Ep. 31: How Tennis Players Are Defying Age | Longevity & The Future of the Game

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (00:11.056)
Alvin, I have a problem challenge. I'm challenging the longevity that you're speaking to. I think the longevity, while longer in the career, I still think the wall comes in at 30 years old. I no longer think the peak can be achieved before the age of 21 or 22. We are in a whole new era. You said it best. Conditioning, physios, physical maturation.

I'm also going to say the depth of the game is better and there's more quality players through 20, 30, 50 in the world. Now, but father time is undefeated, Alvin. And I'm here to tell you, you look at the stats, you look at the numbers, at some point you're a step slow. At some point, the racket speed's just not as big. It's just not giving you the same service winner or ace it was giving you.

two years ago, let alone five. So I'm challenging, throwing the red flag at you right now, Alvin Owusu, about is it pushing it later or is the tour getting tougher and you have to do more within the same eight year give or take timeframe? Because we know statistically after 30,

Unless you're one of the greats of all time, you might be done already.

Alvin Owusu (01:45.323)
And with that, I'll say welcome back to another episode of the best three podcast. I'm Alvin, that's Tory. So you've caught us in the thralls of a very, this conversation has been going on for probably two weeks now. If you were with us, you know, probably closer to Monte Carlo, I'm not sure when this is gonna come out, but we were having a conversation about Arthur Fils This all comes back to, it all comes back to the French. This, we were having a conversation about Arthur Fils and we,

I think it can't be if it was you or me mentioned that he was like, he was like 22 years old. And after the show, we both did the happened to do the research and it was like, Arthur Fils is actually 20. And that shift of two years really changed how we both looked at him. And it was, I'll even maybe I'll even put the text message up on the screen here for the for the viewers. Like we both hit it at the same time. It's like, that's a different conversation. That's one that needs to be had because

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (02:41.66)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:42.988)
A player who is 14 in the world at age 22 is a lot different than a player who is 14 in the world at age 20 and climbing, right?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (02:48.454)
Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (02:52.824)
and climbing and still approaching physical let alone mental and gain maturity 1000 % shame on the ATP for having that stat wrong by the

Alvin Owusu (02:57.483)
right.

Yeah. And so,

Yeah, you know, the kind of the takeaway here is like, okay, if we're looking at a player who is 20 years old, what is the actual expectation for that player? Or maybe even the inverse. A player who wins a Grand Slam or becomes top five in the world, what does their trajectory actually look like? And if we can better understand that, then we can have a, now we have a lens.

through which we can evaluate players who are currently on tour and say, hey, like to your original point about 30 being the door close, do our players born in the year 1998, I'm looking at you, Alexander Zverev and you, Taylor Fritz and you, Andre Rublev and Tommy Paul, do these players really have a chance to win a Grand Slam before, you know, they're age 27 now, before they, you know, before they hit 30 in a couple of years?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (03:46.162)
Yeah Don't hate to put my main man France Tia on that same list Yep

Alvin Owusu (03:59.212)
Francis is right there. It's just he's a little bit further down the rankings right now. So I think we decided we were going to have this conversation to kind of talk a little bit about the nuances of age on the ATP tour. There's a little bit historical data to be considered. I want to lay out those now, right? So typically, typically, players win their first Grand Slam around the age of 23. That is the typical number. Players hit the top five in the ATP.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (04:08.395)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (04:29.129)
around 22. Let me go in the reverse order. It's usually top 10 at 22, also top five at 22, Grand Slam at 23. Those are the kind of markers you're looking for for a would-be Grand Slam champion. Now, in our time, you know, we've seen the greats tend to do things a little bit differently. And we recognize it pretty early. The likes of Pete Sampras wins his first slam at 19, Fed 21.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (04:41.896)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (04:49.224)
much different.

Alvin Owusu (04:58.164)
Rafa 19, Novak 20, today, Carlos 19, first grand slam. So with that being said, you know, talking about age, let's kind of use that lens to talk about what we think we have left from certain players that are playing right now.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (05:02.43)
Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (05:14.697)
Let me take a step back. I'm gonna come back 10,000 feet, Alan.

You remember, Alvin, when you were playing tennis in the juniors and you were 12 years old, let's say playing a match at Hudlow. There's been a million matches played at Hudlow. I'm sure there was a 10 year old that was playing in your age division. You may remember a name, you may not, that I bet that was a player who was pretty good, who was either your age, playing up, doing well.

Alvin Owusu (05:30.239)
Sure. Love, Hadla.

Alvin Owusu (05:48.779)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (05:48.904)
or a player who was playing up in your age group who was two, maybe three years behind you, who you knew was well ahead of the curve and quite frankly, wow, kids competing with us. I remember going to San Antonio. I had, felt good about myself as a coach, I had seven players playing the boys 14s, like 14 San Antonio, 14 hard courts, right? One of my players draws this little lefty.

Alvin Owusu (06:08.107)
14's Hardcore since San Antonio, is that right? Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (06:16.136)
Got goggles on, Alvin. Looks like he's 10. No more than 11. I think he ended up being 10. And this kid looked like he should have been dropped off at after school care at a grade school. mean, and here we are at a national 14. One of my players who was at the time probably 10, 12, maybe, maybe 15 in the South at the lowest plays this player.

And my player's fast, Alvin, very fast. And you were fast. This player may have been a tad faster than you. His on the run form was unreal. He was hanging with the likes of the Scott Jenkins and Nathan Saks was very savvy. Shout out to my boy Nathan Wheeler. Nathan Wheeler draws this lefty from Chicago that I heard had moved to Atlanta. I had never seen this kid before. I've been in Atlanta for a long time.

Alvin Owusu (06:50.216)
Hmm. Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (07:01.8)
I knew it was going be Nathan Wheeler. I knew it was Nathan Wheeler.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (07:13.863)
kids wearing goggles. The match goes on. This kid at 10 years old, Alvin, pulls a shady call like he done it before. But unlike most kids who I've seen cheat, this kid who kind of avoid your stare, look away, pull the, pull the hat down, Alvin, you've seen the hat move when it was out. This kid called it out and looked over at the, at my boy, wheels to see.

Alvin Owusu (07:36.157)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (07:43.557)
Let me see how pissed off you're gonna be about this call. Completely comfortable with the confrontation. Alvin, I didn't know Donald Young at the time, but Donald Young showed me a level of maturity and competition that I had not seen before in a 10 year old. It did not shock me.

years later to know that Donald Young was going to be one of the top players in the age group. Here's the point I'm making, Alvin.

Donald Young was older, like an Anakin Skywalker, he was older at that time than Nathan was. And Nathan was a pretty savvy young player. Why do I mention this? Because the best younger players are always those kind of outliers. And there's not 20 Donald Youngs, there was one. And every age division has them. So that's why I, and mind you,

And this is what I think fits in our conversation. Donald Young did not reach number one in the world as much as he was a very good junior and a very good player and a phenomenal talent. Another lefty by the way. I feel like that's why the phenomenal ones of the phenomenal end up being goats. They're always just a little different. So we can't put this into a stats column. But what I want to say

is that when you look at the 22s, the 23s, think Agassi won his first one like 25, and he going for an 18. These players are still pretty phenomenal. They're just getting there at another time for whatever reason, but we almost have to take all of those Grand Slam winners and look at the tour for what it truly is and let the top, I hate to say it, let the top go off to the side.

