Ep. 33: Rome Masters 1000 Wrap-Up

Alvin Owusu (00:00.654)
And welcome back to another episode of the best of three podcasts. I'm Alvin, that's Tory Sunday evening. How we doing?

Torrey Hawkins (00:06.842)
Yes, sir, yes, sir. I'm good, brother, I'm good. Good to see you. I saw you yesterday at Anya's graduation party. It's great. It was good seeing you in person. know what I mean? It has been, you know what mean? And that's on me. I've been busier than a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair factory, if you know what I'm saying.

Alvin Owusu (00:13.726)
Yeah!

That was the first time in a little bit. It's been a little bit.

Alvin Owusu (00:25.195)
You know, it's not all your fault as I'm driving up. So I live in the city or you're a little north of the city. As I'm driving up there, I'm like, woo, it is, we are South Chattanooga up here. It's far.

Torrey Hawkins (00:37.316)
But technically south Clemson, you know what saying? 85 side. But no question, man, no question. If one more exit up and it splits into 985 going towards Gainesville. I mean, that's how far up we are. It's crazy. I mean, sometimes I'm coming home, I'm like, how did I? Which is more house, Alvin. I went to school downtown. I sometimes wondering, how did I get so far out in the darn suburbs, man? I mean, but hey.

Alvin Owusu (00:39.949)
Okay, there you go. Goin' 85, not 875. Yeah, but...

Alvin Owusu (00:52.302)
gosh, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (00:58.069)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05.115)
It is what it is and yeah, it didn't happen overnight. I'll tell you that. It didn't happen overnight. So anyway, but yeah, great seeing you. Always appreciate seeing your face in the place. It was a little surreal seeing my youngest graduate last week and obviously having a little grad party this past weekend. lot of friends and family over the last shoot, 30 plus years. She's 22 now and as you can appreciate all this gray hair, you know what I mean?

Alvin Owusu (01:06.029)
It's one step at a time, one step at a time. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:19.339)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:27.744)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:34.079)
Hehehehe

Torrey Hawkins (01:35.035)
That has been well earned, but it was great seeing you and many others yesterday. So shout out to any of you who were able to make it. And it was just a neat thing. And I appreciate everybody being part of that journey and those who have indirectly and directly been a part of our lives. So, and you foremost of which. So really appreciated you being there. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:51.648)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it's good to be there. And I appreciate the invite and I wouldn't miss it any further. And obviously I didn't. I was there in person. And some people were like, yeah, what do mean you haven't seen Tori in a while? like, yeah, it's been like probably, I don't know, maybe a year or 15 months, even though we see each other often and talk often like in the same place. It's been a minute, technology allows us to do these things. So that's nice. That's nice. Yeah, it is.

Torrey Hawkins (02:00.655)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (02:09.369)
Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, yes, it's a wonderful thing.

Alvin Owusu (02:22.165)
So where are we right now? It's Sunday, Rome men's final ended today, women's finals yesterday. It's been a fun tournament. So I think we flipped a coin earlier, it landed on tails. So we're gonna talk about the men first and then we'll come back and talk about the women. So I watched this match, I was very giddy for it. Like I was so excited because the way rivalries go, right? We don't always get them all the time.

Torrey Hawkins (02:25.051)
Yep. Yep, just ended. Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (02:32.965)
Yo.

Torrey Hawkins (02:47.481)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:52.178)
And especially when it's number one and number two, they both gotta do some work to get to the chance to play each other, right? So even back in the fed, the doll days, it still took a while for them to play. And sometimes it's two, three times a year. Sometimes they go a year and they don't play. So it's not all the time. So when you get these guys, especially with Yannick coming back, just coming back, and we are in Rome, man, gosh.

Torrey Hawkins (02:55.193)
Yep. Yep. Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (03:16.505)
Right. And in Rome. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (03:21.526)
That center court in Rome, tight, high sides, like a coliseum. He's an all black, you can feel the crowd, especially during that Tommy Paul match. Yeah, it was really cool. think it's really, really neat that we get to see these players on home turf. You saw Carlos in Spain and Barcelona, now you got Iannic here. Fantastic stuff. But it felt like a slam final going into it.

Torrey Hawkins (03:24.741)
Yeah. Yeah, it's full. Yeah.

No.

Alvin Owusu (03:51.379)
what did you feel before the match and then like, what did you feel after?

Torrey Hawkins (03:56.345)
Yeah, I'll start with after. Didn't feel like a slam fine laughter, obviously. And I'm not sure if Yannick was gassed. I'm not sure if the level just dropped off.

Alvin Owusu (03:59.592)
Right. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (04:09.295)
Before I was expecting some solid tennis, let's face it, Carlos is playing great tennis right now. Yannick really did a phenomenal feat, in my opinion, to come back after three months off and reach the final. We need to say that. You don't just come off of a three month break, 90 days, whatever it was, and then get to a final of a 1,000. It helped that he was in his home country. It helped that he was in Rome.

