them.

Torrey Hawkins (19:28.318)
Yeah. I'm going to fold him. No doubt. Here is my problem with Alex DiMannone. He went there so much by default that by the end of that match, and mind you, it was a long match. want to say it was a... It was the finishing and... close three hours. I want to say it finished up with a third set, a breaker. He was... So no fault on DiMannone for effort and for thought and for execution for that matter. would push...

Alvin Owusu (19:44.43)
Close to three hours, I'm 7'6 in the-

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (19:58.08)
pushed it deep. think the second set was not I think it was up 2-0 to start then it got 2-0 then 3-3-4-4. got 6-0. The issue I have was he by the time it got down to actual crunch time you know what I saw Alvin I saw Lorenzo hitting heavy one handers to Alex's hitch kick backhand and I'm like what's going on here I'm like how was the 1-e going heavy on the two-hander

Alvin Owusu (20:26.328)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (20:26.387)
That should be the two-handers trick. So that just showed you he actually played the backhand so much that he gave Lorenzo the ability to bring that backhand online. Lorenzo, if I have time to get this ball up and get it deep, you can't hurt me yourself. And I felt like the only shot that Alex went for was the inside out slapper and the occasional, and the occasional forehand wide hook angle. He did not go for anything else. And when you also note that,

The player in this case, Lorenzo knew he wasn't going to hurt him with anything else. And that was also one of the faults I felt with this game. He didn't, he didn't come in as much. I think Alex has very underrated volleys in transition game. has a very decent drop shot. Good feel. He did not do any of that when it was deep in the point kind of kept going conservative thinking that Lorenzo would miss. Unfortunately, Lorenzo says, Hey man, you've hit so many balls. Thank you. That was the best lesson I needed on my backhand. You brought my backhand back online.

Alvin Owusu (21:09.56)
Great hands, great, hands.

Torrey Hawkins (21:24.978)
by hitting me a thousand of them and you know what? Feeling pretty good. And to his credit, his backing got stronger as the match progressed.

Alvin Owusu (21:33.334)
And with somebody like Alex E. Menor, right, he's obviously very fast and that's a very good skill to have. He uses it as a weapon to a certain extent and then his depth around the net is very well pronounced but it's not like something he builds his game around. He's not necessarily constructing points to get in and then close them off.

Torrey Hawkins (21:54.481)
Right. Serve isn't as big. Forehand isn't as big. He's still a counter puncher at his heart. He's still not. And that's no fault. That's what he is. That's his package.

Alvin Owusu (22:00.502)
Absolutely, absolutely.

So you could even say he's a, take the speed out of it and maybe sub Alex D'Emanor's speed for maybe Alex Verev's serve, let those two things neutral themselves out there. You're looking at very, very similar players here in that like, I'm gonna kind of go over to Zverev here like that when that match against Baratini in the second round gets to a stalemate, it's like, he has nothing he can really go to here.

Torrey Hawkins (22:14.727)
Sure. I agree. I agree.

Torrey Hawkins (22:25.469)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (22:32.023)
Right. Right. Yeah. Right. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (22:33.038)
if the game is strong from the baseline, very consistent, weights you out, it's like we're playing in quicksand here. Like there's nothing to do against a guy who's just as physically as strong as you are, but just kind of have to figure it out, see where this thing goes. it's not going well right now for Mr. Zverev. And I he's like six and six since finaling Hush Hine Open. Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:56.227)
Yeah Yeah, I'll show you yeah, I will say and the one notable thing Maybe two or three notable things is there is about six foot six He's got a monster her and I would like and I know you're saying take out the serve That's which is of course the huge thing for men's tennis. I would like to also add

Alvin Owusu (23:09.998)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (23:20.768)
I think it's a unwillingness to take the strike versus I don't have one when it when you're looking at Sasha versus Alex. Now that's not to say that Alex is anything less of a player. I think Alex is maximizing his package extremely well. I don't feel like it's the same for Sasha. Sasha Alexander's there is no thank you. I think he's not taking the darn shot as big as that serve is.

Alvin Owusu (23:42.83)
You feel like he can do it, he's just not doing it.

Torrey Hawkins (23:49.338)
He's rolling balls, getting into a rhythm. Rafael Nadal, Alvin, had a, for all intents and purposes, had a very average serve. I think we would all agree with that. Most, I would say average for a Grand Slam champion. I would say certainly average for one of the best of all times. Now, so that you and I, we know this, most at home may not know this.

Alvin Owusu (24:02.634)
average to a- over time average to above average but

Alvin Owusu (24:13.175)
Okay, okay.

Torrey Hawkins (24:18.155)
Rafa is a right handed player who learned to play left handed. So people need to understand it was never his best throwing arm. Okay. Number one, hence why the serve speed was never as high as it could have been. With that said ball one through five, he wanted to get into the rally ball five through eight. He starts picking up racket speed, starts picking up acceleration and heaviness on his ball. Ball eight through 15.

Rafa gets better, hits faster, hits heavier, starts to accelerate to such an extent that you're playing his tennis now. On clay, no one wants to face a guy once they feel like they're back in the point and they're starting to exhale. I'm in it. And now the guys start to yank you from corner to corner, going behind you, hitting the ball heavier, hitting the ball harder, running around.

Never pull in the trigger like you hope he does so you can counter. He's gonna say, no not yet. I'm gonna yank you a few more times and go bigger each successive time I do this. Now what am I getting at? Rafa had a strategy that the longer these points go, it's so many body blows. You will not be able to hang with me as the point goes. You're almost gonna be forced to go for something on your return on my serve and actually allow my counter punishing skills

Alvin Owusu (25:42.893)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (25:47.766)
to come to the fray. And if you don't punish me on my second, you know what? Ball 15 later, I'm killing you. And don't let me get my inside in going on you on ball 15. You know it, and I know it, you're done. Now what? Here we have now Sasha Zverev on the complete other side of the spectrum. I've got a huge serve, I'm punishing you, you're lucky to get the ball back, and I'm rolling you to the corner. But if you get that ball back, I'll roll one more back to the corner. And if you get me to ball eight, I am as mortal as anybody.

especially on the clay. And that's what we saw this tournament.

Alvin Owusu (26:18.242)
Yeah.

Yeah, I want to go back to your point about Rafael Nadal. And this just kind of hit me as I was watching Carlitos kind of make his way through some tricky matches, some dips in play. second set against Vs and then also a little bit of third set as well. And then also the final against Musetti in the second set where Carlos...

Torrey Hawkins (26:31.649)
Sure.

You're going to the feast match, aren't you?

Torrey Hawkins (26:45.429)
Right. first set. thought he had his hands full.

Alvin Owusu (26:51.522)
Well, okay, so, talking about the first set of the final. Yeah, well, yeah, sure. He came out guns blazing in the first set, like first two games, and just could not, he could not find, like, when he got the break early, got the first break of the match, and then was trying to serve to consolidate the break, just forehands going everywhere, like lasers, like he's got, like, he's just juiced up to.

Torrey Hawkins (27:01.023)
Right. Good game. Good tennis, those first two games.

Torrey Hawkins (27:14.132)
Right. Overhead.

Alvin Owusu (27:18.606)
Not juiced up in a syringe type of way, but he's just way too jacked, Coming out the starting line with too much fuel that needs to be burned off. Yeah, exactly. And so once he kind of found himself, or maybe just made the decision in the second set to, need to start over and build again, you start to see him going heavy, doing the things that we talked about just a couple weeks ago, maybe a week ago or so, where we talked about.

Torrey Hawkins (27:20.981)
I know what you Sure, amped, 100%. Chopping the tires, yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (27:38.357)
That's right.

Torrey Hawkins (27:45.491)
Yeah. Is big enough, right? Even if it goes through the meat of the court. Right down Broadway. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (27:46.795)
His natural ball can hurt people. It doesn't have to be the Right down the middle of the court. Yeah, just go heavy, heavy. Because that's what kind of reminded me when you're talking about Nadal. He is begrudgingly doing Nadal things when things aren't going well. He's like, fine, fine, I'll do it. And it's just heavy, heavy, heavy. And the next thing you know, he's got that big forehand in middle of the court.