Alvin Owusu (09:27.867)
absolutely, absolutely. think-

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (09:45.471)
Now with that said Alvin, I'm gonna make another point because the point-

Alvin Owusu (09:48.137)
I'm not gonna, can't necessarily agree with taking the top and putting them off to the side because there actually aren't that many players playing high level tour tennis at all. The number's not that big. It's 100, it's 100.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (10:04.514)
But the ones that have won, Alvin, if you look at the 20, the 22, and the 24, 25, we know that.

Alvin Owusu (10:11.305)
Yeah, 25 today, I think. that top, I thought you meant like those who win Grand Slam, you're talking about the big three.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (10:12.903)
They skew the numbers so you can't say- ow.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (10:19.97)
No, no, no, no. Winning Grand Slams is a different deal. I'm talking about the ones that have approached that pinnacle at such young age. Pink won 14. His first one was at 19.

Alvin Owusu (10:30.439)
You know, we had no intentions of talking about the big three in this particular conversation because like you said, their numbers skew everything. They're kind of an anomaly that you wanna take away. But really, I...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (10:37.494)
Correct.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (10:44.865)
20, 42, what is that? 67, Alex? 67, last 80?

Alvin Owusu (10:49.775)
Right, yeah, but I think there's a reason why they have so many, and I think that reason is really tied into this conversation, right? The way that we expect, so this is what we've been talking about is more or less a predictive model of like, if someone is going to do X in their career, you're going to see these few things happen at these certain ages on the way to X, right? If that is wind-grant slam,

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (11:00.329)
I'm listening, I'm listening. What's your reason?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (11:11.07)
Yes. Before then. For sure. For sure.

Alvin Owusu (11:17.929)
Right, that typically happens by the age of 23 for the first one. So you're gonna see that player enter, like most of them were into the top 500, like very young, like by the age of 18, right? They'll hit top 100 by like very soon after that. And then it's 50 and 10 and five, like in very short order, right? I think the reason why the big three were able to gobble up so many, I think they actually either.

had the good fortune of having or created a weak generation behind them. Those players that came up behind them actually just weren't good enough. They weren't good enough. If you take the big three out, I surmise to say that those guys would have never put up multiple Grand Slams. You would have had a sporadic bunch of people winning two, three, and four Grand Slams here and there. I don't think there were any great players.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (12:09.18)
.

Alvin Owusu (12:13.925)
Obviously there weren't, they didn't make it out.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (12:15.77)
I'm going to 1000 % disagree with you with vehemence, vehemently disagreeing with you because I feel it's the opposite. This is a classic half full, half empty. They were so good. They were able to capitalize on that run for an extended period of time. And the others were as good. It just shows you the greatness. Here's where I'm going to, and I'm going to go back to basketball with you for a little bit.

Alvin, when I was coming out of junior high school-ish, about to go, actually going into high, junior high school, it was, yeah, grade school, about to into junior high school. There was these two players, one of them played for Michigan State, one of them played for Indiana State. And I'll give you a little quick backstory. The one that went to Indiana State had actually been to Indiana, was from Indiana. And tall white boy, phenomenal jumper, right? And I'm mentioning this to you, Alvin, because...

Alvin Owusu (13:07.719)
French lick.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (13:13.008)
It was one of the most prolific games, Michigan State against Indiana State. I don't think either have been to a final. Michigan State has, but obviously Indiana State is not. This player was a former Bobby Knight pupil and just couldn't take Bobby Knight. Do you realize Alvin how rare it is that Magic and Bird were in the final of the NCAA and a year later Alvin were in the finals of the

Alvin Owusu (13:21.967)
Michigan State.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (13:41.667)
NBA championship that went on for the next nine years. I want to say it was four and three with the Celtics and the Lakers and their teams getting that point. Now, Alvin, what's the chances of a couple of freshmen getting to the finals of NCAAs and getting the finals of NBA a year after? I'm not sure many players have done that. Now, here's the reason why I say that.

Alvin Owusu (14:04.228)
Well, there's some good, there's actually some good reason why that can't happen these days.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (14:09.444)
No, no, no, but let's stay with it though because you've seen top players come out every year. What has, and I submit to you this one reason, were they simply that good for their age at that time? Now we're not talking about the team, we're not talking about how good the Celtics already were, we're not talking about the Lakers had a 20 year MVP and Kareem, I get all that. I'm a basketball player, I get all that. I'm talking.

Alvin Owusu (14:15.237)
Yeah

Alvin Owusu (14:35.27)
Okay, we can't have that conversation without stating the obvious, that those teams were already good when they got there.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (14:38.492)
100 % nor would we, right? But I'm mentioning to you that both these players were the stars, not the bench warmers on these teams. And Alvin, my problem with the stats is the stats are littered with phenomenal phenoms that made those records happen. So to me, you already got a phenomenally talented group and now you're measuring

The phenomenally talented among the phenomenally talented. And guess what? Anytime I got six or seven out of 80 slams that are spoken for, it's probably going to skew my numbers. And that's what I'm saying.

Alvin Owusu (15:18.32)
Well, you know, I'll give you this, since we're talking a lot about age and this is almost a conversation around predictiveness, right? Like how to predict, Federer comes out, so Federer is, know, let's, whatever age he is, when these things are happening, for him he's 21, Nadal is five years younger than him, right? The age gap is five years. Okay, so then Nadal comes and Nadal pushes him, right? And it becomes a rivalry.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (15:28.922)
Okay?

Alvin Owusu (15:48.202)
Novak kind of hits the scene, but Novak is right behind it all. He's 37. Who was right behind Novak? Nobody. There was nobody. There were a bunch of less thans. And I'm just saying there should have been someone there to push Novak. There should have been someone aged 35 now.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (15:52.634)
Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (16:04.15)
So let me, I love your point, but I will not give.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (16:11.787)
I will not take the statement of they created a vacuum. I will accept the statement of they were so good that you appreciated how once in a while they were. Now, I know that may seem like a technicality to you.

Alvin Owusu (16:32.578)
It, no, it doesn't. It doesn't because you have a, it's not a hypothetical question. We have like a real name to put there, like someone like a Gail Monfils who is still playing right now, who is just a little bit younger, maybe one year younger than Novak, if they're not the same age.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (16:48.482)
They're no, Gale's older.

Alvin Owusu (16:50.721)
Okay, so there's your representation right there. It's the monfices, it's the...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (16:52.504)
100%.

Donald Young, who I mentioned, should have been that player, just so we're talking. Scow was the same age as Novak, sorry, Novak's younger than Scow, was same age as Monfies, as Murray, same age as Jeremy Chardy, same age as Murray, in fact, might be a little younger than that group. My main man who played Victor Choytsevich.

