Ep. 30: Madrid Recap - Is Novak Done? Have We See The Best of Iga?

Alvin Owusu (00:01.315)
And welcome back to another edition of the Best of Three podcast. It is a lovely Sunday evening. Tori, how you doing?

Torrey Hawkins (00:29.139)
sir. I'm good Alvin I'm liking your cut brother you got it you got a nice and nice and Mr. Clean over there.

Alvin Owusu (00:36.832)
Yeah, it really depends on which of the three days in the cycle you catch me. You caught me on day two, so it's looking okay. All of us with our hair struggles struggle in different ways. So I'm I'm two days strong. Day three, it's like, if I were taller, I could pull it off, but any more than that, it's a bad look. It's a bad look. How often are you shaving?

Torrey Hawkins (01:03.27)
Alvin, I'm tall. I'm tall and I can't pull it off either way. It's just, just, I have so many hats. That's all I can say.

Alvin Owusu (01:11.381)
Yes, yes, my boy, my boy Jerome, when I finally became openly bald, he was like, you're gonna need to get some hats. And I've seen my hat collection grow, mostly, and not because of like the stages of where the hair is, I can usually get through a shave pretty quick, but it's more so the sun protection. Like I feel like I sweat like in an instant now. I walk outside and by the time I the mailbox, like my head is, my head looks like I've been in the shower.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19.059)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:31.623)
Yeah. Yeah. and the sun, especially this Atlanta sun on a hot day, and we got some hot days last week, 80 plus, you will literally feel your scalp on fire. I mean, make no mistake. mean, so mine, I have to have, I have to have that. It's just, it's not even a question. To answer your question about how many days, I'm at the week rate right now. If I want to stay,

Alvin Owusu (01:45.845)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (02:00.774)
You'll start seeing some residue of hair about day two, day three, but not enough. Day four, Sunday, obviously I do my Sunday service. So I try to get cleaned up on a Sunday most of the time, but usually it's about, I can go about a week before it starts to look, you know, haggard. You know what I mean? I think, I think as I, it's more about my patience and time than it is about anything else. It's not about, you know, if I were, if I were, you know,

Alvin Owusu (02:18.452)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (02:30.408)
TV personality or something like that. I'd probably be on a three day schedule like yourself, but I got my hat. My hat covers the multitude of sins, so to speak. that's where I'm at.

Alvin Owusu (02:36.502)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (02:42.049)
I think that's the, yeah, that's the kicker. It's like, do I have, like, what, am I gonna be in the office? Am I gonna be on video on something important? And that usually happens more frequently than it doesn't. But anyways, you know, people didn't, people don't listen to us to hear us talk about our grooming habits. But yeah, but it's important, it's important. So where are we right now? We are in the thick of the clay court season, kind of sticking with.

Torrey Hawkins (02:47.804)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (02:56.582)
Yeah, about our hair follicles, no doubt. Yep, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (03:07.304)
A much too long clay court season, I might.

Alvin Owusu (03:09.291)
Yeah, it's a stretch, right? So we just finished up Madrid. We're recording on Sunday evening, men's final, women's final, bar being completed. In case we forget to mention, Casper Ru takes out Jack Draper. Tough three-set match, that was a good match. And Arena, the metronome, Sabalinka takes out Kovalev and straight sets, somehow straight sets, yesterday.

Torrey Hawkins (03:25.147)
Very good match.

Torrey Hawkins (03:33.759)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (03:33.898)
But, and we'll kind of get into it, but I wanted to talk a little bit about Madrid in general, right? So kind of where we are right now in the season, we always kind of try to keep track of this, right? Like we went Monte Carlo for the men and then Barcelona and Stuttgart happened at the same time for the men and women, also Munich for the men. And then now we're all in Madrid and then going to Rome for everybody and then going to Roland Garros, kind of on the trot here. it's a lot of...

Torrey Hawkins (03:45.039)
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (04:02.88)
You're starting to see, I guess, a little bit of in-swing fatigue happen, right? Like players, some of the good players are losing a little bit early. Carlos didn't even play because of injury. We had some early losses on the mid side. But I kind of wanted to get your thoughts, like, what is, this tournament feels like a trap tournament. I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on, what is the, like, ideal buildup for a major event?

Torrey Hawkins (04:14.618)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (04:31.434)
Like this is one, two, three, four tournaments. in succession. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (04:35.729)
Yeah, before the actual build up of Rome. Yeah, before the actual tune up of Rome. Alvin, this is a tough one to me and you know, I'm gonna side with the players on this one. The Clay Court season is just too long.

I have always, I'm going to say not hated, but always disliked the tour and their long season. I feel like the tour is trying to sell every week with the same package, same top players, same playbook, right? At the end of the day, the players pocket books are

and careers are made off of the slams. And so let's face it, the 1000s, while they have a bigger purse and they're bigger and necessarily more prestigious, aren't as protected as they should be. And the 500s, if they fall in the right week, actually have a little better of a turnout than the 1000s. And if you play that second 1000 or the third 1000, you're liable to have pullouts.

a spate of injuries and the turnip poster may have eight different players of which six of them may not be there. So that's what you're running into. And I say shame on the tour for not recognizing this and making some changes. If in a perfect world Alvin, there should be a six week build up. Now check me out here, six weeks. The first week goes out to the Futures and Challengers crew.

Alvin Owusu (05:57.008)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (06:16.608)
team next gen, the whole up and coming players, right? The other ones are not even called up. Y'all stay home, rest up, go spend time with fam, train, whatever you do, right? Week five, we kind of start getting into a few more of the, what we used to call the two fifties, right? We starting to kind of ramp up into that level. Mind you, all of this needs to have some sort of quality slash pre-quality emphasis for the upcoming slam. That's the only draw.

Alvin Owusu (06:28.574)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (06:45.218)
And now you, without them giving up their actual wild cards, right? Week four and out, we should now start to get our first real, right? Our first real 500-ish, and that should be more of a okay, but it's a very small draw and there should be three or four of them and hey, they are in and out round of 16s. Boom, everybody gets a little tennis. Let's kind of just get our, let's get our, you know, let's get our plan in and let's be done. This is a 40 event, it's a sprint.

not a marathon, it's not a week. And then by week two, week one, you start getting into a 500 the week before. And then you of course get the quality slash your EXO tournament the week before. And now the Australian, let's say starts. thing for the clay. Now, can that happen? Probably not. Cause the tour is making too much money off all the other tournaments. But here's my problem, Albert. Here's the problem. If you did six weeks times four, okay? Six weeks times four, you got 24 weeks, right? And then you did...

Alvin Owusu (07:33.768)
Yeah, probably not. Probably not.

Torrey Hawkins (07:45.073)
In the off time, you made like, I'm going to, I'm going to take a cue from the NBA here. And I'm not saying they're the most successful model, but you started doing something like the WNBA. You fill in another league, another tour in that timeframe. Let next gen be its own tour. And they play during that timeframe. These guys are young. They can play. They can do the thing, but don't let Novak have to play the same schedule as my main man, Yael Fonseca. Right.

Alvin Owusu (08:11.517)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (08:14.272)
There are two different ends of their careers, right? So between G League, which is its own league, let Next Gen be G League like, and let the rest of, maybe a doubles tour, maybe, know that's a bad word right now, doubles not having the same numbers, but let the rest of the, I'm gonna call it the XO kind of a tour. You know how they used to have a Stella Artois at before Wimbledon and whatnot. It was almost like an exhibition tournament before.

Alvin Owusu (08:27.399)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (08:39.824)
you know, like the, there's a boodles of it. Like it's the, the boodles. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (08:42.751)
But it used to be called Seldar 12 right before Wimby. It was a four person, know, semi-final and final. It was two or three days. Everybody got to see their top players play there at a grass court venue. And really what it was, Alvin, was for them to get a little feel of grass without playing a full-on tournament. And so what I'm getting at, Alvin, is I just feel like the tour, and I'm not saying you have to have just one clay court season. Have that be another clay court season.

Alvin Owusu (09:00.211)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (09:07.561)
Well, I think you touched on something that is like, that is the actual problem is that we have multiple things happening in the same tour, right? You've got the big names, like on lemon side, you have the Sinners and the Djokovic's and the Alcaraz, and on the lemon side, you have the Igas and you have the Cocos and the Sabalinkas who are the draws. Those are the people that the fans come out to see. This is why the rights holders

Torrey Hawkins (09:17.618)
Yeah, all at once.

Torrey Hawkins (09:26.11)
.

Torrey Hawkins (09:30.712)
Yep. Right. The household names.

Alvin Owusu (09:36.84)
The rights holders pay all the money to broadcast. These are the money makers, right? But then you have the other people, and they don't have to play every week to make a good living, right? They can play 13, 15 weeks a year and they're fine, right? Yeah, but then the rest of the people though, the rest of the tour, those are the ones that are playing to make money. They're playing to make a living. And their needs are different, yet all the players are kind of funneled into the same, they're on the same track.

Torrey Hawkins (09:39.496)
Yup, yup, yup.

Torrey Hawkins (09:50.759)
Yeah!

Torrey Hawkins (09:56.509)
100%. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (10:05.852)
Somehow they're on the same track.

Torrey Hawkins (10:06.203)
My problem with an Alvin, it doesn't work for the top. It doesn't work for the journeyman. So who's it working for? The tour. Which is why it's a problem for me.

Alvin Owusu (10:10.216)
Sure.

I mean barely well, it's working for the tour because they get to play they're playing defense and this is like I don't want to go too far into but this is a lot of the conversation around like what the PTP is talking about right like Why there are no other options for the for the players like they have all these? Really hard and fast rules for tournaments that they can play Versus like other things that they can't do like if you're in an event You can't go play an XO if you lose early like it's like one of these

Torrey Hawkins (10:41.068)
Yeah. Yeah. I would put the early losers into another draw and they would be forced to play because rankings and whatnot would have an effect. That's your week five and week four tournament. Those early losers would have to they are now the draw, whoever you are, would have to play those guys and it's almost a penalty slash you got to play extra because you didn't play so much and let's face it you didn't play so much right so you end up going into this kind of a

Alvin Owusu (10:41.309)
there are some very, very weird, not weird, but they're very stringent rules around these things.