Alvin Owusu (04:16.426)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (04:37.134)
But and it helped those on clay. He's obviously very adept on clay. I just felt like we still have to remember he is 90 days minus a lot of matches. And so for him to be back that strong at that point in time was a big deal to see. He could have very easily went out, you know, to an also ran, you know what I mean? To a player that wasn't as good. Hey, Arnoldi beat Novak, you know what I mean? First round of a clay court event. And you're talking 24 slams. So clearly the guy's not

Alvin Owusu (04:47.154)
yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (05:06.83)
different story, different situation. won't digress, but the point I'm making is it was important for me to see, it was important for me to see Yannick return to form so quickly. It felt like every match he got a little stronger. Al, you and I talked about this before a little bit and yesterday even. I felt like Yannick almost peaked a bit early, you know, in the tournament. I thought in that match when he played against Casper, it probably was his best match of the tournament.

Alvin Owusu (05:28.104)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (05:34.618)
Didn't look bad against Tommy Paul. Let's be honest. I mean look very very very very sharp and I was I'm one that feels like and and some of the viewers at home when you play a week-long event Seven days. It's hard to play your best tennis seven days. Some would say impossible. So you're going to have this situation from time to time where you're gonna play your best day on a day you didn't expect and and I'd be the day you wanted

Alvin Owusu (06:00.038)
Right. Or today you didn't need it.

Torrey Hawkins (06:03.833)
And that was probably against Casper Ruth, right? On what was that, Wednesday or Thursday? here we are now on a Sunday, right? And he's back to playing kind of normal, kind of more mortal, right? And on a day he needed a little bit more, right? I don't, know, make no mistake, that was a good match. Casper played him solid. The score doesn't reflect it, but he played him solid. There was several long rallies, good points. The opening point album was like 28 shots. I mean, the opening.

Alvin Owusu (06:07.863)
yeah, something like that.

Alvin Owusu (06:27.658)
Yeah

Yeah, no, it was a good match. was a highly contested match.

Torrey Hawkins (06:34.137)
Rice wasn't contested in the score, but still contested the point. I say it to say, very solid, very sharp, and perhaps one of his best matches to date in that tournament to date and everything else. The problem with the peak, Alvin, is then you come down. You won't get that match again.

Alvin Owusu (06:53.32)
Right, so he beats Casper cleanly and then loses the first set against Tommy like 6-0 or 6-1. It was like, okay, yeah. Right. Right. Yeah, so for me, that match was, like I said, was highly anticipated. I was ready for it like everybody else. But I thought back to the last time they played on clay, which was French Open last year, semis. Match was not.

Torrey Hawkins (06:59.693)
Yeah, yeah, right. Well, back to reality. Eminem style. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (07:23.434)
like neither player really played well at the same time, which happens, right? But I think the things that make both of them so special and why they're able to be number one and number two in the world right now, they can't do the same thing as against each other. Like, yeah, like Janik likes to lean on people, like he likes to hug the baseline, he does it even on clay, takes the ball early, and just really imposes his quality of ball on people, right?

Torrey Hawkins (07:24.653)
Right. Right. Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (07:40.022)
Right, right. They cancel each other out a lot.

Alvin Owusu (07:53.001)
hard to do when the guy on the other side of the net is hitting the heaviest ball on tour, coming at you. So it really, they force almost bad tennis out of each other, which is less entertaining tennis.

Torrey Hawkins (07:57.218)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (08:06.232)
I like where you're going with this. I think it might do a disservice to the matchup in my mind. And that's why I may digress a little bit. Here's what I see. Because of the dihedral opposite in the ball type, what I see is a player that if they're not as sharp and in this matchup, the rock, paper, scissors, the onus is on Yaniks on the rise.

And if he's not as sharp, you're going to see some ugly tennis. And I think that's where you and I may have our Overton window. I do not think that Carlos plays much different. If anything, if Carlos goes big or too early, I think that actually aids Yanek's game and lets the on the rise hurt him back because Yanek's he's the human palm, right? So he's going to come forward on that ball. But I was actually very, I'll flip, I'll change gears here.

very impressed to see Carlos be patient. I was very impressed to see him not force. He probably hit Alvin 20 maybe maybe more drop shots. I mean he probably hit when it was when he had him Carlos and Carlos loves his drop shot don't get me wrong and I think that's it's great shots coming back obviously Yannick used it well as well. I felt like Carlos had the game plan of running him today running his legs out from under him.

Alvin Owusu (09:09.574)
Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (09:35.049)
more than beating him. And I thought it was a very smart move by his camp. I thought it was a very smart tactical move. He is not matched tough. He's just coming back from it. Let's see how long he can last per rally. And I was impressed that he did not pull the triggers often. Had him on a rope, three, four shots back behind him. Of course, went deep, went solid, went down the line several times. And then he's like, let's just gut check you. Let's just check your legs real quick with a drop shot. Not necessarily his drop shot winner. Just to see.

Alvin Owusu (09:49.766)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (10:03.072)
and then we'll play this long point to see at what point, let me see what your fitness level is going into French, right? Let me just see where you're at because I'm feeling pretty good right now. I'm in pretty good shape, pretty good match shape, you?

Alvin Owusu (10:13.521)
Right.

So let me ask you maybe two things here. So when we start to look at this matchup, obviously both players are very exciting. As fans, we watch them and these guys are entertaining. But as practitioners, when you go, if I'm Carlos Alcaraz's camp, how am I game planning to beat Yannick Center? And let's say Carlos has beaten him four times in a row now. So this is not, they're all a little different, but this is not abnormal, And then I guess the second thing,

Torrey Hawkins (10:23.851)
for sure.