Alvin Owusu (17:00.319)
Right, right, so the...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (17:20.424)
You remember who was the top 10, top 20 player back then. There were several of those guys back then that were all in that age group. I am mentioning the year ahead of Malvin had guys like Joe Wilfred Songa, had guys like my main man, Decipriot. Yeah, but to your point.

Alvin Owusu (17:22.403)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (17:34.692)
Well, it's Nishikori. He's two years behind Novak. like, that's the, that is.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (17:42.154)
Baghdadis was who I was talking about. Baghdadis and Joe Willey were just two years ahead. None of them went to 39, 38. I'm just mentioning to you Alvin that these players, I think what you're speaking to, and I think it's a problem with even a lot of the sports casters, we start looking at the greats as if that's how you're supposed to do it. And I think, and I take exception to that, I think any player who's at that level is phenomenal, but then you're,

put into this ultra small pool where you've been the biggest fish in every pool you've been in your entire life. And now we really see who is really the biggest junkyard dog, so to speak, in that situation. And I'm going to tell you, Alvin, that to me goes a little bit more to where the championship mindset kicks in, who really wants it the most, who maximizes opportunities. I think now you've got a whole lot of different things you're talking about. But.

You're still talking about the best of the best. And I know you know that and I know where we agree on that. I'm talking about now given all that, Father time is undefeated and you made a point and I'm not calling you out on it because I agree with you.

Alvin Owusu (18:46.83)
Yeah.

Given all that.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (18:57.705)
We have pushed the envelope deeper into careers. It's no longer 21, Leighton Hewitt would not happen today. And ironically,

Alvin Owusu (19:05.156)
Well, mean, Leighton Hughes barely happened. Like, he was happening and then it happened pretty quickly.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (19:10.742)
And he was a better Michael Chang. Michael Chang would not happen today. Mensic is as close as we got.

Alvin Owusu (19:17.476)
Well, let me ask you, what are you saying would not happen? What would not happen?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (19:21.927)
A 17 year old winning a Grand Slam would not happen today. The players are simply too good, too seasoned. There are too many of them. And you would have to go through absolute darn near walking death to get through six players that good in the world today. And I'm also saying to you, Albert, with that being said, while they're all getting better and approaching their prime,

Alvin Owusu (19:26.166)
sure, fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not on the men's side.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (19:51.348)
in the 20-2-3-4-5, 26-27-28 is about the prime. I would also tell you while we've extended the time frame, we only are talking about that in the media because Fed, Rafa, and Novak have made the 30s not be the drop-off at 30 that most players are.

Alvin Owusu (20:13.857)
And that will be the, that is, think that's where we hit the, this ain't normal. Because that's not gonna happen anymore, right? And I think that's the, not anytime soon. So not anytime, I'm gonna say not anytime soon, and that's really just because of kind of what we're talking about today, right? So when we talk about prime, like a player's prime, or I'll even go back, right? The way that we've decided to categorize like where a player is in their career, and there's kind of four stages, right?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (20:20.723)
won't happen anymore but it's not because it's not they were that good Serena was up there too I gotta say

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (20:32.327)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (20:42.467)
the next gen as we call next gen, not necessarily the ATP version of next gen, we're calling anyone who's under 21 and under, right? And then once you get to 22 to 26, we're considering that you are approaching your prime, right? And then a player's prime is 27 to 31. And then we consider 32 and older to be past your prime, right? So.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (20:50.823)
Yep, Yep, Yep.

Alvin Owusu (21:08.515)
For that particular conversation, when you look at it, right, obviously the likes of Novak Djokovic, Grigor Dimitrov, I mentioned a little bit earlier, Kinesh Chakoriy, but like, Batista Agu, like there's a lot of guys who are out there still playing, obviously Novak's performing at a level, but these guys are, at that age, you don't really expect them to contend for Grand Slams. Let's even take Novak out of this because I think he's an anomaly. It's really like, it gets hard to.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (21:16.123)
Okay, sorry, Batista Gut. Yeah, yep, yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (21:32.038)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (21:37.965)
do the thing seven times in two weeks, best out of five cents, okay? Like you've seen, we've seen Grigor show up and look old a few times in the last six, nine months, play great tennis and then the next day like, my neck, my back, my neck and my back, right? So that's kind of why that's not really something that we expect to see. But I think the kind of focus of this conversation is there's a list of players that are.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (21:41.414)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (21:53.784)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:06.367)
ranked inside the top 20 who are in their prime, juxtaposed against a group of players who are ranked in the top 20 who are technically next gen. And that is the beautiful thing because you have some, you've got these young guys being the, you know, kind of a reverse order, your Artur Fies, your Holger Ruñez, your Carlos, four time Grand Slam, Carlos Alcaraz is technically not yet approaching his prime.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (22:08.339)
Yep. Yep.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank Tiafoe. Paul. Yeah. Daniel.

Alvin Owusu (22:37.27)
which is crazy talk. And then you've got players like Alexander Zverev, Taylor Fritz, Tiafoe, Alexander Rublev, or Andrei Rublev, right? And then your whole fan favorite, God bless, I can't. God bless, and Daniel Mephedev. Grand Slam champion, three time Grand Slam finalist.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (22:53.392)
Say it, say a thing.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (23:04.73)
Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (23:06.754)
to Neil Medvedev. These guys are all technically in their primes, but they are fighting, they're not only fighting for their time, but they're also fighting history in that those that will become champions, they're present right now. These guys are, they're nipping at the butt. Carlos has worn Grand Slams. Obviously Yannick Sinner, who's 23 years old and now has three Grand Slams.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (23:08.174)
Bye!

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (23:34.987)
Yeah. Right. Yep. I want to go back and give a shout out to the... and I did in my research Alvin there were seven. Seven of the 13 players that are 32 and above that are top 100 in the world. And I would include...

Alvin Owusu (23:35.211)
that he won his first one at 22, he's actually a very typical Grand Slam champion. Like 22, do the thing, you know, we'll see. I think he's got a lot of space ahead of him, but I'll go, I'll take a break here and I'll go ahead and pass the baton to you.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (24:02.767)
eight even though one of these guys is a very lowly unfortunate 162 in the world right now but he happens to have two grand slams so I got to include him and that's Mr. Stanislas Mareka. Alvin, each seven of the 13, eight if you include Stan, were all former top ten. So I would even tell you that the number after 30 is actually smaller. If take that seven out of 13 you're really left with six players out of the matter.

30 and above, which is kind of weird to think about it because now you're looking at a real drop off. Like you're talking about walking the plank. mean, it's like 30 gone. I mean, it's, you know, and I won't get to the actual numbers, but let's make sure we understand and appreciate why we're mentioning these names because these names have literally become household names in the past 15 to 20 years. you have to start with the Stanislaus Ferenke who at age 40 is the elder statesman of the crew. You have to mention and give a

and give mad props to my main man Gail Monfils who's still putting in work at 38 years old.