Torrey Hawkins (28:07.221)
100%.

Torrey Hawkins (28:13.867)
Yep. Agreed.

Alvin Owusu (28:15.311)
That's the one I'm taking inside the chord as opposed to from behind the bassline where he wants to hit it from

Torrey Hawkins (28:20.86)
Right? want to, want to, I want to, I will see you one and raise you another. 90 % of the world goes cross-court. Right? We're trained to do it. We're told to do it. Biggest space, lowest net, most margin of error. We all know why. Right? So what does Carlos do better than most? He goes down the line. Off of your, off of your good cross-court.

Alvin Owusu (28:34.194)
It's the biggest space, the big angle. Yeah, all the good stuff. All the good stuff's there.

Torrey Hawkins (28:48.404)
We're all told not to bail out and go drop shot, but his ball's so big and occasionally heavy and occasionally big. Either way, you need more time. You back up naturally. He backs up, mind you, a lot to get time at this ball. What does he do? He has, I call him the king of the drop shot. And it's so good and so disguised and he hits so big, you really don't know which one's coming, right? I think we both agree with that.

Alvin Owusu (29:10.018)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (29:13.213)
Carlos Alcaraz does the anti almost to a fault. And I think we've seen that. I want to talk about Carlos personal and his mental and dealing with being a good player that we'll say that for the end. That's more of him coming of age as a player at a young age, trying to understand who he is and kind of following in this age of instant gratification, social media and everything else. He's following who he is in real time and that's tough to do, but that's another talk show.

Alvin Owusu (29:41.506)
That's gotta be wild. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (29:42.354)
It's got to be crazy to see you already in the conversation at a young age being in that level being in a conversation with the top three that ever played the game and being coached by one of the game's greats and Juan Carlos and you're already kind of feeling like I'm kind of halfway there. Juan Carlos didn't win any Grand Slams, you know, and he's won four already. So that's got to be a little bit weird.

Alvin Owusu (30:02.754)
No, Carlos won one, he won one.

Torrey Hawkins (30:05.206)
Carlos won a bunch of months 1000s. Tell me which one he won. Did he win the French? He's the one he who in Korea he in Korea or the number ones that never won. They won several 1000s by the way. I don't think I don't think one calls one one. You correct me if wrong and if and and if he has my point remains his protege has won four. So let's just I want I want to keep the emphasis here on he's outdone his coach and that's first of all real.

Alvin Owusu (30:09.144)
Did he, is he the number one who never won a slam or the?

Alvin Owusu (30:30.104)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (30:33.458)
Put a pin in it, come back to my At-Saf and the Ruble app. We'll come back to that in a second. Here's the point of making. And first of all, Juan Carlos was one of my all time favorite players. Loved the guy from back in the day. I think he still has a winning record from the juniors back on one. Roger Federer from back in the day. The guy is just good. He was a class act. One of my favorite memories from the time I went to Australia. walked, Sco and I were going to the practice courts. He has two players playing against him.

doing two on ones. We come back an hour later, Alvin, and there's two more guys warming up against my main man, JC. And we're like, what are these guys doing? Oh, we're next. Stretch it out. Ready to go. Fresh blood. Fresh two players. And Juan Carlos is just hitting stride. Now that lets you know right now, and this is...

Alvin Owusu (31:18.222)
Fresh, fresh blood.

Torrey Hawkins (31:29.04)
An off day, the final is the next day. He's going to go Saffron by the way. Phenomenal match that I think was 04. I'm watching, I'm like, God, this guy is a machine. Anyway, so make no mistake, of this is a slide against, you know, Juan Carlos Ferrell. I think it was a great player. Now.

Alvin Owusu (31:31.637)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (31:46.895)
I'll just pause to put the respect on his name. 2003 French Open champion, Juan Carlos Ferrerro. Beats up, yeah, for tech I think it was in the finals. Weird days, weird days before Nadal showed up. Very weird days.

Torrey Hawkins (31:49.366)
my god, look.

Torrey Hawkins (31:58.287)
And of course it'd be the French of all the tournaments that it was. my God. And like Roddick with the open, right? With the US open, but four fed showed up, right? So, and that makes sense that it happened. So apologies on my main man, JC. Here, we got to put out there. Now with that said, his protege is one four. Now here I am. It takes, he is the anti, the antithesis if you will, of what most

Alvin Owusu (32:06.892)
Yeah, weird days.

Alvin Owusu (32:13.742)
We gotta put it out there. We gotta put it out there. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (32:19.512)
That's true.

Torrey Hawkins (32:28.064)
do. In that first set he is so good at hitting, and this is a strange term Alvin, the outside of a down the line ball because he hits it from outside the alley and hooks it back inside the court. Both sides. The skinny cross. He hits it off both sides extremely well. Now he got to feeling himself. I think he's done this a lot of times before. It's in his early losses. He got to feeling himself early. Thinks he has that ball.

Alvin Owusu (32:41.912)
Yeah, Skinny Cross. They call it the little skinny cross there. Just bring it back. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (32:56.642)
But unfortunately, he has not hit enough shots when he's trying that ball early. And he needs to be able to know when he has it, when he doesn't. Quick segue, quick, I'm going to call it pause and go into another sport, which I often do because I think the sports at a high level all transcend and go into one major, we're just playing ball. Kenny Smith, former national champion in North Carolina and with Houston Rockets.

a few times was one of the best shooting guards in the game at that during that time. Kenny Smith made a comment one night on TNT that for the first five shots, he said, I am like anybody else on the schoolyard. Average at best. Which for Kenny, you can appreciate that's a pretty honest comment and a humble comment, which he's not as humble as most. He says, but let me get shots five, six and seven.

He says, once I hit it, once I get, once I get, once I get the feel, I will destroy you. He says, I will not miss that next jumper. Five through 10, I will bury you. What was Kenny saying? He knows he has to take one through five to get online, but he knows one through five we're going to be hit or miss. Some nights on, some nights off.

Alvin Owusu (34:02.786)
Fair, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (34:22.251)
I see your wheels turning. 5 through 10, Kenny's going to be 30 points a game if he only plays three quarters. Shots 11 through 20, and he's having a good night. Kenny might just score 20 points off threes alone. And so on and so on. We're talking about the great shooters and the great shooting guards of all time. The point I'm making is, once they get online, over.

Alvin Owusu (34:41.228)
And Kenny Smith is a

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (34:51.34)
And that's okay too, like just to kind of bring it back to tennis, right? Some players are just better than other players, right? Kenny Smith is just, Kenny Smith is a better shooting guard out of UNC than Joseph Forte is, right? So, Cobb County's finest, Joseph Forte. And sometimes you're playing against someone on the tennis court who is just better than you, but they have to prove it.

Torrey Hawkins (35:02.483)
at that specific scale.

Torrey Hawkins (35:09.835)
100%.

Torrey Hawkins (35:19.029)
They have to prove it.

Alvin Owusu (35:19.724)
If Kenny Smith only gets four shots, you're not gonna be able to tell how good Kenny Smith is. If you...

Torrey Hawkins (35:23.814)
Or if you can move him off his mark, or you can get him going to his left, or you can get him shooting, you know, where he's not off the pick. You, you, there's ways to put a Kenny Smith under duress. But I'm going to Carlos and before you finish the thought, Carlos is thinking I am three for three from the three point land in the first two games and I've only hit two ground strokes. That's what I saw in that first set. I did not see a player who Nadal-esque, Discipline-esque,

Alvin Owusu (35:33.144)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (35:52.252)
Let me get to shots five through 10 Kenny Smith and get my shot where I know it's money. That's where I'm going with this.

Alvin Owusu (35:57.647)
I'll finish the last one, we often talk about, this is a Craig O'Shaughnessy Charcot tennis special, most points are lost within, one lost within the first four shots, right? If you are playing against a player who is better than you, make them prove it, get to ball four, make the serve, make the first ball. Yeah, make the return, make the next ball. Like just.