Torrey Hawkins (11:10.682)
recirculating consolation slash next week's main, but you're really consolation in the next 500 or 250 event. And I'm just saying something like that might have some real, it might lend itself to just bob and weave its way to getting the different players to play more tennis, which is ideal for the fans and the players. And it might just give you their name recognition that you might need for that next event. Otherwise the same playbook, the same week, come on.

And at some point, six weeks, seven months later, you heard it right here. I don't even know if Alcraz has hurt. I'm glad he said he's hurt so that he pulled out, now he's got a chance to win the franchise and not be dinged up.

Alvin Owusu (11:45.928)
Right. Yeah. Well, when you see, mean, you look at it last year, right? He won the French and didn't play any of these events. So like, whatever. But like, you started to see it. I think we might have, we might have talked about this a couple of weeks ago, right after Barcelona, but like, he wins Monte Carlo. He gets to the final of Barcelona, win or lose, whatever. He's still playing the same amount of matches at the end. It's like, okay, he's got two...

Masters 1000s before Roland Garros at that point, it's like, yeah, he can't play both of those. Like he can't play, he can't play both of those. Like there's no, there's no, there's no reason and not just him. Like it's the same thing with like Arthur Fiesis played all of them. Holger Runes played all of them. You know, Holger lost early, lost relatively early. It's almost like, it's almost like we were talking about peaking a little bit later, but like the best way, like what is the best way to come into these events? Like how much

Torrey Hawkins (12:27.902)
Two there! Thank you, both lost early.

Torrey Hawkins (12:36.121)
Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (12:41.702)
how much warmup do you actually need? And I feel like, you know, when you see the top players, like if you look at the US Open and compare it to Roland Garros, right? Right before the US Open, you have Cincinnati, and right before that you have Montreal and Toronto, right? And generally, but right before that you have Washington DC, which is the 500. You don't really see a lot of players starting to show up, like early would be DC, most of them show up in Canada.

Torrey Hawkins (13:00.59)
Yep. Agreed.

Alvin Owusu (13:07.803)
Like most of them show up and they're all in Canada and then they're all in Cincinnati and then it's go time. And that seems like the right amount of warmup. So if you use the clay court example, it would be like basically nothing before Madrid matters, right? I mean, if you were playing well six weeks ago or four weeks ago in Monte Carlo, did that really help you in Paris in June? Too early.

Torrey Hawkins (13:30.069)
It's too early and and and Monte Carlo's a great venue so make that be the next ATP tour final You know what I mean a Masters of Final event instead of Beijing because I know Beijing probably pays a lot of money and whatnot, but I'm just saying I'm just saying that I just I just feel like the tour is the tour is risking its

Alvin Owusu (13:43.832)
And time of year as well, yeah, but yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (13:51.672)
primary, what do call them, stakeholders or whatever that's. You are risking your namesakes by making them play so many weeks and mandated them to play so many weeks, right? You're just causing them to come up with some injuries, forfeit some money. Quite frankly, you're helping to lose revenue in the draws because you know that player is not going to stick around for too long. They're still looking at managing their schedule. So.

Alvin Owusu (13:55.866)
Yeah, probably sir. stakeholders,

Alvin Owusu (14:05.934)
Right, it's the mandate.

Torrey Hawkins (14:19.575)
Again, I don't want to get too deep in the weeds, but to your point, I think the schedule creates havoc. One of my favorite players out, and I know this kids, was 10 years old. John Isner was one of the best players to come out of the United States in the last so many years. John was king of the two fifties and the five hundreds, right? I mean, I don't know how many times he won Atlanta. I don't know how many times he won the tournament there in Winston-Salem. I mean, the guy was just, and never could seem to get out of the second, the first week of a grand slam. That's because he played all the other tournaments, right?

Alvin Owusu (14:39.557)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (14:49.279)
And I feel like the tour has to look at it and say, yeah, but that's Isner, know, we're really, you really trying to the slams for the top. Well, you're not helping the top either. Right. And I, and I feel like they did guys like Isner disservice because he's helping to fill the seats of those smaller events. He is that local Novak, right? At the end of the day, the problem with it is, is that he has to play it both. He's mandated by the tour and he, and he can play it and he's going to win.

He's got points coming off of him last week, right? And now you penalize him because he's played all seven of your tune-ups, and now you wonder why he's going out in the third or fourth round. The guy's gassed.

Alvin Owusu (15:19.002)
He's gonna win. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (15:27.748)
Well, I mean, I'll push back on that and say like, okay, maybe there's a way to look at it. And John is extremely pragmatic, right? You hear him speak and like, he's very, he's very cerebral about like, and very purpose, purpose driven about what he's doing. So I would like to, I'd like to imagine that he looks at it like, you know, there's two ways to, there's two ways to make the All-Star game, right? You can, you can get in on singles and doubles or you can get in on home runs, right? And he is not a, he's not going to

Torrey Hawkins (15:51.317)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (15:58.637)
challenge very much over the course of a two week event, but put him at a four or five day 250 and he can bang right through that thing. And so that's a business decision at the end of the day.

Torrey Hawkins (16:01.716)
And John may be a bad example, but John is my quintessential top 10 example of a guy that makes his money to your point the rest of the year. I would submit though, and again, his long Hall of Fame, Never To Be Broken match at Wembe, three days long, came from a

Alvin Owusu (16:14.803)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (16:20.633)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (16:30.494)
place if I played all year my serves pretty good and I will not because of that have the gas and goods to go deep into a Grand Slam and I just feel like at some point I'm not leading the John Isner for know should have won Wimby one year you know a bandwagon I'm just saying the guy did it all correct to your point maybe maybe that was his decision but the tour is set up to where you have to play so much it's almost Russian roulette

Alvin Owusu (16:34.723)
Always ready.

Torrey Hawkins (17:00.391)
Do I play extra and win and do well and make money? Or do I save myself for the slams and every single players in that spot, Alvin? And I totally get your point. I'm not saying that there aren't decisions and I'm not crying for me, Argentina for the, my tour players. I do feel though, at some point if long-term it's causing a lot of players to have shorter careers. And in my opinion, that's a detriment to tennis and

I read an article about Jim Currier, I I told you about it last episode, and he was talking about how they just played everything. They played everything. And Roger Federer, he quotes in the article, was one of the first people that managed the schedule to his favor. He didn't play certain weeks. He took off certain weeks. And that's why he attributed Federer's career to be as long as it was. So that's just something I submit to you. This is from Jim Currier, and I'm not talking about John Isen.

Alvin Owusu (17:42.721)
Ian.

Alvin Owusu (17:51.689)
Let's, yeah, yeah. You know, speaking of Roger Federer, I think this is gonna kind of take us to our next point. Like that segue there, that was a pretty good one, I think. I wanted to, we were texting about this earlier and I wanna talk about Novak a little bit, right? And I texted this to you, I was like, when we're talking about Madrid, we need to make sure we talk about Novak, but I didn't tell you what I was thinking about Novak. And so,

Torrey Hawkins (18:00.434)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (18:14.418)
Yeah. Lay it on me, brother.

Alvin Owusu (18:19.181)
And so here it goes, right? And so my, my, my, my take right now is that we don't, the, the end for the greats come, comes a lot faster than we think. And I was, I had a hunch and I started, you know, doing my, doing a little bit, little bit of digging. And when you start to look at like the end of Rafa's career, right? So Rafa just retired in the flash year, right? 2024 in 2020 officially, officially, right? Yeah, officially.

Torrey Hawkins (18:42.789)
Yeah. Officially.

Alvin Owusu (18:48.004)
2022, right? Rafa is 36 years old. He opens up the year with that. He had that foot injury in of 20 of 21, comes back in 2022. like, all I'm gonna give it a try, right? Wins a warmup for Australian Open. Wins Australian Open. Wins Acapulco right after. Finals Indian Wells, right? Had a rough clay, but won Roland Garros, semifinals of Wimbledon, and then pulls out against, would have played Kyrgios, is that right? Beats Taylor, and then would have played Kyrgios, right?

Torrey Hawkins (19:14.834)
Would have played curious. Yeah. Taylor with the underhand serve, so to speak.

Alvin Owusu (19:19.492)
Exactly. Exactly. And then has a, think he loses to Francis at the U S open that year, around 16, something like that. Um, but then, yeah, but then, yeah. So case, case being he shuts it down in 2023, playing anything in 2023 besides the Australian open. Right. And then. Well, 2024, he announces his retirement. He's already, he's already done. Right. He, he won two grand slams the last year of his, his, his full time playing like.

Torrey Hawkins (19:25.616)
clearly still d***ed up

Torrey Hawkins (19:39.93)
Cricket, right?

Alvin Owusu (19:48.388)
And was was was getting the job done and then and then it hit him right same thing you you think about Fed Fed, you know, this is a little bit while ago and you have to consider that like he retired in 2021. He only he only played one tournament in 2020. Obviously it was because of because of the COVID-19, but he semi final last year that year right the year before he you know he he won Dubai final in New Wales. won Miami semi finals with little girls. He.

Torrey Hawkins (20:00.336)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (20:07.619)
COVID. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (20:18.339)
He won Holla, final Wimbledon. He was playing good tennis in 2019 and then led up to 2020 and then retired in 2021. Right. So, okay. So now we take a look at Novak, right? 2023 was an amazing year. He wins Roland-Guerras. I mean, he Australian Open, Roland-Guerras. He won, he lost to Carlos in Wimbledon. Wins the U.S. Open, right? Won Paris Masters. He won Cincy Masters. won Tour Finals. He was lights out, right? Last year, Australian Open.