Alvin Owusu (25:06.731)
See, I would take Stan out of the conversation, in no shade to Stan, like Stan is, I'm glad he's playing, but like as far as like contending, Stan goes months without winning. Yeah, yeah, but.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (25:12.334)
for sure.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (25:17.868)
He's in retirement status, he just didn't know it yet and he might as well, maybe he's doing it just to stay in shape, I don't know.

Alvin Owusu (25:25.289)
Yeah, but on the other side of the coin though is like Monfils is actually having a fantastic season. Like he's playing some legit good tennis. Relevant, yeah. He might be seated at friendship in this year. Like he's still involved in the conversation. Yes, he's doing the thing.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (25:33.022)
and relevant for the top one in the world.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (25:40.566)
doing the thing, as you say, doing the thing. So 38 years old album. I don't think anybody misunderstands his age or that he, and Gale is always one of my favorite players when Skull was his age. There were so many stories we had about Gale when he was playing. I gotta say this one story about Gale, go off topic for a little bit. One of my favorite stories of Gale Monfils was at Roe Hampton.

Alvin Owusu (25:46.964)
That's wild.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (26:08.572)
And Gail, I hope you're watching this episode because I still remember this to this day. Me and Scoz senior are watching. We're behind Gail's court at Roe Hampton. There was this crazy long point Alvin and of course Gail sliding all over the like he always does. Alvin, he slides past us going backwards for a shot like he always was doing back in the day. And his shoe gets caught in the fence between the grass, the fence. You can appreciate it. Shoe goes through. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (26:33.386)
Yep. Yeah. A little wedgy back there. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (26:38.697)
Reggie back there. He pulls, he tugs, he throws up this crazy lob, he pulls, he tugs, the shoe stays, his foot and sock come out, right? He plays six more shots out. Playing the kid is probably top 10 the world at the time, some Asian kid who was great, good left in the kids. Sees one shoe, so he starts drop shotting him, lobbing him, right? Gale, eight shots later, ends up winning this point, okay?

As was common for Gale, he yells out this, Allee! Like, you know, I'm just, you know. But what got me at the end of this point was he comes up to me and Scoseed, and you know, we've seen him at numerous times by now. By the way, he won the Junior Australia, he won Junior French. This is now Wimby, getting ready, this is the tune-up for Wimbledon and Roehanton. And he gives us this little, kinda mouth click, tongue click, and a wink, like, you like that?

Alvin Owusu (27:22.111)
Junior Wimbledon.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (27:35.033)
I was so impressed with his presence of, I'm just doing this for fun. This is fun for me that I was so just enamored with. If I'm playing at a tournament like this, me, Torrey Hawkins playing this tournament, this level, and I happen to win a point like that. It's going to take me a second just to embrace what just happened. Like, you see that?

Alvin Owusu (28:01.788)
Right, yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (28:04.155)
That was big. He's not only embraced it, he expected to win it and was hoping what happened four more times. He was like, I got up today hoping I would have a crazy point like this. And the next 10 years has shown Gael Monfils has gotten his fair share of those points. I just had to say that album because that's a player that is enjoying the game of tennis. And I just had to mention that to you to say,

I've watched this kid since he was 15, 16 years old. I remember Gail Monfise crying, laying on the middle of the court, bawling because he didn't make the cut at 16 years old, US Open in the Qualies years ago at the US Open. 01 maybe, you know, when I was up there with a other players, but before Scope. And I was kind of laughing at, people don't realize his story. I don't, I won't make this a Gail Monfise tribute. We'll have time for that one later when he decides to hang him up. But I was, I say this to tell you,

These players are pretty special. I know we agree on this, on that point. But, Vrinka, 40, Gale, 38, you can't get past Mr. 37. Novak Djokovic, current 25 Grand slams himself at a lowly number. What is my boy now? At a number five in the world. Let's not forget the fact that we're talking about Novak, still

Alvin Owusu (29:26.088)
He's ranked five in the world right now. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (29:33.638)
dangerous and and with the right Sun Moon and Star alignment he might just have a chance to win one more but let me go down the rest of this out because Batista Gut is was a former number nine in the world who's now it's at 53 you got Kay Nishikori you mentioned earlier was a former four in the world I might add who has you know he's had his fair share injuries and let's face it he's the he's the shell of what he used to be but Nishikori is now 66

but a former number four, David Goffin, who was a former number seven, Grigor Dimitrov, who at 33 is the highest ranked outside of Novak, and number 17 in the world was a former top three in the world, and of course, Karey Nabuska. What I'm telling you, Alvin, is you gotta take those seven to 13 out of it, because they're top 10 in the world. They know how to play.

Alvin Owusu (30:16.51)
So what are you telling me? What are you trying to tell me?

Alvin Owusu (30:25.311)
I think that's obvious though. No one's gonna disagree with you. They're old.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (30:28.9)
Well, but here's where you understand, I'm not talking about you're gonna just get me on the tennis. I know you're gonna me on that. I'm telling you, if those players had not been top 10, they would not still be out there today. They would have retired at 30. So the number is closer to six, 30 and above. Now, Alvin, you're talking about a bell curve. Usually a bell curve is low, it slopes up.

It slows down. This one has a draconian drop off. And I'm telling you Alvin that that's outside of prize money, parents money, the, guarantee that the money that's involved in the game now, they didn't have when they were in the first five, 10 years. These guys are simply taking advantage of rankings system prize money and such to help them in their later years. And Hey, hats off to them. They've earned it.

No different than we see a lot of top players in other sports, football, basketball, LeBron. Let's face it. I'm not sure LeBron's at his prime anymore, Alvin. I think you would agree with me on that. But LeBron is still playing because he can. And I think he's a Novak of basketball. And I say that to tell you, every other player that's 30 in the world or a player in the NBA that's over 30, 31, that's not a former champion, that's not a former 30 point a game player.

is probably already hung up the Jordans by now. And the one more point I wanna make, and that spells doom for a 27 through 29 year old who is playing and hasn't won one. I loved your point earlier about the not yet prime, approaching the prime, playing the in their prime. And that's the real test of tennis right now, is this group of about 30 to 37,

Alvin Owusu (32:00.935)
Sure, well I think the other...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (32:27.011)
22 to 25s playing against a bunch of 27s through 30s. And those two come into grips and Alvin, you heard it right here, at the end of this year, the next 18 months, we could have an exodus of another 15 to 20 players in the top hundred. And we haven't even talked about players like Yalfonseca and others who are coming up. And we could be completely recycling the whole group.

of players now and that's the storyline. It isn't the old guys. It's the prime that are about to retire that won't make it to old guys.

Alvin Owusu (32:59.185)
Well, there's a...

Alvin Owusu (33:05.309)
Well, they're not about to retire, I mean, because I think that's the part about the advancements in science and strength and conditioning, right? Like someone like a Taylor Fritz or an Alexander Svire or an Andrei Rubelov, who are all 27 years old right now, can continue to play and become the Grigor Dmitrovs of the, know, yeah, but for the sake of this conversation though, once you get to a certain point, you're playing, but you're not a factor.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (33:23.49)
They will replace Greg Gore and Novak and your boy, Miss Gore.