Torrey Hawkins (10:27.996)
for sure.

Alvin Owusu (10:45.664)
obviously the center side of it. But the second thing is like, I was thinking about these players that really make us go wow with their shot making ability, but what is the actual thing that they're really, really good at? And I think Carlos, to your point about being like, not only is he matched tough right now, Carlos is insanely fit. Like he's insanely fit. He hasn't lost a five set, like a fifth set match.

Torrey Hawkins (10:53.034)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (11:00.596)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (11:07.35)
100%.

Alvin Owusu (11:13.032)
I think since Baratini beat him in like 2021, I'll show you an open look. Like he's so fit. So when you get into like he's, this is his one, two, third tournament in six, seven weeks, right? He's ready to go. Like winner, final, final now. Like he was ready to go. the, don't, I didn't think like, like you said, he seemed very willing to like, I'll be out here all day. I'm fine.

you're the one who hasn't played this level of tennis in a long time.

Torrey Hawkins (11:42.016)
Clear my schedule.

I hold my calls, I'm ready. I got the whole afternoon. You know what mean? I've got the whole afternoon. Let me know if you want to go long again. You want to go three? I'll play a third set with you. Let's just give the fans a preview for the French. And that's what I saw, Alvin. You were going to ask the question though.

Alvin Owusu (12:02.254)
right.

Alvin Owusu (12:06.041)
yeah, so like that's one thing that I think Carlos is very, very good at. Like the skill he has, like we talk about Federer's shot making ability, but I think Federer's thing that he actually worked really hard on that you maybe can't see is a quote unquote layperson, his footwork is impeccable, right? And that allows him to be in position to make all of these great shots. So.

Torrey Hawkins (12:27.027)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (12:33.37)
But from a tactic standpoint, let's go back to that part. What is it that Carlos is looking to do to Yannick when he goes out in that matchup?

Torrey Hawkins (12:43.498)
I'm putting myself in the Alcaraz camp. I am number one, taking advantage of my fitness. Juan Carlos Ferrerro was one of the most fit guys on the tour. We talked with this one episode before, walking past him in Australia. We talked about this in Australia and he was doing two on ones on an off day before the final. And Alvin, we walked back by the courts and there were two new guys, fresh guys getting ready for him. So you know Juan Carlos has, he is,

He's probably still fit right now. He could probably still go two out of three right now with top 10 in the world and grind him down. That's just number one. But in the Gil Reyes Andre Agassi chapter of things, he's making sure that Carlos does not waste the fitness by being too flashy too early. He wants to see those guys ram. He wants to see Carlos and let's face it, a fit guy like Carlos needs a few reps.

Alvin Owusu (13:14.233)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (13:42.805)
to finally get the heart rate up enough to start feeling it. So that's number one. Let's make the match physical, not so much in a bruising robbing the doll, heavy ball, heavy ball, buggy whip, I'm sliding 20 feet to the right or left, in a let's just go 15 balls so I can work up a little lather here and get myself, I'm feeling good, you might be winded. And that's what I'm going to always lean on as the go-to. I can always hit a downline point winner.

Alvin Owusu (13:44.463)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (14:10.517)
But I think what Juan Carlos and the camp is getting to understand is, but you don't have to. It took Andres seven years to really learn that lesson. Before Gil Reyes and his camp started really helping Axie see, no one knows how fit you are because you're ending the point too soon. So that's number one, lean on the fitness. Number two, hit your heavy ball sooner, go behind them, of course, and then wait and see. Wait see, we know you got them down the line. But you always have your down the line zinger.

Don't use it unless you have to. In fact, in some earlier matches, I felt like he's used the zinger a little too early and he's been the aggressive base slider when he doesn't have to be. So that's another part. Be more patient, work the guys a little bit. Let's just see what they can do and kind of work a different version of counterpunch where it's not that he's the counterpuncher only, he's giving you a chance to run him first because he knows you're gonna spin your wheels. And then third, and this is to me, his secret sauce.

Carlos to me has the same serve on the second as he does on the first. I don't think he has the first serve, I'll be honest. He's got a phenomenal second serve and he uses it all the time. You look at so many second serve points, there is no weakness on the second serve. He serves the same serve. So that to me is something I don't think people understand.

Alvin Owusu (15:29.925)
Well the flip side of that is like his, doesn't get a lot of easy points off the first serve. Right. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (15:32.884)
And he get a lot of firsts, 100%. He has, in my opinion, as a big server, he has no first serve. But buddy, that second is no joke, because it's the same as his first. So those to me are his three ways. And in this matchup with a guy like Yannick, who's got some of the best returns in the game, you need that. Because if you give him any kind of weakness to pick apart, he'll do it. And I think all three happened to match up well today because of

Alvin Owusu (15:40.642)
Yeah. Any.

Torrey Hawkins (16:01.863)
You know, I think Yannick's in incredible shape, maybe not in match shape and in match toughness right now. But you would, hey, you heard it right here. Do I think Yannick will lose any five step matches in the French? Absolutely not. You know, once he gets the matches back in him. but 90 days will take his toll on you in terms of toughness.