Torrey Hawkins (36:15.018)
Yeah. Yeah. Get to ball four. I would even say five. Get to ball five. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (36:24.622)
make them show you that they're better than you as opposed to just giving it to them. And the funny thing you mentioned just now about the difference between Carlos and Rafael, which ever since Carlos hit the scene, he's always been saying, you know, more like, I kind of pattern my game more like Roger than I do like Rafa, even though we're both Spanish and play Babylon rackets. I think the weird difference that just kind of hit me is like,

Torrey Hawkins (36:26.314)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (36:40.586)
Sure. And great quarters,

Alvin Owusu (36:54.262)
Rafael played the way he thought about the other players. He actually had a healthy respect and fear for all of them. So he's going to attack every match with the same diligence and ferocity. I'm just starting to think that Carlos doesn't, he doesn't care about any of these dudes. He's like outside of like, just think he can, can, he can spray.

Torrey Hawkins (36:58.726)
Yeah. All right.

Torrey Hawkins (37:07.398)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (37:12.136)
I don't just I don't agree with that and and but I don't think he's had time to think about it. I want to come back to that thought. Finish your point.

Alvin Owusu (37:23.35)
Yeah, the way he sprays in a first set, and like to your point, I'm just gonna start dunking on everybody from coin toss, and then if it doesn't go well, like, alright, fine, I'll check down, I'll play high heavy, not high heavy, I'll just play heavy and then we'll start this thing all over again in the second set. He's like, cause I can, and you're not gonna do anything about it. That's what I feel like it comes down to. Like if he's playing center, no. If he's playing no back, no. But.

Torrey Hawkins (37:41.178)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (37:51.392)
The feast match, don't think he ever felt like he was gonna lose that match. Same thing with the Musetti match. Maybe, okay, bury back into the second set.

Torrey Hawkins (37:55.124)
I think he thought so. think that it was Arthur's to win. Arthur didn't put his foot on his neck like DeMannard didn't put his foot on the neck of Lorenzo. And here's where I'll agree to disagree. You're still talking about, what is he Alvin? Is he 21, 22 years old? I don't think he's, I don't think his

Alvin Owusu (38:11.854)
22? It's 22?

Torrey Hawkins (38:15.783)
career peripheral vision is even in tune yet. And here's why I agree with what you're saying on an external, but I disagree with the intent from the inside. He hasn't had the time to think. He doesn't think that much. If he did, he wouldn't go for those kind of dumb shots down the line, but that's what makes him great. I don't think he thinks. Right. He's, he reacts. He's instinctive almost to a fault. And I think what actually hurt him, this is what I was going to come back to about him, the person.

Alvin Owusu (38:32.578)
So I asked, do you think he thinks? Does he think? I think he's just lying.

Torrey Hawkins (38:45.158)
He started thinking, he started looking at his stats, he started looking at the press, he started looking at the social media, started looking at the rankings and the matchups, and here for once in his life, he's never really looked at it. And now he's looking at it, and he's looking at, oh man, I should beat this player, oh man, I can't believe I lost to that player, oh man, what does the press say about my game? He's never thought about that. And to me, I think he's better off if he doesn't. I saw a good article about him saying he just wants to play tennis.

He wants to leave all that stuff alone. He wants to just play. He enjoys the game while he still wants to be in the conversation and be at a table with the big three one day. He's appreciating where he's at. When he was number one in the world, he loved it. He's now number three. I still love it. He says, I think that's the thing for me. I need to just keep loving it and loving the play. And I said, that's very simple Simon language for I need to be me.

I don't need to worry about what y'all think of me. I don't need to worry about what, where my game is that where it's not. That's not who I am. My game has been at the moment. My game is loving the competition and my game is just being who I am when I need to be. I'll figure it out. I'll make some mistakes, but I need to be me and just play. And I think that's what I saw in this tournament. And it kind of got back to his classic smile, his love of the competition.

Alvin Owusu (39:55.81)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (40:07.616)
I was really impressed how he outlasted a little bit. And I think deep down kind of knew Feast had it. And I hope the Feast camp really takes some notes on Feast's upside. I've been a big fan of them, we both have. I think we both saw how he some great ball and he hasn't had a bad 2025. But that match showed me he is capable of being a top five player very soon and on clay.

Alvin Owusu (40:20.428)
Yeah, he's playing some good ball right now.

Alvin Owusu (40:26.732)
No? No, he's white.

Alvin Owusu (40:32.738)
Whoa, whoa, whoa, top five.

Torrey Hawkins (40:37.422)
Top five, Alvin, you heard it right here. Top five. Here's why. A lot of his issues are self-induced. So what if you turn, unlike certain players in that top five that need a loss, need a matchup, need a surface. Alvin, I thought the kid was good on hardcore. kid's pretty good on clay. We're going into the part of the season where you heard it right here. Carlos played a pretty good tournament and he...

Alvin Owusu (40:58.125)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (41:06.434)
was in my opinion for two set for one and seven eighths of match was pretty good with beating one of the top in the world at his own game. Drop shots, check. Forehand on the line, check. Serve, check, which has been a big issue for him in times past. His only weakness was he got to the moment where he was ready to put his foot down and he stubbed his toe and just he...

Alvin Owusu (41:17.347)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (41:34.847)
He just didn't finish the deal there late.

Alvin Owusu (41:36.472)
But that's something that is kind of like in his makeup right now. He's done that a few other times too. He did something similar.

Torrey Hawkins (41:41.505)
I would say it's in his makeup at this point. If he does this at 27, he's done. If he does it at 20, is he 23? I think he's 23, 22. Right? Cause I think when he played, uh, didn't he, didn't he lose to Minsik in Miami? Wasn't that the match that he. Right. So, and I remember that match. I remember the looking at the stats. They're all about a year apart. You know what? So I said to say if, Minsik is 21, he's 22 or whatever, whatever the age was, they're about a year apart. I said to say.

Alvin Owusu (41:46.465)
Sure.

think it's 23, maybe 22, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (41:54.701)
He did. He lost it. had a high backhand volley to on match point and stuffed it.

Torrey Hawkins (42:07.873)
Feast showed me in that map said he, if it had been anybody else, I'm like, ah, he should have won the match. He had a chance up against Carlos. Carlos had not smiled. Carlos had not, wasn't doing his normal, mama, he wasn't giving any of his fist pumps. Carlos knew that he was in for a match and could be beaten if Arthur had simply finished. I think that's a great match for Arthur to build on. I also feel like that was a match for, that was a match for Carlos to really expound on to say, you know what?

Alvin Owusu (42:31.416)
It's-

Torrey Hawkins (42:38.08)
I can let you lose and pick it up. And there's another quick trip to Coach's Corner. You don't always have to beat a player. You can allow them to lose. You can allow them to hit themselves out. You can allow them to the moment kind of defeat them a little bit. And honestly, I felt like that's maturity when you let that happen. There's a fine line. But you're always going to gain more points through their errors than you are going to through your own winners for 99 % of your tennis.

Alvin Owusu (42:39.948)
Yeah, I think that's the big takeaway there.

Alvin Owusu (42:49.154)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (43:06.088)
And I think that was a great example of him to say, hey, I'm just going to make balls. And if he can beat me, can beat me. But if not, that's what it was.

Alvin Owusu (43:11.694)
And that's what happened, think, I think in the second set against Carlos, Arthur was serving six, five, maybe 40 love.

Out of the next nine points, he lost eight of them. And of those eight, seven were unforced errors. I'm just watching it and I'm like, and Carlos is just like, if you're gonna give it right back to me, then you can give it right back to me, that's fine. And they went into the, they go to the tiebreaker and it continues on. that's, yeah, I think that's a big, that's a big one for Carlos where he doesn't necessarily go out and take a match.

Torrey Hawkins (43:28.191)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (43:40.263)
Yeah. That was the one match I thought he was vulnerable the whole tournament as far as I watched. And I didn't watch everything, but I would from all the matches I saw, that was the one match he was vulnerable. Even when he lost the set against Lorenzo, I didn't think it was vulnerable. I thought he just came out a little hot.

Alvin Owusu (43:48.14)
You know, he can get through a tough one on his bad, on a bad day.

You know.