Torrey Hawkins (20:18.444)
Yeah. Sure. And then. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (20:48.095)
limps into the Australian Open like this is the center I think in the semi-finals but like was pretty much cooked. Goes into French Open, gets hurt, has to pull out in the quarterfinals, right? Gets in the, comes back somehow makes the final at Wimbledon. Fantastic wins the Olympics. So now we're looking at a very interesting situation with Novak, right? Now I'm just laying out the, like what happened to his, you know, his, his

Torrey Hawkins (20:54.792)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (21:17.314)
cohort up to the time where they called it quits. It is, and I think we're watching it, and I think he's watching it, I think he knows it, that this could, oh yeah, he's not an unaware man.

Torrey Hawkins (21:17.453)
Father time is undefeated Alvin. Yeah, yeah, I think he's living it.

Torrey Hawkins (21:34.167)
I think he's living it brother. Now, I will say this. I will say this. I'm not willing to say Novak is done until Novak says he's done because I would never rule a brother out. I do think he peaked too early in Miami. He put the absolute beat down on the main man Dimitrov. And in my opinion, actually peaked a little early in that tournament, which is something any player can do. You don't know when you're going to play phenomenal. He actually played phenomenal that match.

My only problem is I haven't seen him play as well since. that before they was Joe. I'm just saying when I say played well, he played no back. Ask that match. Efficient surgical. think he missed six total serves. Alvin. Have you ever you and I might miss six serves if we're trying to get 20 in a row in the out wide corner. I mean six he missed six serves album and a two out of three match and a semi of a

Alvin Owusu (22:07.435)
Or before, really. mean, well, he played well in He played well in Australia. Yeah, Meet Carlos and all deal.

Alvin Owusu (22:27.873)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:31.731)
ATP 1000. Think about what saying. That's, that's surgical. That's precise. Now I'm only saying he started to look like the old Novak for a small brief period of time. I had almost because of Australia ruled him out and he came back and he looked as sharp as he ever did. And I was like, man, Novak is looking sharp. I think on this podcast, I might've even said, Hey, watch out for Novak. He's still a threat. Novak has not looked that good since that match.

Now he's dinged up. He's got some injuries again. It's 37 years old. I get it. We did it. We did an episode on age on this podcast. I am not going to rule Novak Djokovic out until he rules himself out. However, however, I have not seen that level of tennis from him since. And there is blood in the water, both from this tournament and Madrid, as well as others. And I just don't know, Alvin, I just don't know to your point.

Alvin Owusu (23:06.582)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:14.477)
That's fair. That's fair.

Torrey Hawkins (23:28.712)
I'll give you another one in there Alvin as I finish my point. To your point, the drop off was very quick and unknown. Pete Sampras Alvin also had a quick resurgence in 02 when he won his last slam and snuck out the back door before father time robbed him of a very unsightly career end. And he was able to go out on top in 02 when he won US Open. But toward the end,

Alvin Owusu (23:35.465)
It's quick. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:55.531)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (23:57.416)
not 1990, in 2002, he would have, in my opinion, suffered a very similar low end drop off, right? Falling off the cliff, which is really what you're describing. You're saying they played well until they didn't. And then it dropped off fairly quickly. And I think that's something happened to Pete Samuelson, 0-2. He wouldn't have done well in 0-3. He barely won in 0-2, to be honest.

Alvin Owusu (24:06.721)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (24:13.313)
Right. And it's, the, uh, right. Yeah. He was, he was not playing well all of 2002. mean, he could have, probably could have retired in 2001 if he wanted to. But, um, I think that, I think the kicker is, yeah, I got that, you got the slam. We'll give it to him. Um, I think the kicker is it's not the ability to get to the same heights, right? These guys can all hit their peak. Like, and we know this is, you know, aging athletes. Like I can, I can look good.

Torrey Hawkins (24:26.441)
100%. And they should have.

Torrey Hawkins (24:32.392)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (24:43.531)
tomorrow. I can look as good as I ever did tomorrow, but I can't do it again on Tuesday. And then I get on Thursday. Like that's the that's what it is. It's the ability that and that's what tennis and specifically Grand Slams require of you right to do it and then come back and do it again for two weeks. And yeah, that's that's the that's the tough part, right? But that's also the

Torrey Hawkins (24:56.019)
right?

And again, and again. We're seeing it with LeBron, with the Lakers. We're seeing it with other players in other sports. We're seeing it with some of the top players in golf. mean, the top guys just don't have it day in, day out. And how could they? You know what I'm saying? So I think that's my point, Alvin. And I think that you're on something. I think what I'm taking from what you're saying is that

Alvin Owusu (25:06.556)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (25:27.046)
He may have already hit that point.

Alvin Owusu (25:29.855)
Do you think, do you think, do you think he, right now, because he just pulled out of Rome, right, he's not gonna play Rome, do you think he's got a tournament scheduled that that's the last one? Because in my head, I think he does. I think he does. I'll say it out loud, I think I.

Torrey Hawkins (25:35.336)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (25:47.42)
When you say it, when you say he has a plan, like as if that's his last last

Alvin Owusu (25:51.359)
Like he knows when he's done and he knows what the tournament's gonna be and I think it's sooner than anyone thinks it is.

Torrey Hawkins (25:57.307)
See, I disagree with that. Here's why I push back. He is so confident in himself and his work ethic that he knows on any given day, I'm better than any of you on your bad day. Even at my age, even dinged up, you're have play phenomenal to beat me. And if you're phenomenal, you're gonna have to play good to beat me. I think he still thinks that there's a chance that a Sarundalo, that a...

that a rude will take out one of his competition and give him a easier route to the semi slash final. That's what I think he's playing for. And that's the only thing he's playing for in my opinion.

Alvin Owusu (26:35.264)
Well, yeah, but the kicker that, but he had for him to be in a position to take advantage of that though, he needs to be ranked high enough, which means he needs to do well in the other events. He's putting himself in a position, not putting himself in a position. He's not doing it by choice, right? But like by, you know, the results that he's putting up so far in the tournaments, he's not playing that ranking is going to continue to slip and rankings, rankings make seedings.

Torrey Hawkins (26:48.336)
Sure. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (27:00.848)
Sure. Points defended, gone? Sure.

Alvin Owusu (27:02.944)
Yeah, rankings make seedings and seedings make draws. that's, like, now we're talking about, he end up with like, with a, like a Carlos or a center in the third round and you can't like, what do you do about that? Can you do anything about that? Yeah. Now do you need to go, do you need to go like, you have to go through center and then go through like Rude and then play Zverev and the like, or like something like that. Like it's like, now you're, now it's making the whole, I just want to win slams a lot more difficult.

Torrey Hawkins (27:12.559)
draw.

Torrey Hawkins (27:27.045)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (27:32.677)
And at that point in time, I think if he takes some of those L's at that point to your point, I feel like, and yeah, we know Novak. Novak's going to work the system. He's going to pull a wild card. He's going to pull out. He's going to do whatever he needs to do to try to compete and be relevant. I would say to you, this French would be one of the first times, sorry, second time. I think it happened in Australia. This would be one of the second times it's happened to him where he's

fully faced with.

mortality and now tennis mortality and that I am at the waning days, not months, not years, waning days of my career. And I'll be honest, Alvin, you know, I saw Serena go through it just a few years ago. I saw Rafa go through it a few years ago. I saw Roger go through it a few years ago. It's a very sad time. You know what I mean? But it...

Alvin Owusu (28:29.683)
Nothing sadder than seeing Roger Federer walk off center court Wimbledon, taking a bagel from friggin' Hubie Hurcatz as his last professional tennis match. That image is seared into my brain and he deserves better than that.

Torrey Hawkins (28:38.101)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (28:44.91)
And he should have. And to my point, talking about my main man, talking about my main man Pete, I thought Pete was so, so smart by ending it on a high note. I think Pete kind of knew, yeah, it might be done. You know what I mean? And at that point, did this thing, but you can't tell one of the greats that he is no longer great. I remember watching a TNT

Alvin Owusu (28:59.369)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (29:13.843)
episode one night and Kennedy Jett Smith said, you can't tell me that I can't make that jump. I've made too many of them over my career. So what you need is you need a point guard that's smart enough to not give me the ball when I'm in a slump. And I thought it was a great comment. He says, because if you give me the ball, I'm shooting the ball. I know I'll make that shot. I don't care if I'm off rate. I'll make the next one. And his point was

Alvin Owusu (29:30.377)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (29:34.014)
I'm gonna shoot it.

Alvin Owusu (29:39.88)
So.

Torrey Hawkins (29:41.462)
The point guard has to be smart enough to know that I'm gonna take the shot. So don't give it to him because he'll take the shot.

Alvin Owusu (29:45.49)
Well, unfortunately, Novak is the point guard. He's the shooter. He's also the center and the coach. He also owns the Okay. So here's my, okay. So this is what I think because your point about Pete Sampras is very like in tune with where I'm going here. I think Novak ain't out here to be like Grigor and like Monfils and like Stan, right? He's not going to just like.

Torrey Hawkins (29:50.978)
and the center and the coach, right?

Alvin Owusu (30:13.993)
play the hits, you know, getting in on wild cards or like hanging on, trying to make top 20 or whatever. He's here for the slams and that's it. He's plenty of things to do in his life outside of playing tennis. like, you know, I feel like this is gonna be a little wild, but you know, I'm dangerous. I don't think he's gonna play Roland Garros. I think he's actually gonna pull out. Wait, it gets better. It gets better. I think it's Wimby and out.

Torrey Hawkins (30:20.544)
He's here for slaps.

Torrey Hawkins (30:32.992)
You gotta be kidding. You're out of your mind. Okay, talk to me.

Torrey Hawkins (30:41.214)
Do you think no French or Mwemby it out?