Alvin Owusu (16:18.373)
Yeah, I'll, this is an interesting one. So the 90 days thing, we talked about it last episode that, you know, between ATP finals or maybe Davis Cup, he takes off almost two months, two and a half months between official matches before he goes to Australian Open. Like no warmup event, just like we're gonna train, we're gonna go into it. But the difference between the Australian Open and this event, right, he's got...

Torrey Hawkins (16:24.221)
Yup. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (16:46.198)
a full week of matches against guys who are ranked outside of the top 50. And you can get yourself into it, right? You're number one seed, you're not playing a seed until round three, right? Whereas here, he's got a seed, yeah, it's round three, but it's like five days in a tournament, right? And after that, he hasn't played any matches before this, like official matches. He was probably one...

Torrey Hawkins (16:51.772)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (16:58.139)
Yup. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (17:15.005)
like four or five days away from being able to handle going the distance with Carlos Succaras and two out of three, right? So that's, I think that's the difference between this kind of, you know, break coming into a, you know, two out of three set tournament versus going into a three out of five set grand slam, the whole timing aspect of it. Also, Yannick has this weird record where like he hasn't won a match that's gone longer than three and a half hours.

Torrey Hawkins (17:21.873)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (17:33.853)
Sure. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (17:43.293)
Mmm.

Alvin Owusu (17:44.14)
That is, I think that's notable. Like that's something.

Torrey Hawkins (17:48.77)
Yeah, so something to put in the back of your head if you're if you're in a long match with him if I'm a if I'm a guy like a rude or sarandolo, you know, you know, let's put him off to the side right now. Let's just let no offense to Sasha, but let's put him over there on the other side. So but to your to your point, anybody else who you know, who is in my opinion, Tommy Paul, you know, somebody who

Alvin Owusu (18:07.459)
We handled him. We handled him already. We're gonna leave it there.

Torrey Hawkins (18:17.843)
is as fit and can go that same distance and threaten you on a bad day. I think that's what you're getting at in my opinion, which is unfortunate why I push your boys, Zverev off to the side. Zverev may push him own self onto the side. We'll talk about him in a second.

Alvin Owusu (18:23.947)
Yeah, you gotta get there first.

Alvin Owusu (18:30.244)
Well, I only say it on clay at Fridge Open, there's just, you can get to three and a half hours in three sets on clay, as opposed to three and a half hours at the Alstrain Open. That was, you could include the trophy ceremony in the final there that took care of the whole thing, right? it's just.

Torrey Hawkins (18:39.716)
for sure.

Torrey Hawkins (18:47.809)
Right, right, 100%. Three and a half hours on the clay might be how they schedule matches, you know what I mean? three and a half hours, or a sense is gonna take you three hours, I mean, bottom line.

Alvin Owusu (18:53.603)
Right, yeah, yeah.

There was a, one thing I noticed in the match though, like I saw you kind of, you're looking at the different stroke matchups, right? Like so whenever the two players got into a back to, back then, bleh, backhand to backhand rally, like center is on it. Like Carlos tried to lift, center's just like, I'm not backing up, he'll jump, hit the hitch kick, like just, I'm not backing up and I've got this and I'll lean on you. But exactly, exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (19:05.382)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (19:11.696)
Yup, Yup.

On the rocks, 100%. Sure. Crouching tiger, hitting dragon. was like complete, yup.

Alvin Owusu (19:26.177)
But on the forehand side, Carlos is able to get so much action that Yannick can't do that on the forehand wing. So like he's going high heavy, high heavy, like waiting for that short ball until he mentioned like being patient. And then now that it opens up the drop shot when you move him to the middle of the court, he can go forehand line on the right ball with big safe margins. And that was, he seemed very comfortable in that space. Like he's getting, he seems more comfortable

Torrey Hawkins (19:39.026)
All right.

Torrey Hawkins (19:46.321)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (19:56.475)
on clay with that particular technique. But even more so since he was in Monte Carlo, from Monte Carlo to Barcelona, Barcelona to Rome, you can see him be more more comfortable with the, like you mentioned earlier, I don't have to pull the trigger. I'm good enough to just let my ball do the work and trust in my fitness and the things will open up for me.

Torrey Hawkins (20:00.335)
Match up.

Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (20:14.833)
That's right.

Torrey Hawkins (20:19.665)
100 % for all the sad reasons we listed before.

Yannick Center and Carlos play a lot alike in a lot of ways. The flip side of that is I think Yannick has a little bit more punishing return and I think Alcares has a, yeah, and on the clay that difference goes away a little bit because the clay is gonna take it away. And I think obviously Carlos has a bigger forehand. But besides all that, they both move quite well. I was.

Alvin Owusu (20:41.228)
and a bigger serve.

Torrey Hawkins (20:57.039)
I was very, very impressed with the core position of both players in this match. It wasn't like anybody gave ground. There was a weaker response from Yanuk's forehand from time to time. When Carlos was able to hook the forehand wide enough, it coughed up a shorter ball or a wider angle, which of course got him ran. It was able to sing him down lines on several occasions. But to your point in the backhand, the backhand, it was almost like...

Alvin Owusu (21:09.708)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (21:25.484)
I looked for Yannick to go to have a bigger backhand and Carlos' backhand is just as good. I mean, so it was one of those matches where I had actually thought that was how the match was gonna go. It was gonna be on that backhand breakdown. Carlos has a good backhand, so it's not like he's, and he didn't change out of it like he had to. He stayed crossed the whole time and if anything, I felt like he was kind of, felt pretty comfortable. was, some things, he lifted, he threw in some flies.