Torrey Hawkins (44:07.423)
came out a little bit, a little bit early, a little bit, a little bit, did you say amped up, a little juiced up. He was going for shots too early. She didn't need to go for, he was trying to, he was trying to show Lorenzo, I got this. And then, and end up, you know, going down quite a bit. And I think in the 61-60 fashion, I'll talk about, I don't want to talk about that in that third set, which was, I feel bad for Lorenzo. He was really hurt, apple groin pull, something happened. You could tell he was, he was not himself. And that's off him for trying to finish, right? He was really trying to finish that match to give the fans.

Alvin Owusu (44:07.618)
Yeah, a hot.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (44:17.869)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (44:26.914)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (44:37.957)
a finish, not a withdrawal and injury. But you could tell by about 2-0-3-0, he was done. But I say, but the 6-0 spanking was, sorry, the 6-1 spanking the second was all day. That was real. That was legit. You know what mean? So anyway, that was the...

Alvin Owusu (44:40.931)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (44:49.358)
That was legit, that was legit, yeah. Yeah, well even in the first round, and I almost mentioned this when the draw came out, Sarundolo as a first round matches, I was like, that's, we were talking about Carlos a little bit like, I wanna see something from him, and he loses the first set at six, three, one brick serve, and then destroys Sarundolo, who is a proper.

Torrey Hawkins (45:03.463)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (45:16.765)
destroyed. Right coming up right. Altmaier was also another Max that I thought he he would be fairly routine.

Alvin Owusu (45:17.912)
proper Argentinian clay court player. Can also play well on hard, but...

Yeah, I mean once he got through, once he got through Serendolo and he was like, he was in full flight, Carlos, the bomb-alice and fist pump and everything and it's like, okay, this is gonna be a good week for him. And then when you see Novak and Zverev kind of fall by the wayside, it's like, okay, he's gonna, he should roll through the rest of this tournament and.

Torrey Hawkins (45:36.061)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (45:45.085)
He did and he was the better forward, but he did so in a fashion, Alvin, that I felt showed that he's back in good form. He played the level of tennis that he needed to, especially with the Yannick Center being out, but he did it in a way where he was hitting through the court, hitting his drop shots. I want to give a shout out to my main man, Alejandro Davidec-Farquina, who came out and I thought played a very solid match.

Against against Carlos big forehands big backhands coming forward. He tried to out Carlos Carlos I mean came forward drop volleys big forehands inside out dropper. I mean taking the backhand early I mean, I was very impressed. It was probably the most complete match I've seen from Alejandro since I've been watching him on the clay and I think he's a little more of a while he could slide He's a spaniel. I thought he played a very he strikes me as more of a hard quarter who can hit right?

Alvin Owusu (46:41.112)
So to your point, he finaled Del Rey and then Acapulco back to back. So like he is a new school Spanish tennis player who has the hardcore chops.

Torrey Hawkins (46:53.103)
Right, right, who's on the hard, more comfortable on the hardcore than he is on the other. And people don't realize this, Alvin, Nadal spent eight, almost nine years not getting into the second week of the US Open.

Alvin Owusu (46:58.389)
Yo.

Alvin Owusu (47:06.625)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (47:07.531)
I want to say I'm pretty sure it was seven, eight years not getting into the second week. Not at all. Like not one time. While he had won multiple French Open. So wasn't like he wasn't adept on the clay. I think his first French he won. I don't think he lost one except one year he missed with injury and then that one year Sordling took him out. So my point is this is during his reign. This is not the beginning. This is not the end. He was already a Grand Slam champion and could not get out of the second week of the Open. Now.

Alvin Owusu (47:15.256)
Different days.

Torrey Hawkins (47:36.999)
And I give a lot of credit. So back to my boy Davide Cifruchina. I thought Alonjo played great. I thought he, if anything, the only thing that he just ran out of a little bit of execution. And I felt like, I felt like even that match, I felt, I know the scores may have been not as close, but I felt that was actually a bit more of the final. I hate to say it in that sense of the given players who were left because the match had a lot more tug of war, had a lot more.

Alvin Owusu (47:47.863)
wait.

Torrey Hawkins (48:05.177)
I'm going to say, you know, cardiac arrest for both coaches camps. And the tennis was high quality, man. That was a very good match.

Alvin Owusu (48:09.88)
Fair. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:15.278)
It's a funny thing between Davidivich Vakina and Alcara. So Carlos' older brother is the same age as Alejandro, right? So they grew up playing together. Alejandro and Carlos are friends, right? I think one of the competitors mentioned that he went to Alejandro's wedding just a couple months back. So it kind of struck me and I was telling my wife about this this morning when I was watching the match. like, you know, start...

Torrey Hawkins (48:24.28)
how to.

Torrey Hawkins (48:30.593)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (48:34.464)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (48:42.678)
you start thinking about these guys, you see these people on TV and they're professionals, right? They're professionals. But really, it's just like, it's just kinda like junior tennis, it's just up there. And that like, it's better, like, you know, use junior tennis as an example in that like the guys you play in 12s are also the guys you play in 18s. You just play them, you play the same people kind of all the time.

Torrey Hawkins (48:45.653)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (48:51.919)
Just better. That's way better.

Torrey Hawkins (48:59.85)
I know exactly what know. You know right. And the same guys you play in college, there may be your roommates in college, there may be your competition, but you know them. You know them well.

Alvin Owusu (49:10.196)
Yeah, it's all, the people in your, yeah, the people in your kind of like your age range are like the people you end up playing tennis with. I play tennis now with the guys I played tennis with when I was 12. So I say that to say, when Carlos goes into a match like that against Alejandro, it's like, yeah, I know not gonna lose this match. And he knows I'm not gonna lose this match. We're gonna have fun. It's gonna be, not like they're taking it less serious, it's going to be a good match, because they,

Torrey Hawkins (49:19.48)
10, 20 years. Sure. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (49:39.298)
They can both bring out good looking tennis from each other, but I don't think that Carlos feels threatened by Alejandro.

Torrey Hawkins (49:40.184)
Yeah.

I would agree with you, but I would also tell you that's what made the upstarts from Alejandro all the more interesting. He went down to 0304, brought it back for three, two, you know, brought it back to all. He had more comebacks and more, and I was really, I love it when the underdog player starts hyping up the crowd like, come on, give me something now. I'm busting my butt out here. You know, I've saw Davidich,

Alvin Owusu (49:52.942)
Fair.

Alvin Owusu (50:08.172)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (50:13.844)
Davidovic or Kena go out pretty bad to Tommy Paul in Australia this past year. And I felt like he was just tactically outmatched. He worked his foreign against him. has a hard backhand, maybe a bit too hard sometimes. Didn't have a lot of variety on that backhand side, but can certainly crush it and gets his foreign, right? Which is what he wants to do. And I thought Tommy Paul went through like a bus saw. It was, was almost embarrassing how fast he went through them in that match. Could have been dinged up. Could have been just been a bad matchup. Could have, Tommy just could have started off great.

David, um, Alejandro never really caught up in this match. I've seen he's a shrieking player. I think we all get that. He can be very shrieky. There's nothing wrong with that. Uh, sometimes shriek can help, can help you or hurt you. He came back in multiple shrieks too. And I felt like he, I want to see, got it back. Was the first set level to a breaker. He got, or a second, he got it back to a breaker. He just played enough. He got it back enough to say, I'm still in this. Don't count me out. And I love the fact that.

Alvin Owusu (50:49.698)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (51:13.108)
The underdog in this case, Alejandro, never conceded the match. And I think every good player at the top of their game needs a davidish for Kean, match like that going into the match to sharpen you and make you believe, buddy, I had to work for that. You know what I mean? And I really feel like those are the kind of matches where you kind of need to go through that and really kind of, you know, kind of.

Alvin Owusu (51:25.646)
It's a nice sharpening match.

Torrey Hawkins (51:37.351)
kind of earn your medal a little bit. And I thought that's what Alejandro did for Carlos in this match. It was certainly high quality tennis. And when you win a match like that, you feel like you've earned it. You feel like you've arrived. You don't feel like, yeah, the guy played terrible. I was able to kind of, the guy gives you, you have two walkovers, you know, guys hurt, one guy's, know, not very good. You get through, you're almost more tight. You know what I mean? You don't really feel like you've earned it, earned it. You know, I feel like this is a, that was a good match, good turn for Carlos.