Alvin Owusu (30:43.1)
I think it, no, no, I think no, no French. I think he plays Wimbledon and he retires. Like I think we're, I think we're, I just don't feel like he actually cares that much. And of the tournaments that mean the most to him, I think it's Wimbledon. And because also because he can, he got to the finals one little on one leg last year, right? It's not as taxing as the rest of them. He hasn't.

Torrey Hawkins (31:07.978)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (31:11.198)
He can't seem to get himself through a Grand Slam right now. He pulled out against Zverev in the semifinals of Australia, right? Last year...

Torrey Hawkins (31:20.856)
But he pulls out because he can, you know what I mean? And let's face it, that match, he was hurt. I I think we all understand he was hurt, right? He would have pulled out five years ago if he was that hurt.

Alvin Owusu (31:27.422)
Sure, yeah, yeah, but that's gonna happen. That's what's gonna happen if you're in your sixth match in 12 days. Like that's on hardcore in the summer, right? Yeah, exactly, exactly. hey, they're all three out of five sets and they're all two weeks long. But Wimbledon's the one that hurts the least. And he could old man his way like post-up game against these kids on grass. Like he just gotta push them around a little bit. exactly. Exactly, yeah, just a little bit hair.

Torrey Hawkins (31:35.276)
and you're 37.

Torrey Hawkins (31:43.091)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (31:49.266)
Yeah. Moses Malone. Lean in.

Alvin Owusu (31:57.189)
Yeah, he got there. He got to the finals on one leg last year and Carlos had to play like lights out to just be an administrator. So like I said, that's it's a wild. It's wild. It's a wild assertion. I understand.

Torrey Hawkins (32:05.946)
I like where you're going with it because you're throwing it out there. I think that is next year's Australian. I'm not too far off from where you are. I just think it's next year's Australian. He's one of the greats. I think he's going to want that one of the greats farewell tour a little bit. Australia was his first. I think he'll want Australia to be his last. I agree with you. I don't think he'll play many, no, French's after this, but he's got to give this one a shot. That's why he's trying to kind of double down.

and pull out so we can be ready for the French. Wimby to your point, I agree. He's won the US Open recently, Alvin. And so in my mind, I think he's still thinking, yeah, but if you two just so happen to run into somebody and he's actually quietly hoping that Jakub Mensik, Ben Shelton, right? Somebody will come through and bring the L like he needs, right? They will take care of that one round he needs to move through and get the matchup he wants. And he plays D-Minar.

Allen, if he plays Tommy Paul, I mean, let's face it, he would prefer that matchup to a long grueling, you know, a center, a, and I'm not going to say Yaka, Miss Xeniz, around. I'm saying though there are better rounds for him depending on the, on the matchup. And I feel like as a result of his want to prove himself in number 25, much like Serena did her last couple of years, right? She kept going for number 20, was it 24? She kept going for that.

Alvin Owusu (33:30.62)
24 yeah

Torrey Hawkins (33:31.803)
Kept trying to go for that one. I just feel like he will go through the rest of this year. And I think that he will start to get the picture that I'm a little bit dinged up. I'm a little bit a step slow and I'm a little bit not ready to play these things year in, year out. And I really want to spend more time with my family. And I don't have a I agree with you on the point about he doesn't have a chance to win. He's not going to hang around. But I think he, knowing the way, knowing how hard he works and how much he feels his body's a machine.

He will not admit that that soon.

Alvin Owusu (34:02.372)
Right, but that's the difference between him and Serena though, because Serena was getting two finals of Grand Slams. Like right now we're in the midst of Novak not being able to get through tournaments. So that's, and losing in the first round of these other offhand events. that's the difference. And I think that's also like, you know, we talk about Serena a lot and then, you know, I think we talk about her as much as we should. But like when she was going for that record breaking slam, she did get to the finals of Wimbledon. Elusta lost to Halep who played the best match of her life, right?

Torrey Hawkins (34:11.461)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (34:27.585)
Sure. Amazing that match for sure. Lost to Naomi. Yeah. Who played phenomenal that match? Sure.

Alvin Owusu (34:31.984)
Well, gets to the finals of the, U at Las Naomi at the U.S. Open, lost to Bianca Andreescu who played amazing as well. these women all like played the matches of their lives, but it was in the final. She wasn't there. She was still there. Like, okay, we'll see with Novak. I don't want to spend too much time on him. want make sure we talk a little bit about the, it's.

Torrey Hawkins (34:44.611)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, but it's a good point though. And I like how bold you're coming out. I like it. I just don't think it's assumed. I don't disagree. Maybe we disagree on the timetable, but I don't disagree in general.

Alvin Owusu (35:00.508)
Yeah, July, July is aggressive. July is aggressive, I know that. But I feel like if he were to win it, it might change depending on if he wins it or not. If he wins it, if he wins it, I definitely think he's out. If he wins Wimbledon, I feel like he wants to win, go out on top, call it good. Let's, yeah, let's move into, I wanna talk a little bit about the, maybe a little bit about the final or the men's half of Madrid.

Torrey Hawkins (35:07.272)
Yeah, a little two years from now.

Torrey Hawkins (35:15.529)
for sure. 25 and out, for sure.

Alvin Owusu (35:27.224)
it I think this is a really you know before talking about the final this is I think this was really indicative of like where we're going to be and then send us over the next few years like you get a little bit of like okay Carlos isn't here Yannick's in here the other top seeds lose early and you get these random they feel like random finals but like someone's got to play these finals and we don't have these these guys who are

Torrey Hawkins (35:40.494)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (35:51.033)
We've only had four of them, Alvin. India Wells was rando to me, you know what I mean? But Deception and Novak, Jakub Minsky was a rando, you know what I mean? And Miami, I know what you're saying. First of all, hats off to Caspar Roode and hats off to, hey, you heard it right here, hats off to Jack Draper, who has never a clay court specialist.

Alvin Owusu (36:01.728)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (36:10.491)
I got a layout for Draper in a minute. Casper getting right at the right time.

Torrey Hawkins (36:15.169)
Right, I mean, I gotta say it, hats off for sure. And I thought he had, I thought he kind of had a little bit of a shot of a, just kind of had a rando week at, you know, in Indian Wells. Knew he played some good tennis, took him wrong. But hats off to the kid for proving himself on Good on Clay. We talked about Ben Sheldon a few weeks back about how he's starting to push himself on clay and make himself be a force to be reckoned with on the clay. Jack Draper just.

beat a couple of good clay quarters along the way to get to this darn final. So hats off to him and not cubby holding himself as just a hardcore player. Caspar Rood has won 12 of his 13 titles on clay. If anything, was happy to see Caspar Rood return to his good form. Oh, very worried.

Alvin Owusu (36:45.229)
Yeah, he did.

Alvin Owusu (36:56.036)
Yeah, that's what he does.

Alvin Owusu (37:02.414)
We were worried about him a little bit. We did talk about him as he was on notice. I think he, I appreciate Casper. Obviously he listens to the podcast and he's like, yeah, you're right. I am on notice and got him, got himself off the, yeah, good guy. Great guy. Great guy. But yeah, it was good to see like that final was very interesting. was like the one player Jack Draper obviously has the higher ceiling. You can see the stuff.

Torrey Hawkins (37:07.436)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (37:13.463)
He sent me a text last week. I had to talk with him.

Torrey Hawkins (37:23.563)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (37:30.104)
The Casper just kind of weathered that storm. Like, I mean, the way that, the way that he fought Jack off, Jack serving one five four first set, like no one's touching his. Yeah. Yeah. And he's serving. So he's serving Jack seven five four of a break. to get that first set. He's getting through service games pretty easily. And then like one little hiccup, boom, break Casper hold Casper break, walked off that first set. Like, gotcha. Like, don't, yep. Don't, don't blink. I'm here.

Torrey Hawkins (37:36.425)
right i want to say it was down 401 was he not then it came back five four yeah

Torrey Hawkins (37:55.895)
threw the balls out of his pocket.

Alvin Owusu (37:59.859)
and I think it was just a matter of like, you know, yeah, one player has got a higher, maybe a higher ceiling. Obviously younger has a little more in front of them, but Casper's a pro, especially on clay. He's not, you're not going to get, not going to shake him. and he just kind of weathered the storm, weathered the storm. And then like he let, you know, Jack got a little tired towards the back end, but a lot of that has to do with like the way Casper played. And I thought it was a very interesting, interesting matchup that really came down to like, could Casper create enough, enough depth on the forehand cross court.

Torrey Hawkins (38:08.043)
That was a pro. No. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (38:19.69)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (38:29.294)
to keep Jack from really leaning in on it. And was like, was so fun to watch, like that little battle within the battle.

Torrey Hawkins (38:35.958)
Yep. Well, I will, I will add to that and take a brief trip to Coach's Corner. Any right-hander that's playing a lefty should watch Casper Ruud's match against Jack Draper because he not only attacked the backhand, found ways to go back behind with the backhand.

but he stung him enough times down the line to keep him honest to open up the backhand the next time. And I felt like the occasional dropper, the hook forehand on the righty, which is almost always a lefty pattern, the hook forehand out wide that had Jack slicing and moving the ball back to his forehand, he went one more back to the backhand and Jack's got a decent backhand. Don't get me wrong, very solid. So.

Alvin Owusu (39:21.838)
Jack's got a fantastic backhand.

Torrey Hawkins (39:24.164)
in reading one and watching one of the YouTube broadcasts, Jack's right-handed, of course. And so there one more time, another Ralpha situation where you realize these guys are lefties by choice. Still something I gotta get my head around, but bottom line, the guy's backhand is all day. So, but not as big as the forehand. And unfortunately for him today, on clay, that forehand bite is a little bit off. The serve bites a little bit off because on clay and Casper is a phenomenal returner.

Alvin Owusu (39:28.952)
He's right-handed, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (39:52.785)
So I felt what he did today was he played textbook, how you beat a lefty tennis. I don't know. I don't know if he'd be able to do it on hardcore, but he did it today on the clay. He played up in the court. He got the balls wider, sometimes even shorter than the normal and pulled them out wide. He stung him when he needed to. And bottom line, he broke it when he needed to, which is, know, which is no small feat. And I say hats off to Caspar Root for adding his first 1000 master series title element.