Alvin Owusu (21:48.578)
And he tried some things too, like he wasn't always banging, he was lifting, trying some stuff, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (21:54.002)
And it was notable to me, and you may have caught the same thing, every drop shot, not say every, I didn't see every, but the majority of the drop shots went to ironically to Yannick's forehand, which I thought was kind of interesting. It's like almost like a cross court droopy dropper. It wasn't like a, I'm just gonna run you. It was like, let me just get you in this corner so I can, because he has got a play after the drop shot now where he closed the net on you. And that's a pretty good hands on a lot of ballies. So.

Alvin Owusu (22:19.784)
Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (22:21.657)
That play is going to yield a lot of benefits going forward. My point, Alvin, is I think they play a lot alike as far as their base game. I felt like Carlos did a great job of being patient. It boded well for him today. I think it'll bode well for him later on. I think he's so fit and so much tough right now that he just knows that you really can't hurt me, period. And you certainly can't outlast me. And I think the ball pretty well. And instead of being the 22 that he is, thinking,

I think the biggest ball in the world right now, he's playing like a guy 27, 28. Let me just play smarter than you right now. And that to me is what I took away from the match in totality because that bodes well for a very solid next two weeks in Roland Garros. That's what I saw. Now, you, what do you.

Alvin Owusu (22:57.097)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:10.038)
Yeah. And so like, I guess right after the match, like Courier was on tennis channel talking to Andy Roddick about it. And they both were like, both players come away from this match pretty happy, right? Carlos just like, I got the job done, played well, got into a tight spot, like at I think five, six serving to his down double break point and got out of it. Gets into a tiebreaker, plays a decent breaker. And then I think, yeah, Janik kind of faded pretty, pretty quickly after that. You know, it's a lot to ask.

Torrey Hawkins (23:23.982)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (23:30.948)
Yep,

Torrey Hawkins (23:36.912)
Yeah, sure. Early break, contest the game at 2-0, 3-0, whatever, and after that it was pretty much guns open.

Alvin Owusu (23:44.457)
But yeah, I think Carlos, you have to look at it, not in just the match or just this tournament, but in last two months, he's won a lot of matches in a lot of different ways. Like the way he got through Monte Carlo not playing great tennis, right? Goes through fees and a tough match that was just kind of, he wasn't able to do what he did today then. Like he was still trying to do the thing, go for it, go through him and just like fighting that middle.

Torrey Hawkins (24:00.013)
Right?

Torrey Hawkins (24:05.775)
Sure. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (24:12.149)
happy place where he can just let his ball do the work. Wasn't able to find that until about the third set of that match, right? Okay, we get to Barcelona, you see he started playing really, really well. They put some things together, comes out a little lame against Runa in the final, whatever, but at this point we're like, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (24:13.593)
Yep. Yep.

Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (24:26.307)
Yeah, right. And dinged up to your point. But, and to your point now, I don't want to you off. And seems healed up. That's my point.

Alvin Owusu (24:37.088)
Madrid was a nice break. It's a nice break. It's a nice break. And then comes in this tournament and he was there ready. I think he dropped one set in the tournament and looked better and better each match. Even in the match against Mercedes prior where, and I want to talk about Mercedes in a little bit here, but the win was awful. Not the prettiest match. But Carlos just...

Torrey Hawkins (24:39.312)
100 %

Torrey Hawkins (24:47.129)
Yeah.

Each match.

Torrey Hawkins (25:01.209)
Yeah. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (25:04.309)
He's like, I am a winner, I'll figure this out. I'm going to be better than you enough to get through this. that's kind of what champions do. They raise their floor on bad days.

Torrey Hawkins (25:12.835)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (25:19.984)
To my point, in order, the fitness, he knows he's as good. And he's got that second serve for a first serve that he knows there's no real drop off or holes in his game. And when you lead fitness first, it puts you in a great situation because you know the guy really can't do much to you. If this match goes long, great, know, it better for me. Not just great, better for me. And I'm hitting the ball well. I have a heavy ball.

I've got some maturity. I know I can work the court. I can move well, the addition being fit. So I can spin my wheels out here. And if I got to go 25 balls to win this point, I will just to make sure I can check out your fitness in the process. And then I think, you know, I really feel like this was a great match for him, not just to notch up the belt one more time on Yanuk in Rome, I might add. And I don't think the Rome part plays much into it with Alcaraz. mean, the Spanish contingency seemed to be.

The Spanish fans seemed to be out there in full force for him. he never really, aside from that, you know, that tough spot in early, that late in the first set and obviously in the breaker, I feel like after that, you kept hearing them, you know, know, check the crowd on several occasions trying to, just to try to, it was one part silence in the crowd, but one part also saying, you know, seemed a little bit more like, I don't hear you. You know what I mean? It seemed a little, had a little bit of the,

Alvin Owusu (26:19.603)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (26:30.995)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (26:44.456)
Hehehehe

Torrey Hawkins (26:46.944)
of the, you know, I know he's the home crown hero, but don't sleep on me. You know, and I just liked that whole, it wasn't rude and it wasn't in any way antagonizing to Yannick. But, you the Italians can only respect a little attitude back. You know what I mean? They can only respect a little bit of that Italian, you know, right back at him. And that was neat to see him address it a little bit, you know, in the crowd.