And honestly, it's great for the tour. He's back in good form. Next few tournaments. Doesn't your boy come back? Doesn't Center come back here pretty soon?

Alvin Owusu (52:06.797)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (52:15.278)
So in the words of, as we kind of move forward in the words of Raphael Nadal, know, what happened in Monte Carlo happened in Monte Carlo, what happened in Barcelona happened in Barcelona. We are moving forward, we still have two big ones before we get to Rome. And then Rome is right before the French open. So we move to Barcelona, I Barcelona starts probably tomorrow or something like that. Men go Barcelona and Munich. So two 500s kind of split.

there and then everyone comes back to Madrid and then Rome. That's two 1000s back to back and then French Open. So it's a, this is my favorite, this is like my favorite part of the year. love, well I love Clay Cortina's one. No, no, the Madrid's after Barcelona. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the tours kind of get back together. So like I think the women are in Stuttgart this week while the men.

Torrey Hawkins (52:51.347)
Right. And then the French.

Torrey Hawkins (52:59.581)
So no Madrid this year or?

That's right,

Alvin Owusu (53:12.876)
are split 500s in Munich and Barcelona, and then everyone goes to Madrid, and then everyone goes to Rome, and then onto the Thierre Batu on Philippe Chatrier.

Torrey Hawkins (53:15.439)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (53:23.185)
Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's, that's going to be, it's going to be interesting in this one this year. And I think it's going to be a great, I would love to see, I would love to see Arthur Fils the first man that he is, be ready to go. I think I

Alvin Owusu (53:27.192)
Philippe Chatrier.

Alvin Owusu (53:42.626)
Do you think Arthur Fils is gonna win a Grand Slam in his career? You said that top five thing you said earlier is just sticking with me and I got a problem with it and I'm a Fils fan, but top five? Top five?

Torrey Hawkins (53:50.096)
you do.

Top five. I'm standing behind it. I'm standing behind the album. Top five.

Alvin Owusu (53:57.955)
When? Who's who? OK.

Torrey Hawkins (54:00.813)
Alvin, Alvin, let's, let's just talk Turkey for a second. Novak's got 18 months at best and he's going to be depend on the day. He's going to be pulled out injured, dropping in with a wild card. I would even put it down to a year. I don't think he's true. I was as impressed with him as anybody with the Dimitrov match. And I've been as unimpressed as him since after that Dimitrov match in Miami. I just feel like father time is undefeated. Let's just put him off to the side.

Alvin Owusu (54:07.149)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (54:29.558)
right. Yes. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (54:30.702)
Okay. So walk through it with me. Novak is out. Novak is day to day and needs help, health, and the perfect situation, which all three probably won't Good. Come back. I'm coming back. coming back. I'm coming back. Number two, Sinner and Alcaraes are the other two. He just went three with one of the best players in the world on clay. We know he can play that well on hardcore.

Alvin Owusu (54:40.28)
Well, the time you're talking fees, five is gonna be, Nobeck's gonna be long retired by then. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (55:01.153)
Number three, so stay with me. Number three, your four, five and six are vulnerable. Zverev can lose to anybody on a given day. Dimitrov is showing he's unforeseen also, five of the time is undefeated. Okay, and now you get down into the six, seven, eight, nine from the Teofos, Taylor Fritz's, you name it, all of the underlings, D. Menor.

Alvin Owusu (55:03.33)
Yeah, I'm here.

Alvin Owusu (55:15.934)
he's old. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (55:28.351)
all the players that I feel can be beaten on a given day. Is it really so out of context to say he can't beat three of the guys in the top in the four through 10 range on a given day?

Alvin Owusu (55:40.27)
So what you're saying is different. Okay, so what you're saying right now is different than saying he's going to be top five, because top five means that you have consistently put it together and you're reaching quarters or semis of slams in 1000s for 12 months.

Torrey Hawkins (55:55.983)
You struggle from Torrey Hawkins disease. That's how I always saw it. And that simply isn't so all the time. You're dealing with a 5 through 12 that are in a carousel turnstile of a revolving door, depending on where they are, who are not themselves getting two semis or better or quarters or better.

Alvin Owusu (56:19.896)
So you're saying, okay, so, okay, now I'm coming with you. Now I'm coming with you.

Torrey Hawkins (56:21.173)
And I'm telling you this year, this year, he could be easily top 10 and next year, unless something drastic happens, could do it this year. He could be top five because of the ones that are moving out and the, and the new ones coming in. He's as vulnerable. He's as potent as anybody with his game and don't sleep on them. Dr. Mintzik could be top five.

Alvin Owusu (56:37.58)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (56:40.918)
Right, I'll contradict myself. Yeah, I'll contradict myself a little bit here, because now I'm coming over to your side on this one. Could Stefano's sitzapass was five in the world for a while, four in the world, right? Yeah, so could Artur Fies crank out a sitzapass here? What does that take? That takes one slam final. It takes one slam final. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (56:50.24)
I just had to look at it differently, I be dumb. Was three in the world at one point in time, if I'm not mistaken.

Torrey Hawkins (57:05.896)
one slam final or a couple of semis.

Alvin Owusu (57:09.868)
Yeah, and since the past did do that, he finaled French Open at least once. He finaled the Australian Open once, maybe twice. Yeah, he's done that. is Artur Fils gonna get to a semi-final of a Grand Slam? The answer is yes. I just don't trust him. I like him, I just don't trust him.

Torrey Hawkins (57:23.436)
100 % 100 % possible. You don't trust because he hadn't done it yet. We all love him. He hadn't done it yet. Here's what I don't trust. I don't trust Daniel Medvedev getting to another final.

I'm not, I'm not trusting Zverev to be, to be a threat at a, to win one in the next 18 months. And I hate to say it and I love Alex. I think he's a great player. I'm not trusting a new coach, some motivation and, and new rack something he needs. He needs a little bit of a, of a new everything to say, and a schedule to say, this is the term we're going after. And we're going to go for this thing and we're just going to make it happen.

Alvin Owusu (57:50.594)
What do you think he needs right now? What does he need right now? Is it a new coach?

Torrey Hawkins (58:09.758)
This is where your strengths are. This is Fed pulling in my main man. What was the big, Ljubicic, thank you, Ivan. This is Fed pulling in Ljubicic. Quit slicing the backhand return and come over the top of the dog thing and let's start getting back to the big serve. And let's go to Wilson, get you a better racket. That piece of plywood you're playing with, as thin as it is, quit trying to be Rafa. These guys are hitting lasers on you right now. You gotta beef it up.

Alvin Owusu (58:10.008)
Well he's been, he's been s-

Alvin Owusu (58:18.594)
Lubachitch. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (58:38.924)
Right. So that's the problem. That's the pro-

Torrey Hawkins (58:40.008)
This is where he needs. And I was impressed that Rublev did it. And to be honest, I think Danil needs it more. He needs to get Kofelnikov in his camp or somebody of that stature who knows what the heck he's doing and bring it out and be all day Russian mafia. I'm hitting zingers from down the line like there's no tomorrow. Getting in strong shape, Ivan Drago style. I'm gonna do it. Let's go.

Alvin Owusu (59:07.95)
Okay, so I'm less concerned about Medvedev and that I never, whatever, with Medvedev, whatever. He's older, he had a later trajectory in his career. And the way he plays, we're talking about now what we're starting to see I think is an accumulation of miles that are starting to just kind add up. And then tennis is not gonna let you slide without firepower these days. And that's what we're bumping into with him.

Torrey Hawkins (59:22.11)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (59:28.148)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (59:33.994)
100%.

Alvin Owusu (59:36.079)
So I'm gonna put Mehdi to the side for a second. Zverev changed his racket setup a bit in the beginning of the year and said that his goal was, he did it because his goal was to win the French Open. It was all about the French Open. then so same thing, reason why he didn't go UAE after Australia, he went down to the Golden Swing and just got routed down there. Went down to clay to get his feet underneath it or get it underneath his feet earlier in the year and then

Torrey Hawkins (59:37.944)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (59:52.946)
but.