Alvin Owusu (40:03.681)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (40:16.983)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (40:21.185)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's almost like I'll take the other side of that one because I am, you know this, maybe the listeners do know this as well, but I am left-handed and I have taught lefties and it's one of my favorite things to do is teach other left-handed players because there are some things that lefties are allowed to get away with just because of the matchup between what happens on the ad axis of the court, right? And kind of maybe big general,

Torrey Hawkins (40:35.283)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (40:41.105)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (40:45.255)
Right. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (40:50.253)
general terms, like you can only do so much with a really good backhand, right? Having a really good backhand, it can be a really, really good shield. It's very hard to make a backhand weapon just because of physics, right? You can't really hook a backhand and open up the court. So I'll say for, exactly, exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (40:54.483)
Right. Sure.

Right, right. Can't go buggy left backhand. Can't go open stance rip buggy. Serena was the closest thing to it with her open stance swing.

Alvin Owusu (41:11.359)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So like with the lefties, like with the lefties and I had, had one girl that I used to teach that we would do this drill over and over and over. It's like the lefty, when you get into that ad court rally where you want to be cross court, lefty hook to a traditionally a back righty's backhand, right? Eventually you're going to get a ball in the middle of the court, right? That's ideal, right? Are you aware enough and fast enough?

Torrey Hawkins (41:29.265)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (41:40.204)
Right. Yup. Yup. Bread and butter. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (41:40.248)
to come into the middle of that court, take that backhand, lean on it and rip it cross-court. And then camp out in the middle of the court, slightly over to the deuce court, and then go maybe inside out, inside in, work that pattern from there, right? So that's the bread and butter for a lefty. Not everyone has the backhand to do it. Jack is interesting in that he has the backhand to do it. He rips the piss out of that middle court backhand and does it with conviction. But Jack's forehand wasn't

Torrey Hawkins (42:00.315)
Correct. Yep. Yep. Right, or big enough. Right, yep.

Alvin Owusu (42:10.044)
always, always tough enough to create that shot for him. Not to mention, big enough, right. Yeah, and not to mention his foot speed was, he would get a little noncommittal, if we will, stepping up to that ball, because the fitness wasn't necessarily there. But fitness is there, belief in the forehand is there. And so I've seen him do it repeatedly, and it's like, he's got it, he's got it. And so that's why I was saying the matchup between

Torrey Hawkins (42:21.625)
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (42:29.104)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (42:38.743)
between Casper being able to get enough depth on that forehand to not let Jack step in. Because Jack takes that short backswing and he plants that left leg and will just tee off on that backhand. But he can't do it if you're getting that back and that forehand lots of spin within like, let's say 24, 18 inches on the baseline. And you started to see Casper pick up the RPM, pick up the depth and not let Jack step in.

Torrey Hawkins (42:41.009)
Yeah.

Right. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (42:58.969)
Yep. Over set.

pick up the RPMs and I will add to it, I saw several points where he actually went wide first and not deep first. So that stretched Jack. And then when he went back to the ball, then he went behind him deep. While Jack's looking to cover forehand, now he's gotta take a kind of a shovel backhand at the body. And now...

Alvin Owusu (43:12.49)
Right, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (43:29.845)
Unfortunately for him, Caspar Rude has the downline rip or the back or the hook angle back. And I just say it was a tactical matchup. It was very surgical. I was happy to see Caspar Rude come through this match. It elated to see Jack Draper who's going to have a lot more years at this, at tennis now that he's proven himself to be a very sure-footed clay court player. And I really liked the work he's putting in off. And I got to tell you, I mean, I look at this about five players that are really starting to surprise me right now.

Alvin Owusu (43:52.886)
Yeah, man. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (43:58.105)
Y'all convincing out another good tournament this this tournament, know, very so Rundalow had a great tournament this tournament so many guys that I'm looking at I'm like man, you know what these guys are starting to show some show some social potential y'all Fonseca lost a six and six, you know a very close match in the round of the third round starting to get some legs under I just like what I'm seeing I'm really appreciating the level that I'm watching from these guys and I got to be honest, you know, it's

While I'm looking at the lack of seeds, where did Zverev go? Of he lost the Serenello. Where did Fritz go?

Alvin Owusu (44:32.536)
Serendale owns him. I think he's like 3-0 or 4-0 against Merrill. He owns him.

Torrey Hawkins (44:35.117)
Well, just saying. Obviously Novak lost, I think in the fourth round, Tarzan Aldi, Demon R lost in the quarters. This could have been a good tournament for Alex. Medvedev lost in the quarters, of he lost to Ruud. But I'm saying, you're starting to look at some players that you're like, where were the top guys here in this tournament? Number one, number three, number four, number six, number nine. All of them didn't equal their seedings. So just saying.

Alvin Owusu (44:55.947)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (45:03.368)
It's a now again to your point part of that's peak part of that's the long schedule.

Alvin Owusu (45:06.486)
Well, it's also some of it's Madrid too. Like Madrid is not necessarily like an indicator for like Roland Garros success, right? I think, well, I think just because of the altitude, it plays so much differently than all the other clay court events. I'm like, I'm willing to not think too much about it as far as like, what does it mean for like, you know, as we approach Paris, but still they all play it in the same conditions, right? Yeah, It's still, exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (45:13.001)
for sure.

Torrey Hawkins (45:28.736)
But still, it's the the balls on the same sides, Alvin, the same altitude, you know what mean? Let's be honest. So I only say it, Alvin, to say these are players that have not won much yet this year. Jack Draper did win in the New Wales, you know what mean? So I'm looking at that to say Yaka Mitzi did win, you know, Miami. So you're looking at these players, you know, if I'm an Andrei Hrubolev, I'm a Daniel Medvedev, if I'm a Taylor Fritz, if I'm a few others, not mind you, same reason Miami is not bad result for Taylor.

I'm just looking at at some point I'm playing good enough but am I playing good enough to really break out and have a nice match. Jack Draper comes in from this tournament saying I got a shot. I got a shot in the French. You I don't know if Taylor Fritz says the same thing to himself. I don't know if I don't know if Andrei Rubalev or Daniel Medvedev says I'm playing well right now going in the French. I'm good.

Alvin Owusu (46:21.431)
Right, and I wanna stop short of saying that I feel like Jack Draper has a chance at the French. I don't necessarily believe that. doesn't, there are, as well as he did this week, he still, his movement on Clay is still a little suspect. He doesn't really, yeah, but, yeah, but he did find all the event. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (46:27.466)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (46:34.57)
That has a long way to go for for Brent. Let's be honest. But but but enough to believe that he belongs there and he won't just cause a gluseck. My question, my point more Alvin is this. Alex grew up on clay, right? Danielle is pretty good on clay. You know, these are players Taylor Fritz isn't terrible. Demon R is a grinder and a counterpunisher by trade. I am saying the opposite perhaps.

I am worried about the guys that are typically well-footed that did not get as far along in this tournament as I would have expected Tommy Paul, right? I don't expect Ben Shelton to get to the finals of an ATP 1000 on clay, least not right now. I expected that on the hardcore. So if he went, if he got bounced third round, I'd be like, ooh, weird. You know what mean? But Demon R? I don't know. You know what I'm saying? So I can say that to say Tommy Paul got

Alvin Owusu (47:27.094)
That's fair. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (47:32.488)
Tommy Paul got blasted. Wasn't it a one on one? I mean, or two on two? I mean, I'm just saying. And by, right? By Jack Draper. So I'm just looking at that to say, you're talking about a guy who's not well-footed, and yet he takes out a guy who was one of the quickest guys to come out of US in a long time. And I'm like, know, Tommy Paul moves great. Not well, great. He's very sure foot and plays well on the clay. That's what I'm getting at.

Alvin Owusu (47:36.17)
Hey, Ca- Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (48:01.479)
And you're going out to not sure foot. That's what I'm saying. It's not like he went out to a clay court grinder. He didn't go out to, you know, he didn't go out to Carlos. You know what mean? Anyway, moving on.

Alvin Owusu (48:01.748)
I hear you.

Alvin Owusu (48:11.007)
That's fair, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll move on. Actually, let's take a little break. We'll come back and we'll start tackling the women's side. I'm gonna talk about EECA a little bit and we'll, yeah, let's do that.

Torrey Hawkins (48:19.196)
Done.

Alvin Owusu (48:38.799)
take break.

Torrey Hawkins (48:39.303)
You're louder with the headphones. And not in a bad way. I'm like, wow. You were almost not distant. I don't know how I sound, by the way. But when you put those on, I'm like, wow. That was noticeably more audible. And more resonant, if that's a term.

Alvin Owusu (48:43.048)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (49:01.057)
Interesting, interesting. Okay, well, I'm still trying to work things out. I wasn't getting the plugins right earlier and I'm still...

Torrey Hawkins (49:08.874)
I just, the only thing I'm saying, I noticed the difference. It had nothing to do with the quality being bad on the previous. It just, it was, it was almost like you were, were right into the mic. Like it was like, right, like, oh wow. Solid. With the headphones.

Alvin Owusu (49:14.604)
Interesting.

Alvin Owusu (49:19.131)
So what I'm worried about is if I'm gonna pick up double mic, because I'm not sure if my AirPods are blocking out the mic, but I feel like it's happening. Like if I do this, let me see, if I go.

Torrey Hawkins (49:28.091)
Got it.

Torrey Hawkins (49:32.325)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (49:42.905)
Yeah, I see your point. Yeah, that last clap, that last snap wasn't you.

Alvin Owusu (49:47.258)
Top, top, top, top, top.

Even if I back up, like...

way over here, is this thing even still picking up? So like, can you hear me fairly clearly right now?

Torrey Hawkins (50:00.431)
just as you were sitting in the chair.