Alvin Owusu (33:34.234)
I think that's the main difference. You're still playing, but I don't expect to see you contending for championships.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (33:36.15)
I would, but I'm gonna go further. Those players were not top 10. A lot of these aren't, you mentioned three players. I mentioned seven.

Alvin Owusu (33:44.349)
Yeah, but I'm not, yeah, I'm not, it's okay. So let's look at, you look at the rest of them in that same age group, right? You've got Tommy Paul and Francis Diablo. They have both been top 10 before. They both clipped the top 10. So they're there. But I think for the sake of, well, yeah, those two, know, Rublev is top 10, Ferendo top 10, Taylor's top 10, Zverev's top 10. But what I'm saying is the part that worries me,

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (33:58.668)
That's it. Let's keep going. Keep going.

Alvin Owusu (34:12.508)
Right, it's not the 30 and plus group. They're out of the conversation except for No Bag because he gets the Tim Duncan benefit of the doubt. It's the, if these guys in the next 18 months don't win one and they start to move through and out of their prime, right, the players doing the majority of the winning are all 23 and under.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (34:20.19)
Yep. Good, good analysis by the way.

Alvin Owusu (34:37.658)
So it's actually there's a weird vacuum right now of players between the age of 24 and 26 who are in the top like 30. There aren't many of them. And for those who are there approaching that are just about to, some paper hit their prime and I'm looking at you Felix of J. Ali Asim, like do you think Felix is gonna win a Grand Slam title in his career? Right, he's 24 years old and we can already go, nope.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (34:46.358)
Yep. Bye.

Alvin Owusu (35:05.68)
because you would have done it by now if you could have. Yeah, and he's actually going backwards. Same thing with Stefano Sitsipas. Sitsipas was on the track, right? He is 26 years old. He's made three Grand Slam finals, right? His recently is 2023. He finally got Australian Open, so lost to Novak. So he's been there, but now we're turning the wrong direction. He's getting older and going backwards.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (35:07.228)
You would have done it by now.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (35:25.194)
Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (35:33.456)
I would even and going backwards and Alvin I would even tell you there's three other players maybe five other players I won't name all the names that didn't even reach that high that are and as is typical with the tour that will probably not make top 10 at the way they're tracking and they are in the teens they're there in the teens slash 20s that you kind of like

So the vacuum you speak of is real. The current 20, you mentioned even your boy Talon Grigsborough. He's one of those older players that has always been knocking the door. I'm not sure if Talon has the talents, you know, to get any higher. And Alvin, and I'm going to tell you, and I mentioned this to you in the Australian Open and I told you Alvin then, said, Alvin, I'm seeing a really weird changing of the guard right now. I saw seven players, including one or 10.

Alvin Owusu (36:10.362)
Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (36:29.999)
including Basher Beretti, including Yal Fonseca, including all the... I said Alvin, I'm seeing players who are hitting the felt off of the ball and they're showing these players, these older players, buddy, you guys are old. You're a step slow. You're just a little bit, and mind you, you're good. But we're young and the game is getting more physical, getting faster and you...

Alvin Owusu (36:40.229)
Yeah. Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (36:58.94)
are no longer in your prime. And I'm telling you Alvin, think that vacuum will be filled very quickly. I just hope it's the same quality of tennis and these guys aren't one and done. I don't think it's tracking backwards. other words, I don't think the peak is going to come back to 22 or 23. I just think that the peak is farther, but I think that the drop off, the plank is even quicker because at that point in time, still, while you're more in shape.

You're not as fast. You're not as powerful. Your core coverage isn't there. And any player who's gained depends on that extra step. As has been the case for last 25 to 30 years. Michael Chang, Alvin lost a lot more matches after he won the French. Leighton Hewitt had a two or three year run. He was the better improved, new and improved version of Michael Chang. And after him, I got to be honest, look at the players.

that were their game was built off of speed. Alvin look at it. They have not had the staying power. So I'm only missing to you to say if your game is built and to be honest Alvin and you heard right here Alcara and Center both. They're both pretty quick players. Center's game to me is a little more well-rounded Alcara's game depends on speed. You heard it right here. I'm gonna put it out there. I give them five years.

Alvin Owusu (38:03.152)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (38:24.058)
oooo

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (38:24.219)
His peak will not be 28, 29. You heard right here. I gotta say it. Here's why. Because it's so speed dependent, he won't be that fast at 28. Just saying.

Alvin Owusu (38:33.37)
I think that people, okay, this is not on the rundown, but we're gonna go ahead and go there. When we talk about Carlos, okay, shit, all right, we're going there. When we talk about Carlos Alcaraz, right, people get really caught up in the flair, right, all the, like the big shots and all this stuff. Like it's a fun brand of tennis to watch and it's effective.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (38:41.497)
Let's go there.

Alvin Owusu (39:01.24)
and it's exciting and it wins. He's pocketing four grand slams at this point. But here's why I'm gonna surprise you and I'm not gonna really push back on that because there are some things if you force yourself to be critical that you feel like won't, they don't age well. One, he does not win easy points. He doesn't have a big enough serve. And that is not because of his, he doesn't really have any technical deficiencies. He's only six foot tall. He's not that big. He's not a big dude, right?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (39:22.542)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (39:28.27)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (39:30.936)
So, and then the speed part, he is so fast that his speed is a weapon. His speed causes you to think two, not just twice, think three times about where you're gonna hit a ball. And then he can get to things and then he gets the balls that most players would be on a little bit on defense, he can kind of get, do it neutral on some of those defensive balls. But like to your point, and this is, yeah, we had no intention of going here with this conversation.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (39:35.705)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (39:56.929)
I don't disagree either. He's not gonna be, I would be shocked. I would be shocked if he's top five when he's 30. If he's still playing when he's 30. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (40:04.728)
If he's still playing. There, now, there, and that, and that buttons up my point Alvin. And anybody with more average, we're gonna say, because they're all good athletes, average speed, you're already slow.

Alvin Owusu (40:24.919)
Yeah, well, the-

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (40:25.592)
And this is in NFL football for running backs. This is in point guards, in basketball. You had to have been phenomenally fast, younger, to be above average fast at 30, and so on and so on. Junior tennis, your top quick water bug types are phenomenally fast at 12, 13, 14, and at 18. They're not as fast.

Alvin Owusu (40:47.725)
You know, I might even contradict myself right here. This is gonna sound stupid. Because when you watch him play, he can literally hit players off the court. So it's like, I think it's his speed that is his superpower. Without it, he's still.

really, really good. He's special. Yes, he's special because of his speed. So as the speed starts to deteriorate over, you know, he's 20, he'll be 22, I think in a couple of weeks. In the next six years, as the speed goes down, there is something that goes up though, which is his experience.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (41:07.798)
You're talking about Carlos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (41:27.286)
Can we take a quick trip to Coach's Corner? I have often said there is a correlation of ball speed and foot speed. The players that the ball really big, Alvin, hit the ball almost bigger than they can cover the court. And so that puts them at a disadvantage. And this is for any junior, any adult. This is for...