Yep, and was the one seed by the way.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:06.988)
Yeah, he's two in the world right now, like, well, until tomorrow. But he's doing all these things to prepare himself to do well in this time of the year. And he's just, it ain't happening. So it does feel like a change of racket.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:16.913)
and then do it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:23.13)
It's early. It's early in the season, but you have to think that he's still a question mark to win a slam, let alone to get to win to get to the semis or final of a slam, let alone to win one. And that also is part of my whole math and my calculus on, on a feast on a mentsic on a, dude.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:44.854)
Yeah, I'm there with you. I'm there. I'm there with another I'm doing it. It's like, yeah, Casper Rude, Casper Rude made top four in the world off of being a one trick pony.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:49.896)
And Casper Ruud, thank you. Casper Ruud is as up and down as anybody. mean, he's, you know who else is up and down right now? you, is Holger, Holger Rune, I mean, is as up and down as anybody on the play. He's depending on the day. D-Menard today showed me that he, the other, two days ago showed me that he's up and down on the day. We haven't heard from Tiafoe.

We haven't heard from Ben Shelton. We haven't heard from Taylor Fritz. Taylor Fritz is still injured. We haven't heard. That's just 8, 9, 10 or 6, 7, 8, whatever the numbers are. were going after the French. So you got to look at all that and say, hmm. And now we're going to the French. You know what mean? I mean, you heard it right here, Alvin. Gail Monfils might be playing his last French. This could be his swan song. I would give Gail Monfils a quarterfinal or better this tournament.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:33.015)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:37.997)
I mean...

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:47.737)
with everything going on that he's done this year, then I would give it to a Mpeche Para card, then I would give it to any other Frenchie with the exception of Fies. And I think, and I think that's what I'm getting at. I think, I believe, I recommend that Arthur Fies is ready to say, hey, what about me? Y'all been sleeping on me? Don't sleep. Hey, this could be his don't sleep tour in this next year to 18 months. And I think that this tournament, was really impressed with how well he played.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:55.192)
Yep.

Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:16.325)
And should we follow that up on the clay? You heard it right here. Not bad. Now your drapers and your other draper is following a similar trajectory that can be followed about two years, give or take three years ago. Played some great tennis, had a great wimby, had a couple of hardcore wins. The great. I don't expect Jack Draper to have that same level of success on the clay. I just don't. yeah, right. Let's, let's just be honest, right? Looking at what it is. I expect some big things from Yal Fonseca.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:28.994)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:38.318)
sure, yeah yeah yeah, I don't think so.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:44.736)
I expect Serena Lowe to have a couple of good wins. What's my main man from Spain, the big Menar, not Di Menar, Jamie, Jaime, whatever, Jaime, whatever his name is. Jaime could have a decent French. There's some guys out there floating, they some big game that I'm like, you know what, this guy could do something. And the rest of this play court season.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:52.128)
Jamie Jamie Mooder. I'm in Mooder. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:04.512)
Yeah, for me, it's a little early. This is what I really, really like about this part of the year is because we have a very fixed thing at the end, at the culmination of these five events. it's when we get to Rome, I think, because Rome is the one that looks and feels like Roland Garros.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:13.368)
Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:18.027)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:29.153)
Right, like a mini French. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:31.119)
Monte Carlo's a little too, it's too early. It's the first time on clay for a lot of these guys in a few months. Okay, fine, I can throw a lot of this out of the window, right? No big deal. We got a split field, we got a Munich and Barcelona. Okay, fine. And then Madrid is weird because of the altitude, right? So that's, it's just, we're getting our reps, we're getting our reps, we're getting our reps, they're all a little different. But when we get to Rome, that's the one where I go, okay, give me two rounds of Rome and now I have a

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:44.308)
Yep. Big stand. Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:52.483)
Yep. Of what the field's gonna look like in two weeks. Or a week, or whatever it is, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:00.303)
good feel of what I'm gonna be getting. Exactly, exactly, exactly. So like I said, I love Monte Carlo and I love what it is, I love what it represents, it tells me where we are, I love all things about it. But I think you got me on the feast thing, I'm there with you, I'm there. Before we put a pin in this, let's talk about Marat Safin.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:10.519)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:28.835)
Mmm, my main man.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:29.222)
I saw, okay, Maret Safin, Maret Safin, it's announced that he's coaching Andre Rublev. Okay, cool. They pull up to the UTS event, which is, you see the, did you see the, any of that UTS event? They played it in the Coliseum. It was so dope. It was so dope, right? UTS is fine, it's fine. But it was so cool looking. But all of the video and footage coming out with Rublev and Safin, Safin looked like older brother just moved back from California, like.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:36.003)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:58.504)
percent. Dude, his tats, his swatch watch, his shades. mean, and dude, people forget Southin 65, bro. Southin is all day 65. Rublev is maybe 61. Dude, he was literally, right? Oh, and Rublev is not small, but he, but you realized, yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:58.808)
What's up? What's up? I'm back. my, that guy.

big dude. Big dude.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:14.957)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:21.929)
I'm back. And it was such a cool thing knowing to see him back on the court. And I have to say, all the players that are coming back, it was great to see for those of us who have loved Morad, that have loved his, I think Roddick made a comment about it. Not only about it was great to see him, but saying, I can hit winners from anywhere, off either side at any time. I'm a little bit crazy. You're a little bit crazy. You know what? This may not be a bad matchup.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:22.861)
Yeah.

I love it. I love it.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:49.002)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:51.007)
Because if anybody can understand crazy, it's Morat Safin. If anybody can understand, I once saw Morat Safin go to the sideline after he broke a racket, took the racket out of the plastic, broke another one just off principle, only to get the third one out, tapped the strings like, okay, no game. And I was like, why did you break the brand new racket?

Alvin Owusu (01:06:14.638)
man, he's kind of like, he's built like Jakub Mincek, but so much cooler and crazy. I mean, know the majority of the viewers who are younger than us do not know anything about Murat Safin and his, I highly encourage you to get familiar, Murat Safin was cooler than Apollo Bear's toenails. Yeah, I have another.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:24.298)
Cooler, crispier, more potent.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:32.606)
Go back, Google them, Google them.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:43.228)
I'm just hoping that Rubalev has the goods to keep him out there and shows a little bit of some Russian mafia. I don't like using that term, especially in the days of our current political crisis with them in Ukraine. I hope that he, Andre, shows a little bit of Russian gangster to say, you know what, you're right. I gotta trust who I am. I'm crazy. I'm gonna go for that ball. You don't think I will? Watch me. And let that be to his advantage. And I think that

Saffin to this day is one of the only players that I have seen have the stats sheet that had more winners than errors. know what mean? And the 0-4 I want to say was the 0-4 was the semi or the final in Australia that year when I watched him when he played Agassi. It was one of the best hard-hitting cleanest. Alvin I don't know if the stats will show it. There were at the end of the match 10 or 12 unforced errors. I want to say it was four sets.

There were the winners were in the high twenties and low thirties for each player. It was just absolute high tempo shootout. was shooter serve first because both actually had great returns. had a huge serve and then Andre had an underrated serve and Morat had phenomenal returns. People don't appreciate how good his backhand was. You've never seen so many clean backhand down the line winners in your life.