Alvin Owusu (26:59.721)
Sure, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (27:04.145)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (27:09.984)
house.

Torrey Hawkins (27:16.782)
And I got to tell you, Alvin, I like the kids moxie. I really do. I like how he handled the match. He was very gracious in his win. He knew that it wasn't necessarily Yannick's best match. He Yannick was just coming back, looking forward to some more. He didn't kick the hornet's nest. At the same time, he wasn't afraid to let him know, hey man, I'm up in here.

Alvin Owusu (27:34.121)
Yeah, so I was thinking about this as I'm getting settled, right? I had the TV outside on the deck. I think my kids wrote that birthday parties or something. It was a nice time for me to just sit in and watch tennis. And I'm looking at the whole, like all the crowd shots. And I was like, man, this must be so cool for a local. I mean, obviously the final of the Italian Open is a hard ticket to get, right, I'm sure. But if you are a Roman and you have a ticket to this final and the weather was

Torrey Hawkins (27:44.174)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (28:03.982)
It so, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (28:04.242)
This looked amazing and the home, not hometown, but like the best player in the world is Italian. He's back, he's in the final and he's playing against the other best player in the world. It's like, man, this is so cool. And this is like one of the neat things about the global nature of our sport. We talked about little bit before, with, we've got some good players like Arthur Fies coming into Roland Garros being a

being a French guy, like Paolini and Center being Italian, getting to the finals of the Italian Open, Carlos Prior getting to the finals of Barcelona. like, this is, same thing with like even Zverev and, where were they before? Munich. Like when we travel around to different places and these players get to play at home events and they have these home fans, it's so cool. It's so cool. But I think that was...

Torrey Hawkins (28:38.766)
Yup. Yup.

Torrey Hawkins (28:55.553)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (29:00.274)
That was one of the cool things that took away from it. I think the final was, actually let me ask this, I know about the final, going into this event, and this is why results make rankings and rankings make seedings, I say this all the time, who besides Sinner could keep Alcaraz from winning French Open? Like we talk about his fitness, we talk about his five set record.

it doesn't seem like it's gonna happen unless he gets hurt.

Torrey Hawkins (29:30.943)
injuries. The only way I could see him at this point is playing. He's playing too solid right now. There aren't any really bad matchups for Carlos. I don't want to jinx the young man. He's playing some great tennis right now. I just don't see anybody out there playing the level of tennis that can do that at this point in time. The vacuum we are in right now is minus some of the best players in the game. And we are really seeing

tennis as it normally is. The last 20 years being a strong exception. And make no mistake, we're in a very deep level of game. mean, you got players that, you know, got guys like a Jack Draper that are playing some great tennis right now that aren't necessarily the most sure-footed on clay, but are no slouches on the clay and are having some great results. And the guy just won a 1000. Young, hungry, big serve, you know, decent forehand and a...

crushing backhand. These are players that could take you out on a bad day for sure. Lorenzo Mazzetti, my main man Caspar Rude, who's very sure for Ronald McClay. There are so many players. Demon R is Ronald McClay as is Tommy Paul. So many players I think that are good. I just don't know if they have the firepower to go through a Carlos Alcaraz at the moment. Will they? We'll see.

Jakub Mincek has that kind of game, again, it's on clay. I don't know. There's players that have that ability to hit a bigger ball. You know, there's a, you know, there's this, but it's just, it doesn't seem likely. You could say it. You could say an ovack, you know, at his prime, but he hadn't been in his prime since the shoot, since two years ago. And quite frankly, this year since the Dimitrov match in Miami. So I just don't see it happening, Alvin. I don't see it happening. I see it being a pretty, well, I see it having some tougher.

sets, not necessarily tougher matches. This to me seems, it's a very, he's going into this very well prepared and very well confidence body. Everything is in check. Everything that the Alcaraz camp wanted to have happen has now come to come to pass. And I feel like it's going to be a great tournament for him. And if, and to be, to be frank, he's going to,

Torrey Hawkins (31:56.204)
He's coming into the tournament playing in as good a form as he can expect going into one where, you know, I feel like tennis is in a real good position to see that because you want the better player to stay in as long as possible and have a chance to win it too. Let's be honest, all of us do. And if he does get beat, you want him get beat by a guy who's even better than he is, not a guy to just bump him out and then that guy goes out the next round. So I think it's gonna be, and I'm not so sure that Yannick is,

Alvin Owusu (32:09.661)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Torrey Hawkins (32:25.243)
back a hundred percent and that thing that I was left with with this tournament I'm thinking ball striking he's there he got better rematch ball moving wise looks like he's moved pretty well I mean he don't move that at all I didn't feel like I didn't feel like the penetration on the forward I didn't feel like even the penetration on the former turn there was some other shots that I just didn't feel like he was there yet I didn't see the tight passes off some nice drop shot drop backs

Alvin Owusu (32:27.472)
Yeah!