Alvin Owusu (41:31.34)
Take me, we need music for it.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (41:51.989)
You know, a college player. College is a little different because they're all in pretty darn good shape and pretty good at the prime of their life in that sense of the word as far as they've been to at that point in time. At the moment that your ball speed is bigger, while it's a weapon, it's also a bit of a liability because you cannot return your ball being returned. You're quick. When your ball speed is X,

and your foot speed is X times two because you are faster and able to handle said ball. You hit a big ball when your ball speed is X times two versus your foot speed. At a certain point in time when ball speed becomes bigger, you are more error prone. are more, you have to take chances because you know that's how you win points.

This is the perennial Juan Martin del Pocho type of game style. You just have to go for shots. That's what you do. You won't catch up to the ball and you don't care because you're playing Russian roulette. You don't mind it because you can make the shot. The quicker type players. I'm talking about your Carlos Alcaraz right now. A few years back it was Caden Chicori. A few years back behind that it was Leighton Hewitt. You can go back to Michael Chang. These players are fast. I mean...

crazy fast like not even close to fast. Guys like James Blake were phenomenally fast. They just ran down balls. They could hurt you in the corner while after running down your ball. And these are the kind of players I'm mentioning Alvin that the foot speed and ball speed but unfortunately as you get older your foot speed just isn't as fast. And that's where I'm really getting at with this whole situation is that while the footwork the speed at some point you start to slow down

You're just, you have to now develop a different way to win. And honestly, you haven't really worked on that a lot. You always got to that ball, right? And so, you know, I look at Michael Jordan when he was 22, 23, dunking on three people, coming in with the helicopter move under the goal. And by 33, 34, shooting fadeaway jumpers. mean, the guy was still every bit as good, but he was winning a different way. And at the end of the day, that's the part of you seeing the decline and where father time is unbeaten.

Alvin Owusu (44:11.521)
You know, I'll say this, Novak Djokovic, right, as an example, poor example, he's obviously gotten slower, right, that's what happens, he's 37. But Novak makes the court feel small, right? Tennis court is, compared to a basketball court, compared to a football field, it ain't that big, it ain't that big. So if you can think your way through, start to think your way through your tennis,

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (44:21.724)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (44:27.047)
He does.

Alvin Owusu (44:40.788)
you can shrink where the ball might go. Therefore, not needing to be as fast. You're not guessing. Yes, yeah, and I think in tennis, you can kind of get away with it if you're smart. Yes, this is how you, this is your old band tennis, right, as we're still in the corner here for the coaches, right? You start to like, this is the back you down version of tennis. Like, I'm just gonna force you to hit the ball.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (44:45.099)
Yep. Right. His game isn't speed dependent to your point. Yep.

Right, you can kind of keep the geometry of it a little bit.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (45:03.28)
Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (45:06.799)
Yep. Right. Court, time, and options.

Alvin Owusu (45:09.81)
in this area. The whole court is not an option. what you'll, I think eventually what you'll start to see with your Carlos Sokras is even the eunuch centers is the same thing you see with Novak Djokovic is at 33 plus. It's like we're not getting into these crazy rallies that make no sense. I'm taking away a lot of your options because I'm not running, exactly, exactly. He's not going be backing up trying to rip these balls. He's going to be pulling Novak's taking these off the rise, hugging that baseline, keeping this court short.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (45:36.869)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (45:39.376)
making your options limited and that is actually how you continue to look fast while you're getting slower. And I hate that we're talking about the demise of Carlos Zácalo when we've already laid out that he isn't technically approaching his prime yet, right?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (45:54.269)
I know it. So let's put another spin on it. We're talking about people tune into Carlos Alcaraz because the next five years are going to be fireworks. He's just now approaching his prime. He's going to be unbelievable. Yannick Center is just as fast, The kid's going to... He is the fastest person six feet behind the baseline I have ever seen, ever. He hits step-ins, Alvin.

six feet behind the baseline outside of the singles sideline. That doesn't happen. Most people are lucky to hit a step in five feet within the sideline. He's hitting a step in outside. His core coverage, it's like all his life he grew up playing two on one and the other side got the alleys and he only got the singles. And he made himself get the full, right this is my normal size.

Alvin Owusu (46:25.962)
Yeah? Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:46.102)
This is my normal size court. This is what I always play with.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (46:51.439)
But when I go to the tournaments, I get to play the singles. My coach lets me play singles only in the tournaments. That's what we're looking at. And these guys, their speed and their court coverage is phenomenal. Now, I say that to say the only problem, as they get older, that will unfortunately start to drop off a little bit. right. Oh.

Alvin Owusu (47:11.702)
And they'll stop doing it too. He knows he doesn't want to run around. You can already see the maturation in him a little bit. Every three months he's just doing a little bit less. You know what? I'm not gonna run for that ball. It's the quarterfinals. I'm gonna let it go. I know I'm gonna be playing in the semifinals, so we're gonna cool the Jets here a little bit.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (47:24.948)
Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. I want to add up one last thing, Alvin, and before we put a pin in this, I read an interesting article the other day by one Jim Courier who wrote a great article I felt that really spoke to the longevity and why the players were able to be a little bit better for a little bit longer.

Alvin Owusu (47:42.324)
Hey!

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (47:52.717)
He mentioned himself, mentioned Pete Sampras, even Andre a little bit, and obviously Currier won several slams, he was a great player. And he talked about their usage and their scheduling, I say usage, their scheduling of the tour for longevity. They did not play every event. They did not play all the time. In some cases, they even took a fine to take a week off to get their body right, to make sure things were better. They didn't play all the other off-court things in the off-season.

They didn't play a lot of extra doubles. They just managed. They understood the rigors of the tour and they played in what they felt was their wheelhouse. And as a result, they were able to play good tennis for longer. He said he, if he had to look back at it again, he says, you me and Pete and others, we played every time we could. played as hard as we could for as long as we could. He says, but 29, 30, I was done. They ran themselves ragged, hurt.

Alvin Owusu (48:38.312)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (48:51.084)
tired, dinged up, body, needing to be broken down. And mind you, Nadal was another one I thought who played as bad as hard as you could play night in, night out. I think he had a knee surgery on both knees. I think he had hip surgery on both hips. mean, the guy absolutely was a warrior, let it all out there. But again, maybe that physicality cost him a little bit. You can't say it cost him too much. He won 22 slams. I say it to say, Jim's point was they managed the schedule.

Alvin Owusu (49:12.82)
Yeah, he did alright.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (49:20.159)
better over the course of their career for the longevity of it. And I never really had understood even the short term, small, you know, things, right? A 20 grand fine here, 50 grand fine there for missing that tournament, but for the long term playing a better grand slam as a result of it. And so I really feel like for Novak, sorry, for Carlos and for Yannick, that's something they need to really look at and say,

How can we extend our tour, our years on tour, a little longer to make this happen? Because that's really what you're looking at. And I'm sure, go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (49:52.977)
Yeah.