Alvin Owusu (50:05.391)
same as if I'm sitting right here.

Alvin Owusu (50:09.996)
this.

Alvin Owusu (50:13.486)
What about now?

Torrey Hawkins (50:17.111)
I almost see a little bit of delay. I see your lips moving, you stop and then I heard the sound.

Alvin Owusu (50:26.746)
Okay, well, I know.

Torrey Hawkins (50:28.357)
I hear it like it was before.

Alvin Owusu (50:33.303)
well, we'll see.

Torrey Hawkins (50:34.53)
And that right there sounds like you're Barry White, like Resonance, Great, Clear.

Alvin Owusu (50:40.962)
yeah. Okay, so maybe we'll just do this. Maybe I'll, we're gonna try a few things.

Torrey Hawkins (50:42.917)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (50:46.627)
Like right now, you are as clear as you've been all night. mean, clearer than with the headphones.

Alvin Owusu (50:52.404)
Okay, okay, that's good then. Well, we're going to just...

Torrey Hawkins (50:55.117)
Right there, right there, it's velvety, velvety smooth like my Nespresso coffee in the morning. mean, just like.

Alvin Owusu (51:02.121)
Okay, well we're just gonna hope then. We're gonna hope that it all picks up and it's all good. And I think it's going to be. Okay, so we're gonna jump back in. I'm not gonna do like a welcome or anything. We're just gonna jump back in. I'm gonna edit out all this stuff.

Torrey Hawkins (51:07.871)
Hahaha!

Torrey Hawkins (51:14.616)
Done. Eager. Oof. Eager? We talking Eager?

Alvin Owusu (51:22.338)
Okay, and we're back. So moving over to the women's side, I think the thing that we're both probably wanna dig into, right, the Iga situation, right? We got some kind of problems, right? So right now, so Iga loses in the semifinals to Coco, right? And Coco has like oddly been beaten up on Iga lately. Like this is third win in a row after being

0-11 against Iga, right? So, yeah, but now she's got three wins in a row on the trot. So that is, I don't know, we'll talk about Coco a little bit later, but with Iga, she's been, Iga's all over the place right now, right? Takes a bagel set to Madison Keys before riding the ship and getting through that match. Coco beats her one and one.

Torrey Hawkins (52:18.702)
Going away.

Alvin Owusu (52:19.969)
Yeah, was weird. could kind of, not only use the word weird, but you could see that she was, both her confidence and her forehand were all over the place, right? She looks like a player who's searching for something.

Torrey Hawkins (52:33.153)
Yep. Yep. I would even say her serve Alvin. Her serve looked like it was a pinata up there, man. Her second serve looked like it was all grunt, no bite. And, and Coco, hats off to Coco, first of all, but we'll talk about her in a second. It did not seem like Ega had a solution and I don't necessarily, she didn't attack the returns like she's used to. She didn't.

Alvin Owusu (53:00.425)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (53:01.896)
I didn't see her get into many backhand matchups, which she knows she'd prefer. Mind you, Coco's got a good backhand as well, but I did not see typical attack every ball down the middle, center shots, on the rise balls, take backhands off the court. I didn't see a ton of backhand angles. She did have her fair share of decent passes, but ironically, Alvin, she came in about seven, eight times and got passed like she was standing still. And so I'm looking at this, right, which is weird.

Alvin Owusu (53:22.443)
came in a lot.

Alvin Owusu (53:26.09)
She came in looking like she didn't wanna stay back. Very strange.

Torrey Hawkins (53:29.928)
And then she came in and didn't volley well. I'm like, it just didn't see, it seemed like she was looking for a way to beat a player who she's beaten before. She did not look number one-esque is my issue. What was your, what do you think is, is not just the problem, but what do you think was her mindset? Because to me, it looked like a player who's doubting themselves.

who doesn't know how to win in matches like this when players are actually coming at her.

Alvin Owusu (54:04.934)
Right, I think that last part is the kicker, right? We'll even put the crown on Panko's head for showing the blueprint of like, this is how you consistently beat Eega Swiatek. Right, and Panko does it by relentlessly attacking the second serve and then jumping on Eega before she jumps on you. And with Coco, right,

Torrey Hawkins (54:29.376)
Yep. Which used to be Eka's trademark, by the way.

Alvin Owusu (54:33.778)
And Ego used to do it with the hat down, moving a million miles an hour, Yeah, just having this air of this super intense, more or less, kid. But now it's like people believe that they can beat her. And it only takes, let me get a look at a few second serves. Let me weather whatever the storm is gonna be in the first, when she comes out full of energy, I'll just fight through that and then I'm gonna start going after her, which is very...

Torrey Hawkins (54:51.709)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (55:01.906)
interesting in that a lot of people talk about, know, Coco's issues with the serve and the forehand, which are two things that you would use to go after someone. But yet Coco has been able to put it together this week in that technically her forehand doesn't look any different. She's hitting it with more intention, I believe. her feet.

Torrey Hawkins (55:11.312)
Right? And more free. She hit, if you look at Coco's two matches between Iga and Arena, it was two different players. Coco's forehand against Iga was like, watch this.

Alvin Owusu (55:26.621)
Yeah, she just like.

Alvin Owusu (55:38.047)
Well, it's like, it's like Egon's ball like sits like, it's weird. it's like the, it's like the clay court in Madrid is like a slow, hard court. It's like, it's just fast enough for you to have some rhythm, but it sits just enough for her to like hit that open stance that she wants to hit, like load that right leg and then just rip from the hips. Like Coco's not too good when she has to like step in and like really force the issue with it. But if she has time to hit the open stance and like,

Torrey Hawkins (55:46.428)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (55:54.93)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (56:01.32)
Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (56:07.229)
And she tagged it cross, she tagged it line, she came in, hey Alvin had some good volleys. I mean played well from the net. I was like wow, Coco's improved. And I will say this, Paula Badoza went to Coco's forehand. Iga tried and Iga got torched doing so, which I'm left with two things Alvin.

Alvin Owusu (56:07.492)
use your pace, it's almost like Igga's ball sits right where she needs it to be.

Alvin Owusu (56:15.609)
my god.

Alvin Owusu (56:23.283)
Yeah, and he was, he just.

Alvin Owusu (56:30.238)
Yeah, but she didn't!

Torrey Hawkins (56:36.11)
Either Ega's ball sits up to your point so much that it's hittable or Arena's ball is that much bigger than we all understand. I don't know which camp I'm on yet. I can't think that Arena's ball is 20 miles an hour faster. I could give you 10, maybe eight, which is significant by the way at that level. But I got to think that Ega's ball is that much more user friendly.

She's like an iPhone. It's hey, all you gotta do is do this. And my point being, Coco recently has had issues with other players attacking her forehand. So how is it that she one-on-ones Iga on the clay, and Iga's pretty good on clay. How is it she one-on-ones Iga on the clay and goes through her with her forehand?

Alvin Owusu (57:29.032)
So, okay, so I'm gonna get a little, it's kind of technical, right? I think it's kind of technical. You look at Badosa, you look at Iga, you look at Arena, right? So Badosa doesn't hit the biggest ball in the world, right? And she was going to that forehand, this is Australian open, we're probably referencing here, right? She's going to that forehand more so like, try to make it. Just try to make it. I'm not gonna try to hurt you, I'm just gonna make you hit it a bunch of times.

Torrey Hawkins (57:48.858)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (57:58.984)
See, just, it's going over there, deal with it, right? But that's a different proposition, especially since a lot of Coco's problems come from that extreme grip, right? You're talking about a ball that's not coming up very high, and now you're using a damn near Western trying to get underneath it, right? It's a little bit of a different proposition. And I mentioned the grip part because Ega hits a heavy topspin ball, right? Now it's, and Ega's not like...

Torrey Hawkins (58:16.153)
Sure. Matches well with. 100%. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (58:26.086)
She ain't out here trying to draw air. She's out here trying to go through you. But she's trying to go through you with a heavy topspin ball. That's actually the one that Coco's forehand is built to. It's actually, she can handle that one. yeah. Open up, open up the stance. Let that grip slide underneath and throw it, right? Throw it down the line too. Like change directions. It's a.

Torrey Hawkins (58:43.705)
throw it. She hits so many good down the lines which is not easy for that grip and that stance. Alvin went there constantly. I mean she probably had 10 errors down the line. 10 winners down the line.

Alvin Owusu (58:48.849)
So many.

Alvin Owusu (58:57.15)
But it's on the open, but they were all off the open stance though. feel like she, there's something about like getting on the outside foot.

Torrey Hawkins (59:01.201)
No question. But Ega's fast and she went through her on the clay. I'm with you. But I'm not, I'm saying she found pace off of that ball, found the groove. I get your point about the groove and the way the ball sits up. I think that's well said. But we're talking about clay, one of the fastest girls on the tour and she went through her with clean winners down the line. I'm just saying Ega hugs the baseline like no other. It's not like she's gotten slower. I just wonder has her ball.

gotten slower and that's my only issue and I know the serve did it looked like it but to your point about maybe a little out too maybe a little clay I don't know but what I will say is it did not look like herself I'm worried about her in some ways I feel like she has of all the players in the top five she has been the one most missing in action from top form probably since last year US Open and I feel like

Alvin Owusu (59:32.07)
Maybe.

Torrey Hawkins (59:55.179)
Who did she play, Alvin? What tournament was that that she played Emma Navarro and she put the beat down on Navarro? Was that US or was that Australia? US last year, right? Last US. And I mean, think Emma was trying to get games at the end. Wasn't that the tournament? Like it was 6-1, 5-1, and Emma was trying to salvage out a couple of prior games out of it. But my point being, this was US Open last year. Alvin, this is just now May. They were not.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:00.926)
I think it was the US Open last year. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:14.026)
Yeah, I think so. I'll to go back and double check that, but I think so.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:20.583)
Well, I mean, if you look at it though, like Ega, okay, last year Ega had a pretty good year, right? She, like in this lead up between beginning of the year and now, right? She wins, she won Rome, she won Madrid, Indian Wells, Doha, right? She ripped off a bunch of 1000s and then won Roland Garros, right? She has not finaled a tournament since Roland Garros last year. That's wild, that's wild.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:31.967)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:41.58)
Yup. Yup.