Alvin Owusu (32:36.103)
Yeah. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (32:53.515)
I saw a lot of different things that I'm used to seeing from Yannick. Very impressed with his movement, by the way. I always have been. But I didn't feel like I ever saw, he had a couple of inside out lasers that he's known for. When he gets that real good inside out, he just tags that ball in. But he only saw it few times, which lets me think that he may not have been feeling it enough to take it more often, right? And so those are kind of matchups that I look for. When I see him taking the backhand, I say to myself, he's playing it safe. When I see him going for the forehand, I'm like, ooh.

Alvin Owusu (33:05.389)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (33:22.88)
He's feeling today. And that's one of those things where he's the one I'm worried about getting to the other end of the final because he may not be. Now, the good news for him, he's still coming back. He's only gaining confidence per match. know, give him two weeks, a day or two or three in the early days, right, off in between. He might get there, but we'll see.

Alvin Owusu (33:34.904)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (33:41.593)
Yeah, and that's why these schedules are important, right? So today's, the finals on Sunday, right, today, he's got, he pulled out of Hamburg, obviously he's not gonna play that. So he's got a whole week off. Draw comes out Thursday, tournament starts Sunday. He might not play until Monday or Tuesday, depending on how the draw breaks. Yeah, and then it's like you're playing a qualifier or a wild card, right? And then you're getting somebody else in the second round.

Torrey Hawkins (33:44.789)
Right?

Torrey Hawkins (33:49.427)
Right? Right?

Torrey Hawkins (34:00.223)
What part did

Torrey Hawkins (34:09.483)
Who's likely between 75 and 98.

Alvin Owusu (34:13.051)
Exactly. And so now we're talking about, say he goes, let's say he goes Monday, Wednesday, and doesn't play his round of 32 until Friday. That's almost two weeks from now, right? So, and he's not going to see Carlos Sacaraz again for at least another week after that. and that's, I think that's good for him because he'll also get some more, like some more sharpening in tournament. Like round of 32, round of 16, if he gets to do those two against some,

Torrey Hawkins (34:22.569)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (34:28.487)
At least

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (34:36.806)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (34:42.147)
relatively high quality players. Now I feel like, okay, we're ready to go. We're ready to go.

Torrey Hawkins (34:47.563)
Yeah, he will only get strong. We know that about Yannick and I'm really happy to see these back. It fills out the drawer. There's a more question mark. I was really happy to Al Kharas take care of him today, especially in the fashion he did in the second. Just a good term. I have to say, I really wish this were the last one before.

Alvin Owusu (35:06.235)
Well, I feel like this week, whatever, got Hamburg. think Novak's playing in Geneva. So some of the players who lost a little earlier than they liked. Like Taylor Fritz is playing in Geneva. So like getting a little more, getting some more reps in there. Let me ask you this, Lorenzo Masetti. How do you feel about Lorenzo Masetti now? And how different is that from, let's say, pre-Montecarlo?

Torrey Hawkins (35:12.34)
Geneva.

Torrey Hawkins (35:21.514)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (35:30.666)
three weeks ago. That's Rundle.

Alvin Owusu (35:33.996)
No, how do you feel about Masetti now and how is that different than you felt about him before Monte Carlo? Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (35:39.73)
Monte Carlo,

Alvin Owusu (35:43.812)
Do you buy it? Do you believe in him?

Torrey Hawkins (35:47.23)
That's such a tough question for me. Number one, Enclave, yes. Number two, number two, I have, I can't give him, the purest in me can't give him props on the oney. I think he is a good player, Alvin. I just can't, something in me, I just can't give him that extra. Do I think he's good? I think he's great. I think he's better than I know.

I just don't think he has the goods to go through. I am coming from one of my favorite players and I'm biased because Skow played him when he came up through the ranks. Fabio Fagnini was one of the best ball strikers I have seen from the country. And Fabio had racket speed at a ball strike that few people have had. And when I see Lorenzo Massetti hitting the ball, he reminds me a lot of

And this is going to sound very harsh, Alvin, and I apologize ahead of time for the mortal that I am. But there are about 15 players out there and have played in the last 10 years or so that I feel are overachievers at the level they are at. They are 10 in the world due to points and rankings and whatnot, but they're really about 20 at best if everybody's healthy playing on a third.

Alvin Owusu (36:48.922)
Torrey Hawkins (37:15.017)
surface on a Sunday. They're not 30. They're not 50.

Alvin Owusu (37:17.305)
feel like you're about to throw some shade at Lorenzo. man.

Torrey Hawkins (37:20.777)
Not shade, just what I would say to be, I'm not sure if he is in fact that solid. I have not seen his body of work, so I'm gonna reserve full comment and full whatever, but I will say to you, think Lorenzo is hitting his glass ceiling. I think he hits a good ball. I think he plays the point well. He holds up well to pressure. I'm not sure that he ever will beat.

anybody inside the top 10 on a day in a slam. He's that guy that ekes out a win or two in the semi or quarter of a 1000 and that's a big win for him but you don't expect it and I think he's riding a bunch of those and he's there now and I have to tell you I don't think he is true top eight which means quarterfinals are better of a slam going forward. That's what saying.

Alvin Owusu (38:16.442)
Okay, okay. So, Lorenzo Masetti hits the scene, I can't remember if it was 2019 or 2021. It was one of those, but it was Rome, right? Gets the wild, I think he the wild card and he ends up beating Kaneish Khoury and Stan Warrinka in the tournament, right? This young kid, whoo, who is he, right? So, a lot of it is like, he's got this one-handed backhand, he's got the look and...