Let me say this, I think I'm right there with you and you're starting to see players, some of them, like there are some that are just doing it old school style, like I'm playing every week, whatever, like get rich or die trying, right? But the centers and the Alcarazas, I was thinking about Carlos today specifically in that, okay, this clay court swing that we've talked about, right? We talked about how it starts in Monte Carlo and then we go Barcelona, we go Munich.

Sorry, we go Barcelona or Munich and then we go to Madrid and then we go to Rome before we go to Paris. That's three 1000s in like five weeks, right? And then Barcelona being 500, but it's still tough. So I was thinking today as, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was thinking today, like as I watched Carlos just go through this 1000, a one week 1000 and then do the same thing the very next week and get to the finals here in Barcelona. It's like, is he gonna play?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (50:27.661)
Yeah, and then Paris. And a row, Darn near a 1,000.

Alvin Owusu (50:52.626)
I mean, he's probably gonna play Madrid. It's the home master's event, right? He's gonna play that one. I feel like a Rome pullout's coming. Like, I don't think he's gonna play Rome. Like, he can't, he's playing good tennis right now. And we've talked about this before. Like, you can't just play good tennis for six weeks in a row. He's gonna have to dial it back here at some point, save some of himself. And it feels like, okay, center's coming back. Take the shine.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (50:57.524)
Sure.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (51:09.714)
Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (51:21.095)
you're not seeing my ball till we get to Paris. And then even to Yannick's point, like to Yannick's, like Yannick and Carlos, they both don't play warmup events before the Australian Open. They just, we're gonna train and we're gonna come in and we're gonna figure it out for that same reason. try to keep the match count manageable, especially if you're expecting to be last weekend in the majority of the events.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (51:36.081)
Yeah. It's a necessity in today's tour with the rules being what they are, with the player appearance numbers being what they are and the tour mandating it. You might even say, Alvin, and I want to have a future conversation with you about Yannick Center's very convenient three month ban and how he immediately took the ban at that time.

during a time that was pretty, let's just be honest, pretty convenient for him. I wanna have a conversation with you later about how that may have actually helped him. And in some ways, because history will remember the slams more than the 1000s. They'll remember the slams and the rankings, which are of course geared toward the slams, more than they'll remember the 1000s and the 500s. And my question is, we already have talked about the little bit of unfair treatment, little bit of preference treatment.

Maybe just inconsistent treatment and that's not Yannick's fault. That's the WHO and the systems fault. But my problem is, that they didn't so much ding him as they gave him a little bit of a reprieve. And I have a problem with that in the sense that everyone else had to play. What if you had to play as a penalty? What if they made you play with your performance enhancing? What if they made you play 30 weeks?

Alvin Owusu (52:39.571)
That's the system. It's the system. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (53:03.846)
That's your penalty. I know that sounds crazy, Alvin, but I'm just gonna... put... Airways plays 18. You... Oh, oh, you chose to take a steroid? You know what? You're good. Tell you what, here's your penalty. No, no, no. Save your money. Play 32 weeks this year. Any way, anyhow. You don't... You forfeit all your prize money and your ranking from this past year. Play 32 weeks. You wanna... You wanna go take some juice? Play 36 weeks.

Alvin Owusu (53:06.8)
make you play 30 weeks. Cut it.

Alvin Owusu (53:26.844)
Jesus, Jesus.

Alvin Owusu (53:34.352)
I'll swing us back into the realm of reality here.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (53:37.423)
Please, I only say it to say, if you're really going to punish a player for doing a performance enhancing, accident or no accident, make the penalty real. And you know what you're gonna do? You're gonna end up having your career be shortened by five years. You're gonna end up having your rankings all be, you're gonna really have a true, if you, remember the Chris Rock joke about, yeah, make guns accessible, make every bullet worth $5,000.

You gotta really hate somebody to go to spend $5,000 to do it. His point wasn't, and again, we're bordering on political, but his point was, fair, don't change the rules. Just make it be more expensive. And that's what I'm getting at. I'm just saying, three month ban between Australia and the French? You almost helped him out.

Alvin Owusu (54:20.497)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (54:28.432)
Yeah, I'm gonna choose for the time being just to look past it, because we can't do anything about it now. What I will say is for him, this is probably when he, it probably leans more into the opportunist of it. He wasn't gonna, I don't think he was gonna be out there kicking butt anyways. Maybe he picks up, maybe he bags Indy Wells or Miami, but yeah, whatever, who cares, right? So of all the times, I feel like,

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (54:32.805)
Stop! Here.

Alvin Owusu (54:58.033)
This is, it helps him from a resting his body standpoint, but I think it hurts him in that it allowed, like specifically Carlos Sakuraz, not to make this the Carlos Sakuraz show, but allowed him to find himself and really like now come into Paris a little more himself than he was when he left Australia the last time we saw Yannick. So back to kind of the, maybe even wrapping up this conversation around the age and,

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (55:03.459)
Thank

Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (55:16.931)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (55:27.345)
I think the interesting part about the players that are contending for championships right now, save for Novak Djokovic, Jannik's actually on the old end of that spectrum. He's 23, but the players who are between him and Legsvarev age-wise, you're talking about like Alex D. Menor, you're talking about Caspar Rood, you're talking about, we talked about Sitsipass, we talked about FAA, right? There's not a lot of...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (55:50.507)
Yeah. Tommy Paul.

Alvin Owusu (55:56.914)
top in players ages 24 to 27 in the top 20. That is the missing generation right there. all Carlo, like Janic being 23, all the way down to like Archerfies being, go like to Mincek being 19, or Fonseca being 18, right? As they age up in five years, Now,

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (55:58.754)
Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (56:06.639)
There you go, right?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (56:18.263)
That's it, yeah? Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (56:24.749)
Now Fonseca is 23 and Sinner is 28, right? Nothing but space right there. It's gonna take some young guys behind them to push them. Like, and they would have to be doing it ahead of the curve.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (56:27.495)
Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (56:39.483)
And because so many are 28, 29, you've got the 15, 16, 17s coming up that could still be relevant in that timeframe, but so many of them dropping off by 30.

Alvin Owusu (56:50.351)
And I think the reason why the Carlos Alcaraz was probably able to get so many so young is because the guys who are older just weren't that good.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (56:58.58)
weren't, now that I would agree with you or I would say, I'm gonna say it a little bit more, they weren't up to the level at the time. And I think that's the best way to say it, but I hear you. But let me say this, it doesn't, it speaks more to Carlos's greatness than it speaks to the level being down. It speaks to Yannick's greatness more than, the level is always high, the level is always good.

Alvin Owusu (57:27.345)
Of course. Of course.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (57:28.404)
Those players are simply better. And that's the crazy, you call it warrior mindset, call it mamba mentality, call it whatever you want to call it. Everybody has a different spin, a different name, a different marketing approach to it. Champions just think and play differently, period. And at that point, I mean, the top champions, all of our champions, the top champions just approach it differently. And I think that's really what we're talking about.