Right? Sense. Yup. And she's, she's over. She's over. That's tough. I'll tell you what I'm taking from it. Blood in the water. I told you on a few episodes back, Alvin, you don't want people saying you're playing well right now, because that means it's okay to lose to you. Here's the opposite of that concept.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:48.412)
She's usually winning somewhere between five and seven, eight events a year up to this year. Now she has not made a final in 11 months. So what are we taking from that?

Alvin Owusu (01:01:03.93)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:15.796)
She's not playing well right now. She's not feeling the ball well, or here's the worst one. And this is a funny one.

she's having some trouble on the forehand side or or and here's here's it's here's his compatriot she's beatable right now and she's beatable right now basically is saying she don't believe she can win everybody knows how to beat her and number three this is the best time to play egos friante and that to me bodes

Alvin Owusu (01:01:30.022)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:53.705)
Horrible for a top player who's everybody's next big win because in this window right now does she change some things? She will continue to have more blood in the water

Alvin Owusu (01:02:03.878)
And especially when the coming over to the European clay has always been known as her like safe space, right? Like forget what happens from Australia all the way through Miami. It doesn't, the party doesn't start until they hit the clay, right? That's when Ega's supposed to rack them up, come into Roland Garros and like, you know, she's the second coming of Rathlin et al. Except for we're not, it's not happening, right? We stalled in Stuttgart.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:10.207)
Firstly,

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:26.173)
Yeah, you had that.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:31.74)
We stalled in, where were we right before? Obviously Madrid. So like, I think this is where it's like, puts a, no, no, no, she didn't play Charleston. She didn't play Charleston. So I think the, it's getting a little bit, now we see some pressure here. Like if she doesn't really crack it open in Rome.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:38.335)
She didn't play Charleston, she? Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:53.669)
I don't know what Dunn looks like, but maybe Dunn is having a chance to become a number one player in the world.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:55.367)
Dunn looks like not making it to the second week. That's what Dunn looks like to me. I don't think she makes it past second week. I think she barely makes it past Sunday, Monday of the second week. She'll get through you know, through the rank and file. I don't think she beats. I think there are too many good players that realize that she is beatable. And my problem with that is, that that opens up her side of the draw and that opens up a wave of, there are too many good young players like the Alex Ialas.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:01.979)
Well, I mean.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:24.402)
And others that are coming up that are saying, please let me draw Igor Sviatitek. And that's just not what you want players saying about you going into a major tournament like that. And again, and I'll be honest telling you when you people she's beatable right now. when that, when they say that it's not even a, it's not a threat. It's a, it's a fact. And that fact that you know, you're beatable right now too. They do not have that fear factor. That fear. Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:51.61)
That's probably worse.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:54.15)
That fear factor, Alva, can get you a first set and let you get your legs onto you and kind of let the score kind of play to your favor. Hold serve, get a couple of breaks, just kind of win a momentum. That fear factor is no longer there for Iga. I mean, you got players that are playing her style against her better than she's doing it. And that's what I'm worried about with Iga. And now you heard right here, maybe a racket change, maybe something, but she needs to do something fairly soon.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:58.724)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:21.682)
If she wants to reclaim her footing, her dominance, and for a girl that works so hard and really tactically kind of develops the game that she does, for her not to have ways to hurt you on the clay and have other players who will realize they can go through like Swiss cheese, that's a problem.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:38.021)
Well, also, we have to look at it kind of from a macro view, like maybe take a step back a second here. We're comparing Iga to Iga, right? Iga was one in the world. She was a multiple Grand Slam champion, right? Is she looking like a player that has a chance to threaten to be number one in the world again? No. Is she looking like a player who's the odds on favorite going into rolling errors right now? I would say no, but...

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:43.908)
Sure. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:51.92)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:08.282)
she's losing to, okay, she got a panko problem, whatever, let's put that to the side. Golf's won Grand Slam, Coco Golf's the third or fourth best player in the world. She's not a, Coco's no slouch either, so I think we're still seeing her lose to good players, but these were the same players that she was, like I said, she was 11, I think she was 11 and 0 against Coco before Coco beat her late last year, that's worrisome.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:18.096)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:33.107)
Yeah. I will add, let me add one thing. I'll add one thing if I can before we change gears. She's reminding me more of a Leighton Hewitt with a brief two to three year peak than she's reminding me of an Andre Agassi with a 10 to 12 year dominance of span. She's reminding me more of a player that had an upstart

Alvin Owusu (01:05:37.496)
Before we get at it, yeah, please do.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:00.247)
and a quick descent at number one, more than she's reminding of a player who's about to beat the brakes off of another player for a length of time. And the reason why that, yeah, for the women's tour, it's more than normal, right? But she wasn't normal, Alvin. The norm for the women's tour was win one and be gone. Win one and fade, right?

Alvin Owusu (01:06:11.578)
But that's normal. That's normal. Especially on the women. Yeah. It's a three year peak.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:25.986)
We're talking about a young lady that won two or three within a year. How many does he have? Five?

Alvin Owusu (01:06:33.118)
one us open for it's either three or four rolling garuses that on the top my head yeah it's only four or five

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:37.294)
She's either got four or five. I thought it was five, but I could be off. My point being, so we're not talking about a normal. We're talking about already better than most. Emirate-O-Kano has one, right? Madison Keys has one. It's normal for the top players to win one. Sloan Stevens has one. We're talking about for the greats, they have five plus. So I have to compare her to Eega.

among the greats, not Ega overachieving because she won two.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:08.569)
So let me clarify, what I'm saying is that it's a three year window of greatness. And I like to call it a three year peak. Like once a player gets to their peak, specifically this happens on the women's side, it happens on both sides. You gotta kind of take the truly greats, our big threes plus Serena out of it, yeah. But you're gonna get to your peak and then you're gonna be there for about, kind of in that range, plus or minus one or two ranking spots.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:27.064)
Take them out. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:36.693)
Yeah, I'm with that.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:37.443)
for max three years because someone's coming and then you've, I think what we're seeing here is like her, I think maybe we're seeing the end of her window, her peak window, her peak window, right? And I think that's just kind of, that is actually, I find that to be normal. That part is normal. Lots of players win one on the women's side. Lots of players win one. Randoms win one, right?

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:40.526)
I don't disagree.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:48.643)
that we agree with.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:03.064)
Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Or, I was about to say, so that window might be closing.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:05.753)
But being able to sustain something, I think that's the three-year window I'm talking about. And she's coming up on year, this is probably like year four of that. She won her first one, she won the weird one in 2020, the one in fall, the one in So let's say like her first legit one was in 2021, 2022. Yeah, that's it. Unless she's Serena, this should be it. Like this should be it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:32.987)
Who was the lefty Alvin with the tattoos that won Wimby a year two ago, maybe two years ago? it Von Josef? Von Josef. She's a classic example of a girl, like you said, who's won one and bounced. Bench, no not Bench, who was it? The girl, Bianca, Andrescu. Won one. I get your point. I thought Ega was going to be that new Martina Hingis. It was going to put five to eight of them away.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:38.038)
Von Droseva. Von Droseva. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:49.645)
Andresca, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:01.707)
It just off of grit, tenacity, high percentage alone. And I get your point about the three window. If that is the case, I'm going to step out on the limb, Alvin and tell you she has three tournaments left before the rest of the tour realizes that she is no longer one of the top three. within, in my opinion, I'm going to put it on notice. It's just what you put, you put, um, a main man on in July or whatever you said.

I'm telling you that if she does not win one more between now and Australia, I think she will never win another one again. And that's just where I'm at. Her weapons are not there. Her core coverage will only get slower and the other players' confidence will only continue to grow. And I think she has a chance to win the French. I really do. She's just that good of an athlete and that good of a player. But I don't think after that, I just don't think her chances are very good for grass or for hardcore.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:45.154)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:52.546)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:01.543)
because of that reason, Australia possibly because of way the court's complaining about temperatures and she plays on the rise, but you heard it right here. She cannot Jasmine Paolini her way through the tour anymore. Jasmine's doing a better Iga than Iga is doing right now. And I say that to say she's got between now and next January to really re-sink her teeth back into the WTA. And if she doesn't, in my opinion, she'll go the way of the Dota.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:25.611)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:29.752)
And she's so cerebral and so in her, I'm just gonna say she's in her head so much that if she doesn't win Roland Garros, I could see the wheels coming off. Like she might need a break. there's some, I mean she had a coaching change. Like she's got a Wim Fassette on the bag and he's been there since the beginning, since the end of last year when she came back from her suspension. And it's just like nothing's clicking, right? So.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:34.377)
own head.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:40.457)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:50.286)
Yeah Right Yeah Which is great and hardcore she's beatable by anybody

Alvin Owusu (01:10:56.147)
But now this is supposed to be her safe space. if she goes roam Roland Garros and doesn't win Roland Garros or loses to someone that's not Arena Sabalinka, then I think we are never going into her worst surface, which is grass. then like, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:17.383)
If we can, shift gears to Coco. Tell me what you saw about Coco that you liked.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:23.083)
Well, okay, so I think that Coco, right, so she starts off the tournament, loses the first set to Jastrza, 6-0, very first match, first set, catches a bagel, and then does not lose another set until playing Arena in the final, right? So I think she gets it, she did a really good job of finding what she needed to find. know, beats Bencik, beats Andreeva, beats Iga.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:46.523)
Both great matches by the guys.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:48.085)
Right, fantastic showing. And what I liked, and we can talk specifically about the forehand, because that's the part that has been suspect over the last few months, maybe the last two years, because second serve still, she still didn't serve well, I would say, in that final. But her forehand, take the technique away from it, she's hitting it with intention. She's moving into the court when she has the opportunity, taking balls at the top of the bounce and hitting it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:02.723)
No. Yep. Yep. Yep. But believe and feel are huge.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:16.692)
like she does have a forehand. And I think that's like, you know, there's lots of different ways to hit a forehand and technique will save you when things get tight. But if you just believe, just go hit the damn thing, right? And so she plays like she's got a big forehand. But the matchup with her and I'm more so interested in the matchup with her and Arena. It is like this beautiful chess match.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:31.847)
Alright.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:43.142)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:46.999)
of like they're almost built for each other. Like arena will just hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer. But Coco's built to run all day, bring balls back, right? And just like, you're gonna have, yeah, you're gonna have to hit through a paper bag to get like, to get rid of her. And it's like, it takes everything out of arena to put Coco away. Like everything.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:03.238)
Take it early. Redirect.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:16.644)
Frazier Ali.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:16.926)
And I think, yes, and like today's match could have been exactly like the US Open final from two years ago. It's just that Arena didn't slip in the end of the second set.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:19.907)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:28.076)
and she's in better shape and she's in a better space with momentum from the last few tournaments, right? So, hats off to her and her crew. I will say that Coco's best match to me was Iga. I think she played, she played a Novak Demetrov match for Miami against Iga in my opinion. She peaked a bit early. And I say that from time to time, Alvin, just from the standpoint of.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:30.784)
Yes.

Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:55.232)
she could not have hit her foreign any bigger against Ega. Ball conditions day you you call it but she was tagging her foreign as big as I've ever seen her hit it and I've seen her playing juniors. She hit it huge against Ega who was not the easiest person to go through and she was the attacker. Coco had her best as a counterpunisher she's a lot like Ega and what I was so impressed with was she was attacking.

And when a counterpunisher becomes the attacker and is comfortable doing it, I'm impressed because that's not their wheelhouse, right? She preferred it backhands, be on the run, even when she beat Arena in the US Open years ago, she was doing it on the run, backhand passes, open stances, sliding, knee on the ground, you name it. She did not beat, she countered. And nothing wrong with that. She still won. The trophy is still in her name and the name, as long as that, as far as I'm concerned, still says Cory Golf won the darn trophy. Here's my point.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:24.679)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:42.25)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:52.482)
She attacked and went through Ega. I did not see any of that much in the match against Arena. Arena almost lost the tactic, right? Went to Don Coco's backhand one time too many and almost like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what am I doing? Let me go back to the forehand. What am I thinking? This girl's backhand is better than mine. On the rise, her on the rise might be better than Arena's. Arena had this one.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:03.881)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:12.531)
Hehehehehe

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:22.218)
I think it was on her service point when she went to the backhand, she serving in the near court and Coco brought about a hundred mile an hour return and Irina ripped the backhand hard back up the line, which was very Coco-esque. And I remember watching that point saying, wow, when you start stealing your opponent's plays against you, against them, we got a nice little rivalry going on here. And I kind of like watching that. And so I think that, I think that

Alvin Owusu (01:15:49.311)
Yeah, it...

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:50.997)
That arena has taken some cues out of Coco's book and unfortunately she kind of faded a little bit in that second step. But I was really excited to see that matchup. I was happy to see Coco back in a final. I was happy to see her hit her forehand. I was happy to see her kind of shake off whatever has been kind of ailing her. it was good to see her really rip that forehand like she can. And unfortunately for Iga, unfortunately took a little bit of a step back this tournament.

Remember how excited I was about Emma Raducano from a few tournaments ago? Well, thought she was actually playing. When you see a player really starting to feel the ball well, it bodes well for the tour. And I thought that was what happened here with Coco and good for women's tennis.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:23.827)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:34.888)
I mean, it's almost the same with Casper. They're almost kind of the same boat, right? Can do well on clay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:39.648)
100 % 100 % no forehand forehand can be iffy but backhand but they move well and they return well and buddy very good on the clay right that's actually a very good comparison

Alvin Owusu (01:16:46.846)
Yeah, comfortable on clay courts, like you have maybe a little struggle if you start to the season. And yeah, I think they're both like, I think we feel better about, you know, the top end of tennis with both of them doing so well coming out of Madrid and moving into Rome. I don't have any wild predictions to make. I think I really maybe went a little too big on the Novak prediction.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:12.96)
No doubt. Can't back down.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:14.505)
But I'm not gonna back down from it. I'll put it right here. If Novak wins Wimblin, he's out. That's it, he's done. He's going out on top. He's not here for the tour grind. He's done. No, no, no, no. Not one bit. Not one bit. Anything you're... Is there anyone that you're, as we're coming down towards the, you know, we're jockeying for pole position here as we're coming into the last turn before Roland Garros.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:22.1)
Yeah. Wow.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:27.008)
He in there for the prize for the parents money, is he?

Alvin Owusu (01:17:44.308)
Rome starts I think on Wednesday and it'll be another long one. Is there anyone that you have your eye on still who needs to have a Casper Root or a Cocoa Golf type of week before we get going?

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:03.468)
Arthur Fees needs to have a big week or two going into this next few on the men's side. I feel on the clay Jakub Mensik needs to have another breakthrough week or two to really substantiate himself. And these are up and comers. I feel like

The player that needs it the most right now, if he's going to stay relevant is Daniel Medvedev. Tiafoe, much to say to say it, Tiafoe might be on the Swan song tour. As much as I hate to say, think Tommy Paul needs to have a solid role to really put himself deep into the, into the, and his own belief of the French. If I had to put one more player, Hogaruna, I thought.

is a player that needs to go a little deeper with some top players for him to be in that top five category that I think he deserves to be in. But unfortunately has not been there yet. On the women's side, I would love to see, I know Badosa is still a little dinged up. I would love to see Rada Kano who was playing some great tennis not that long ago. You know, I love my girl, Magula, get back into some decent form and I say decent form to playing well, but

Alvin Owusu (01:19:12.285)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:24.656)
I would like to see them have a little better, some better, you know, stuff in the, in going into the, into the French. feel like the, I feel like the French is almost arena's tournament to lose already. She's, she's playing the best. She's beaten all comers. Her worst tournaments were finals, right? She's healthy. She's hitting the ball big. She's moving well. She's playing her game on the clay album. And that's typically a hardcore game.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:38.257)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:54.415)
She's playing so clean and so free right now. She might just win all four this year if she continues the way she's playing. She's at that level right now. She's just not vulnerable right now. Her mind is clear. She's got a good role. There's not others attacking her or really coming close.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:13.009)
Yeah, it-

Right, like no one that can hurt her is playing well enough right now. Like it took Madison Keys, like the tournament of her life, the match of her life to beat her in the final Australian Open.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:26.968)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:31.675)
And that's my issue is that I'm looking at the people I mentioned and Panko's another one. Panko, Oscar Panko can do it, Andreva can do it. There's a few. Rebecca can do it, Rebecca needs to, Alvin, Alvin. I know you love Rebecca. You heard it right here. She has been a no show, Alvin, for the majority of 2025. And I just gotta say it. And I'm just.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:39.74)
We're back in a like, but like.

But they gotta get there. They have to be there.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:54.074)
Yeah, no, no, I'm with you. But it's like, that's what I'm saying. Like those who can aren't really in form right now. Like, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:00.537)
That's my point. so therefore, for this tournament coming up, you only got two weeks left to really gain form. This is not a tournament where you can just press a button in instant form and flame on, torch. You've got to have the reps, you got to have the feel, and the players in the locker room have to be able to say that about you. And right now, I don't know if anybody's saying that about Rebecca. And that's just what I'm saying. I think it's Arena's tournament to lose.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:07.27)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:30.388)
I think the men's side is wide open. look forward to your, doesn't your boy come back next week center? man. And I got to tell you, I got to tell you that's probably the biggest showdown coming up is him and Alcaraz for the French Novak. Like you said, by the times, the feed that we're going to watch and see, you know, I'm really hoping that Rome offers a great opportunity for three or four players. mentioned Paul.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:36.412)
Sinner's coming.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:57.896)
mean, Berettini has been playing and Musetti has been playing. Musetti is playing great right now. I mean, he's hitting very well. Sorandolo, dude, him and his brother had great tournaments this week. You heard it right here. I was very impressed with Sorandolo. I'm hoping, I'm just hoping that guys like Taylor Fritz, guys like Tommy Paul, of course Ben Shelton have a chance to really show some stuff. This could be Gail Monfils' last fridge, if you ask my honest opinion.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:03.249)
Mercedes play great ball. Play great ball.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:26.523)
Probably. Probably.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:27.16)
And that's just on what it is. think this is his last one because of what it means. And it's the French and he's playing under the French flag. I would love to see him go out with a decent match. GMP has not been heard of in 2025, in my opinion. Other players have also not been really heard from on the French side. Umber has not been heard from.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:42.085)
It'll be, it'll be long.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:56.087)
Who else is some of these French players that haven't really been cut?

Alvin Owusu (01:22:59.025)
Well, let's not worry too much about it. mean, we've got, we've got, we still got Rome to get through and that's it's a long one. Rome's a...

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:03.338)
Fair enough, I'm just saying, you always gotta worry about the Frenchmen coming out in the French is what I'm saying. And I wanted to kind of give a preview, because that's always one thing. We'll save that for later. But in my opinion, I'm really looking forward to what form Yannick Sinner comes back to, because you know he's been hitting balls.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:09.009)
Sure, sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:21.009)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's a good place to leave it because the center of things is gonna take up, I think, a lot of space in the next few weeks. I sure hope so. But with that, TH, that was a fun one. We'll come back with people. Yeah, we'll see you guys next week. All right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:22.688)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:28.864)
Yeah, brilliant.

Look forward to the next one, Alvin. This was good. Yes, sir. And the ATP and WT officials, holla at you, boy. I got some ideas.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:41.891)
Exactly. Exactly. All right.