Players like now Bandion had a phenomenal backhand but were little weaker on the forehand side. Players like Pete had a phenomenal running forehand but backhand was little bit anemic. Both players had huge shots on both sides and so to see them playing each other, my god.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:20.728)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:24.428)
Yeah, Morett Safin's career could end up looking like Andre Agassi's career. I guess they're both a little bit out there. But the only thing that held him back was he really wasn't that interested in being great. And then at one time he decided he was going to do it, because he thought he could, and then he did it. And then he was like, okay, that's cool. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:39.324)
Yep. Right. And he did it. Yeah. Morat, I read an article on him. Morat always wanted to be a hockey player. And when you look at him and his whole style, he was always kind of thinking like tennis was a little bit his second choice and second fiddle to him in his career choice. He, he, he idolized those top Russian and old school Soviet hockey players that were tough, that were good. And there was, and tennis, let's face it, tennis never had that level of

Alvin Owusu (01:08:55.938)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:09.622)
of dude, you got to be good to join this club kind of a thing. And mind you, he was good. think in a weird way, and I don't want to give Curios too much credit, in a weird way Curios also kind of was, he wanted to play basketball more than he wanted to play tennis and kind of was in that same kind of fold. But Morat Safin to me was one of, not only one of the greats, he was one of the greats that begrudgingly became a champion. And let's face it, how was it? Four or five slams? Underachieved.

by choice, just because he was like, nah, it's not that important to me. I'm here to have a good time. And I think there's a part of him that we all can gravitate to where I feel like Gorin one-one almost got the monkey off his back and finally was able to kind of chill and kind of contain his crazy. Saffin just had to stay sane for about two weeks and he could have beat Fed on his best day, could have beat Rocker on his best day, could have beat Pete, Andre, and they knew it. It wasn't like.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:02.058)
Right. That's the thing, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:08.666)
It wasn't like, yeah, I don't know Morat, he's crazy. No, no, no. It's like, dude, I'm not gonna say anything about Morat Safin because Morat, all my best, they can beat me three and two and not even break a sweat. So you know what? You always got, I remember a fan had a quote about you always have to go into a match with Morat Safin worried because if he decides, and he used the term, if he decides to play 100%, it's over.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:37.966)
Yeah, it's a

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:38.882)
And when you talk at this point in time, I think that had 10 or 12 slams. When 10 or 12 slams defers to the opponent like that, you already know.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:49.838)
Well, it was all that firepower. He could bring it to Fed at a time when no one could really bring it to him. Like, Nadal gave him trouble on clay and for specific reasons and Djokovic made it hard for him. But Moratsev could go through Roger Fedder. And I'm gonna let, we're gonna put a bow on it right there. I'm gonna let people just sit with the idea that someone could go through Fedder.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:54.042)
Have a seat.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:07.918)
Ugh.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:11.829)
Mmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:16.921)
I have to butter.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:18.4)
a bow on that particular topic. Here's a random thing that came up. I saw that

Carlos Alcaraz summer camps are popping up in the United States. This is a new thing. It's starting to happen a lot now. First, Morgator Galu comes to the United States and he's setting up these satellite locations. Raffianadal Academy setting up satellite locations, not just in the United States but also all over Europe. Academies branching out.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:38.965)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:48.726)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:55.599)
And you know, doing that thing is not new, but player name backed academies doing it is new. I also saw that in a doll, like recently like sold of a big part of his academy, uh, you know, and all that it is, it's a resort plus a lot of things. Um, what Carlos is pretty young and he seems to be doing a lot of things that point towards

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:02.442)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:15.106)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:24.75)
get rich, die trying, right? He plays these exhibitions, big money, big, big high profile exhibitions. He's like, I'll do it two days before Grand Slam, I don't care. I'm gonna run this thing until the wheels fall off and this seems like another logical step in, R. Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcares trying to fund Spanish tennis all by themselves and then just kick Italy out as the...

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:32.727)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:53.388)
as the throne of men's tennis. I know this is little conspiracy theory from my end.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:55.702)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get what you're saying. Ask your, what is your boiled down question? Cause I see you asking three things at once and I want to be clear so I can answer it. By the way, Thomas Johansson was the player's name by the way. One French and an 02 and in route beat, it was either semi or final, but beat.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:12.212)
okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:18.727)
Saffron in that tournament was one I was thinking of. had to look I had to look him up real quick but keep going.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:25.262)
Here's a well done question. When you see an academy pop up with a rough and a doll academy, Carlos Alcaraz Academy, do you as a practitioner feel like this is quality training or is this vacation I sent my kid to this thing that has the name on it?

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:27.975)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:32.926)
Okay. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:38.387)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:42.997)
As a practitioner, as a competitor, and as a coach in this field.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:57.329)
I feel it is a marketing opportunity for the entity. Mortagalu, Nadal, all of them, because none of them are bringing Uncle Tony or Juan Carlos or whoever, or themselves, for that matter, to the mix. I think it is an unfortunate byproduct of where we are in society that the name recognition gets you what it is. I think everybody's trying to make money off the court, so to speak.

quote unquote side hustle. The millionaires are not excluded from the side hustle business. I think that it is a solid play. Sure, their marketing presence and name should do that. I would tell any parent that be careful going down a path that may just be the old competitor down the street that just has snazzier t-shirts and the logo.

With that player's name on there and another hundred dollar price point on that to pay for itself. Alvin early, early days, before you and I crossed paths, I was a player getting out of college plan. I played at Morehouse in Georgia state and the Nick voluntary tennis academy, right? NBTA was going with sites all over the country. They were, they were, they were expanding out of.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:23.765)
I didn't know about that. Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:26.247)
Florida, Sarasota, Bradenton, wherever they were, and they were going into these places. The old school sports life, which is, you and you guys, I knew you were in Smyrna growing up. They're in Marietta slash, you around the corner from Smyrna, I guess it was, where the old, you know, where the old life, where the old, was it, sports life was when we first got started way, way back.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:28.654)
Bradenton, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:50.937)
I remember the whole red zones in tennis and I was actually employed by the Nick Volatieri Tennis Academy for all of eight months it was still there on the contract. And what I learned was they were trying to throw a methodology, they were trying to have a feeder program for Florida and so on and so on. What I understood then at the time was they really didn't care too much about the level of tennis, they wanted to put their name there and they were gonna come through about once a year, maybe twice.

and take a look at whoever the kids were on some of your thicker weeks and just do a little talent identification. It was a money grab then, it's a money grab now. Is it a talent ID? Sure, for that one kid out of 150 that they may take a look at. I feel the world, the tennis world is smaller now. I feel like everybody can go to Mallorca, Spain for Rafa or go to wherever they are in Spain for Carlos.

And I think it's a bit early. I want to get to Carlos and Naomi Osaka and even Coco Golf who are starting their own management agencies and other programs. That's another talk show. I think they're very, they're way too early in their careers to be putting that together when they are still establishing their own career. It's another talk show. But I want to say for the Academy side, hats off to them. Let their money work for them. Hey, as they say, don't hit the player, hit the game. You know what mean? I'm a hundred percent a fan of what they're doing on a business level.

My concern is the gullible tennis parent that will go there thinking that these people have the new trick on how to squeeze orange juice out of an orange when everybody squeezes orange juice out of the orange the same way. Through hard work, good oranges, right? And that's the key, good oranges, right? And making sure that the machine that.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:40.332)
Right, good oranges.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:46.832)
the orange is the best there is at getting the best time and the best pressure out of that orange as possible. But the orange has to be a quality orange to get good orange juice.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:01.004)
And probably in a good climate too, which we'll use, in this analogy, we use climate as other people or like the environment in which you train other people around you.

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:05.997)
of the people. And if that player was good enough at their current or their local situation down the street, they would probably be best spending more time with said coach. Otherwise, they're going to get the also rants, the people that aren't as good, the parents who think that it's not my kid, it's the coach in front of them. In which case they're going to go to that place, have a week or two, get the t-shirt. And yes, Alvin, that is a hundred percent the definition of the money grab.

They know that that Nike camp or that Alcares or that Nadal Academy is still being worked by so-and-so who was there for the last three years before the contract. unless there is a, I'm going to say a process to earn a trip to get to France, Spain, et cetera, then you are dealing with a program that is just using the name of marketing. And again, hats off to them for trying and doing their thing.

In my opinion, I've been doing this for 30 years. The coaches make the players. The programs don't make the players. The coaches do. And if that coach has made that player, right? I guarantee you the next young star that came through or that has come through, they came through before Alcara. Alcara's was a good young player before Juan Carlos put his eyes on him. And then he came to Juan Carlos.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:13.102)
That's true. That's true.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:33.645)
Academy and was wearing his t-shirt for a little bit. Now he's got his own. I guarantee it with Carlos Moya went through Mallorca and said, hey, looking for a good player. We got this kid, Rafa Nadal. He's great. You're going to love it. Works hard. Carlos and so on and so on. And I say that to say that player had a coach, had a program. I guarantee he wasn't found in some East Bumble location that, you know, the Carlos that the

Alvin Owusu (01:19:47.97)
Yeah, yeah. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:02.29)
One cause for all Academy had in some East Bumble place in Spain somewhere. They were there. They knew they knew this kid was good. They saw him. had him. And that's my point. The cream tends to rise to the top. And I say that to say hats off to those players. It's a money grab. If you have a good player, this is for the listeners at home and he or she is gravitating and doing well with the coach in front of you. Stick with your coach, get that coach to get them as good as possible.