I would look forward to this next conversation. want us, I want you to do me a favor and write this all down. And I want us to review the same conversation. Year from now, you know what I'm talking about. No, no, no. What I mean is a year from now, we're going to redo, we're going to come back at this. You know, what is this? April the 20th, you know, 2026. And we're going to review the matriculation of the players that are now 28, 29, 30 that start to move on.

Alvin Owusu (58:05.913)
I'm recording it. I don't need to write anything.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (58:27.294)
And we're going to start seeing, cause let's face it, handful of those players in the thirties are going to start retiring any day now. And there may be another 15, 20 in the 29 to 32 range that may call it a day. And now who replaces them in that vacuum? The Alphonsecas, the Yawakamenskes. Now, now it's going to be a fun tour.

Alvin Owusu (58:32.195)
Yeah, I don't care about that.

Alvin Owusu (58:43.535)
You know, it's interesting. It's interesting because we talked about the prime being 27 to 31 and then 32 plus being, you know, post prime. But in the, I'll call this the realm of relevance, right? Let's just say top 30 in the world. Top 30 in the world. There is one player between age 30 and 37.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (58:52.222)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (59:13.168)
One. So it's not, and that's how you have to start looking at that as an anomaly, right? Grigor being top 20 right now in the world is, I don't know how that happened, but it happened. So like if you just take the 30 plus guys, there aren't many of them, and there's only two of them that are in the top 30, right? Take them out. Danil Medvedev at age 29 is the oldest relevant player on tour right now. That's wild.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (59:28.063)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And because he's been relevant, mind you, Demetri was hurt for several of those years.

Alvin Owusu (59:42.671)
29.

29.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (59:52.42)
He's playing to get back what he had. This is what I was getting at, Alvin, is that some of those players that are still playing have a reason. Not only were they top 10, but they have a reason to keep playing. Novak still starts from 26. Any way can get it. Gregor is still playing because he lost three or four years. There was a lefty, Alvin, that you remember that after a car accident came back and reached number one in the world, right? And you heard it right here, may not have played that long, had he not been in that car accident.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:14.447)
Thomas Mustard.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (01:00:20.924)
So there's still some, I'm just trying to get back to what I have. I'm still trying to get back to the tennis I missed. I think there's a storyline on each one of them, but because the rest of them all retired, right? And so I'm just getting at something out of them that I think that is relevant. It's very pertinent, but it's also very real. After 30, there's nothing left to prove. I've done it already. It's time for family. It's time for kicking back. I give tennis all I had. I gave tennis 20 years, right?

Alvin Owusu (01:00:48.591)
I would even push back and say it's not about the after 30. It's about the after 27. And the conversation is not about why that I'm out here still doing it. It's that you've already seen my best.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (01:00:55.516)
Now, now, now you're really, that's real talk.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (01:01:05.916)
Right? You see my best and I can't do anything better and the injuries would have by now and I have it.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:10.863)
If I could have, I would have. I would have by now. I would have by now. So unfortunately, I'm looking at you, Alexander Zverev. I'm looking at you, Taylor Fritz. I'm looking at you, Andre Rublev. These are guys who are perennial top tens who are...

highly unlikely to win a Grand Slam in their careers. I feel like this might be the last year.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (01:01:37.145)
They need to make a move. Alvin, can I do one thing? I know we do Coach's Corner. I want to offer a new segment, and this will be our close. I want to offer a new segment. Often, I was talking with my cousin the other day about watching the show and things he took from it. And he's not a tennis player. Good basketball player. We both grew up playing basketball back home. He's better at basketball than I was. He said it helped him to look at his own

career and where he's at going with things. And it really struck me in a way to say, we got to always make sure we find the relevance. I liked your whole point earlier about the NBA and how we're, you know, it's all sports. It's not just tennis. Tennis is just another sport, another level of excellence that we're trying to speak to. Alvin, you're 22 years old. starting, just got out of college. You're starting a company, right? You're that next year, right? You got to work hard. You got to get in there. You got to make some waves. You got to distance yourself from some competitors.

But you really got to get in there and kind of, let's face it, some hard work, right? So a lot of hard work. You're 27, you've been at that company for five years. And I understand the corporate world is a little different than most, a little different than the entrepreneurial side and the running your business. And I get all the different types of work you can have. What I'm trying to talk about is a real life comparison. You're 37. Have you been a director, a manager, or?

second level supervisor, something, and you want to be. I'm going to challenge each person listening to this to say, if you haven't been that by now, what are you willing to do to become that if that's really a goal of yours? If you haven't reached that level by now, why not? And what are you willing to do to get to it? Maybe that mean enough to you, in which case, no problem. But if it means enough to you, then what have you not shown? Right?

And by 47, what's to say in the last 20 years? You're gonna change. It's not gonna change. You haven't changed it. It doesn't mean enough to you. It isn't one year ago. You haven't changed enough to meet said circumstance. There's a one off here and there. Guy didn't like me. Political, sure, fair enough. That's one time. Maybe two, but not five, not seven, not.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (01:03:54.231)
47, not 20 some odd, 25 years worth. And so I say that to say for people watching the show, we've spent the better part of an hour, maybe a little longer talking about pro tennis, in which we have, in a sense, we have put 20 years of a player's career, which is, he's played since was five, six, seven years old, inside of 10 to 15, 10 years, really. They, we're looking at a microcosm.

that players tennis but it might be 20 30 years for players for a person's work career my challenge to anybody who's wanting to pursue a goal is to keep pushing and To keep doing things necessary to improve Whatever it is. They're trying to achieve the only thing in your way is You and your approach to it. I'm not saying you're gonna be the Novak of your career. You may not be that

overall talented in whatever the categories there are. But you could certainly improve your level from 50 to 35 with a little bit of work, a little bit of tweak. I look at Federer who got Ivan Ljubicic as his coach because he kept getting torched off the backhand side because he was slicing too much. And the biggest thing Ivan told him was whatever you were comfortable with hitting the slice, start coming over the backhand. That was anathema to

Roger. He would always had a backhand slice. Why would I not slice? Lubitsch says because Rafa's killing you with the out wide serve with the slice backhand. He's killing you with it. You got to come over the top. Here's the point I'm making Alvin. I want to help us to kind of bring tennis into the real world. Is it possible that you are so much in your comfort zone that you, whoever you are, student, player, career person, are not

thinking up about what do I need to change? What is my one-handed backhand slice that I have to address? And who is my Ivan Lubicic that I can go to and say, I got to address this. I will never be CEO. I will never be VP. I will never be. If I don't change my backhand slice, that's my safe spot. But if I'm trying to get there, I got to quit slicing. And I think

Alvin Owusu (01:06:14.752)
And with that, I'm gonna stop you right there.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (01:06:16.049)
And I think that's my point I want to say right there Alvin. And I think that's where we at best of three are going to help continue to push the envelope where people can start seeing the relevance of not just tennis, but also see it as a microcosm for all of in life. And I appreciate you all tuning in. Alvin, as always, it's been a pleasure.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:35.243)
And with that, that's the three, we're out.