When they get pretty good, travel around to the better academies to get different match play. Maybe get a few tips on things, get a fresh perspective. That's a hundred percent your choice and quite frankly necessary. But then come back to your coach with that information and then help that coach get you even better. And then at the moment that you feel your coach is tapped out, he's done as he or she's done as much as they can do. Then you start looking for the next best thing for your child.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:59.758)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:00.33)
Don't go for that name. That name could care two cents about where you are in your trajectory and where you are with your tennis. They're there to sell some t-shirts, some lessons, and get some revenue. And they're going to be sitting in some meeting, in some board meeting, don't have a clue who you are and what you are with tennis. And they're going to see it at location 157. How was the revenue there in week three? All right, thank you. How about week four? Your name's never going to come up.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:26.924)
Yeah, I'll say no notes on my end. And I think that's a good place to pause. We'll keep moving along. We have some fun stuff in store. We'll probably check back in when things heat up again around the Madrid time, think. Let the, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:46.939)
I think it'd be good time to do it. All the 1000s we should give a little love to. Here's my one parting thought, Alvin. I have not been as excited with the field, with the potential of the field, and by the field I'm talking about the at-large field in a long time. The downside, if there is one, the downside of the big three is that they're such known entities and they take over tennis for so long.

that you forget all the other good up and comers and how good they actually are. And I have not been this excited. I was excited during Australia. I started seeing five to 10 players coming out of the woodwork and I was like, my God, who is this guy? And I was really impressed to see it. I'm starting to see as most players continue, new players, including MnSic who weren't necessarily in that conversation then, that were coming, have come up since then. Draper has come along and

put a name for not that he was a new one up and coming. He's already been a player, came to the fore, actually had a great name in New Wales. start, Yalfont Stegg has placed in the better center since then and others. We're starting to see a whole new, not only the current up and comers and by up and comers, I'm talking about future top fibers like your Ben Shelton's, like your Tommy Paul's, like your Demonars, but also your 20 and outs, like your Arthur Fils, right?

Like your, you know, give a lot of credit to Lorenzo Moussadi for this past week at tennis. Played some great ball. Miffin top 10. and now you all, you still gotta deal with Fonseca, Lerner team and Tim and the the Wong kid that beat Ben Seldman at Miami. There's still a bunch of new ones that are coming up that are showing, buddy. Don't count, surrender low. These guys are coming through that are showing me, buddy.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:19.33)
Yeah, he's sniffing top 10 right now.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:43.715)
It's going to be a rocky clay season. Be ready and remember my name. And I think that's something I look forward to in the absence. We now have a vacuum and a of these players are really going to show it makes tennis exciting again to really see if we're to have some older players that are getting long in the tooth that are going to have to either put up shut up. You know what I mean? And that's unfortunate for the for the Svarez for the for the medis, you know, for the for the even the rubles.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:46.85)
Yeah, I mean, it's.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:05.325)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:11.291)
They're going to have to really kind of put up a show up the Dimitrov what we love. But buddy, these new up and comers are saying don't sleep.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:18.094)
I don't think we're really gonna get a feel for the group. This is the funny thing about this part of the year, right? You gotta hit, because clay is slower, right? You gotta hit a lot of balls to prove that you're better, right? And over time, tennis tends to, it will tend to revert towards its due place, right? The better player generally wins the match, generally, right? And so we...

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:38.375)
Right.

Yep, right. Especially on clay in a long match.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:44.48)
Right. Clay, it's just, it's, it is exasperated, right? So I think this is exacerbated. Well, it's, it's, man, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hate that one in post-prod. Okay. So, yeah, I think this will be a, I think this is kind of Carlos's space to just like fill up. He's just gonna fill up this space and then, and then Yana is gonna come back. He's gonna be a little, he's gonna be, well, I think he'll actually be sharper than we would expect.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:50.276)
Right. Exacerbate. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:12.708)
He ain't the type to take off. He the type to take off. He ain't been sipping drinks on the Swiss Alps.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:12.898)
because he does pretty well with little warmup. Yeah.

Well, even like match play wise, I'm sure he's getting enough, he's finding some players somewhere, but I know he takes time off after ATB finals and then just doesn't play a warm up event and then pops up wins on Show 8 Open, right? So he can do that. So I think once we get through the French Open, Wimbledon's weird, grass is weird, right? It is what it is. I'm really, this is weird, I'm very excited for Cincinnati.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:41.988)
So weird three, four weeks.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:48.098)
Like I feel like everything's gonna like that's when we start to like, all right, Artrofise, show me what you got. All right, Jack Draper, show me what you got. All right. Yeah. Like who was the... Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:51.518)
When it all, when it all, right, right, when it all matriculates to that time. I just think it's going to be good year. And I think, I think the French is going be up and down. There's going be some people that are going to, that are going to knock off some, some people. There's going be a great, it's just a great time for tennis right now. In the absence of the big three, we now have a lot of players that are going to fill those spots. And I think for the next couple of years, it's going to be nice, but I really am looking forward to the clay court season right now because of some, so many up and comers.

But I feel like we're we literally have three different types of up and comers. You have your current, you know, seven and out. You have your current 25 and out who are trying to edge closer. You got your 50 now for been on the tour a year or two that are that are breaking in, you know, that that are showing they have they have the goods and you really got that five through eight, you know, perennially the last four years that are really going to find downshift and find a way to upshift again going uphill.

at the end of their career. this is going to be, mean, know, Dimitrov went out 0 and 0, Alvin. He went out 0 and 0. Now mind you, that was a bit of a blip and kind of a glitch, but make no mistake, you know.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:01.646)
Well, I think it's more representative of him lately in the backend of events. This is what happens in age, right? You can do it, it's just hard to do it again. And so after, yeah, after tough matches, and that's the awesome thing about Monte Carlo, right? Monte Carlo is a tight, it's a tight 1,000, right? No BS, 64 with a couple of buys here and there, but then it's like every day, and it's just the guys, and it's just one week.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:05.95)
Right. That's right. Hard to do it again. Hard to do it back to back. And if you play that DPS in great matches and then boom just fell flat. He fell flat against Novak. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:21.184)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:25.442)
Right? Your boy Taylor pulled out and they put mince again. I mean, that's not a wild card. That's the guy that won Miami.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:30.848)
It is, like you said before, Masters 1000s are kinda tougher than Grand Slams because you don't have as much rest, especially when it's single gender, and there's no holes. There are no wild cards. I mean, there's like two or three, qualifiers, they're sparse. It's go time from.

Right, yeah, the guy who just won a 1000, the guy who just won a Masters 1000 a couple weeks ago didn't make the cut. He missed the cut. Right, Fonseca missed the cut. Yeah, I mean, I hope Monte Carlo never changes. I'm not a huge fan. Actually, yeah, the longer 1000s, I understand why they happen, whatever, but Monte Carlo is, you

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:55.466)
Right. He missed the cut. Right. That's what I'm saying. You're going to bring Yaka Metsuk in there.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:08.052)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:18.4)
Isner is pushing to have, or he is recommending, I think it's a good idea, by the way, to have Monte Carlo have both genders. I think it would be a great event. But to your point, that would make Monte Carlo be a two week long event. and I think that would be a good one just for the scenery. would love to it. I'd love to go there and have four or five days to watch both the guys and the girls at Monte Carlo. But to your point, it does make for a longer event and then it pushes. It's going to push and then somewhere and some event and who knows.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:30.402)
Yeah, this is naturally has to be longer. It has to be longer.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:46.112)
We need to have an episode on the tour itself and some of the coolest places that the tour goes to. And then we need to kind of set our own bucket list of ones we need to go to and experience ourselves firsthand. And that would be a cool episode to have and show some of the...Montecarlo might be the first one off both of our lists to get started.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:05.356)
Yeah, Monte Carlo is top of my list for sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:10.926)
Absolutely. All right, well, before we get too late, let's sign off here. That was a good one, TH, appreciate you. We will catch you guys next time. Take care.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:18.566)
Always. Looking forward to it. Peace.