And he's good on clay, so people assume he's a little flashy. He's more a gas-gay than he is anything else. So I think what he's done a really good job of is kind of rounding out his game to be a little more durable on other surfaces. He semi-finaled Wimbledon last year. Come on. He beat Tickley with France to do so. That's a guy who's finishing top five in the world. To your point, people's rankings aren't always as good as...

Torrey Hawkins (38:58.248)
100%.

Alvin Owusu (39:12.133)
they might be or vice versa, they're not as good as their ranking, but he did it. So you gotta give it to him. What I'm starting to see is like, yes, the backhand is attractive, but he does rely on the forehand. It's attractive, I'm not saying it's effective, I'm saying it's attractive. He knows it's not his best shot.

Torrey Hawkins (39:30.695)
Thank you, thank you. Efficacy and aesthetics are two different things, Alvin.

Alvin Owusu (39:35.927)
Yes, and he knows it's not his best shot. He doesn't fall in love with it. He works the forehand. Like it's not a, he's not like my one hand backhand is amazing and I hit it over all, right? He hits the forehand. I've started to see him raise his floor across the board. I wanna see it, like I think he is the.

fourth.

Torrey Hawkins (39:59.089)
See, the fact that you cannot, the fact that you cannot give it a 100 % full-throated endorsement, there's something against it. Okay, okay.

Alvin Owusu (40:06.648)
I'm deciding, I'm deciding. I was gonna say he's the fourth or fifth best clay quarter probably in the world.

Torrey Hawkins (40:19.673)
Wow, I'm gonna write that down.

Alvin Owusu (40:20.716)
My mic's still working, I'm just like, why are you?

Torrey Hawkins (40:23.757)
Because Alvin, I don't think he will get to the corpse of the French Open.

Alvin Owusu (40:28.226)
Well, okay, what more does he have to do? He finals Monte Carlo, he gets to the semis of this tournament, he just keeps losing Alcáez.

Torrey Hawkins (40:31.556)
It's not what he has to do. It's not what he has to do. The guy's a great player. You asked my opinion. You asked my opinion. I don't think he's that good. I just put it right there.

Alvin Owusu (40:39.393)
Okay.

Who are the top five? And it can't be Dylon, Dylon, Dylon, and Dylon, right? Who are the best? Who are the best? Because I spit hot backhands Who are the best five clay quarters on the men's side right now? Number one, number two are obvious. Okay, who's after that? Let's take Novak out. Let's take Novak out. Okay, take him out. Just take him out.

Torrey Hawkins (40:45.143)
Alvin, and Dylon.

Torrey Hawkins (40:59.815)
I could see a number one or two obvious. can't, you can't, no vexed out, no vexed out. I think just he's out of the picture 100%. Alvin, just, you know how these draws work Alvin. He ain't gotta be, they ain't gotta be five. It's gotta be four of them. And two of them you already called. Sasha Zverev will beat him in my opinion seven times out of 10, 100%. In Italy, seven times out of 10.

Alvin Owusu (41:18.741)
Fine, I'm just...

Alvin Owusu (41:23.295)
He just beat, okay, seven out 10. That's what he said. He said seven to 10. Fair. You said seven, you said seven out 10. So this leaves room for, okay, okay, I'm with you.

Torrey Hawkins (41:33.415)
I would even say six out of 10 in Europe slash Italy, he happened to come upon them the other day. And mind you, it's very similar my dog house. But that's another point.

Alvin Owusu (41:43.455)
and he choked his brains out. Holy moly, six-five, six-five serving 40 love and could not hold. What are you doing, Sasha?

Torrey Hawkins (41:47.023)
Which is why I can't give Lorenzo the love. It has less to do with...

He pulled another dominant team, US Open final. Alvin, but this is my problem. And let me say this for all the Lorenzo Mercedes fans out there. I love his game. I'm a one-hander. I love his game. Any one-hander, I'm already, that's what I mean, one-hander, I got it. This is less about Lorenzo and it's more about the underperforming of other players. And I wanna be very clear on that. Damn, the Fritz for one, Dr. Zverev for two. They're just not.

Alvin Owusu (42:14.219)
Like who? Who's underperforming? What do you expect from Taylor first, right?

Torrey Hawkins (42:21.188)
getting it done Alvin at the level that they're supposed to be to really kick it and go in stride. Alvin they're just not getting it done. Dimitrov for another one. Here's another one. You already mentioned Novak. We'll put him off to the side. Caspar Rude should have won at least one more and gotten and been a semi-finalist or better at two or three franches up until this point to prove to himself and his camp. He's not young anymore.

Alvin Owusu (42:27.925)
Maybe.

Alvin Owusu (42:43.159)
Wait, Casper's final two Frenches. What are you talking about? He lost in a dolly, he lost in a drunken match. He's been there. Not that long ago, but okay.

Torrey Hawkins (42:47.43)
Years ago, Alvin, years ago, he's not done it in the last couple years. Alvin, this is what I'm saying. And the fact that he hasn't done it recently bothers me. Alvin, that's the top five. That's what they should be. He came back into relevance this year when he won, what was it, Madrid. He just came back into relevance. Alvin, the guys won 13 titles.

Alvin Owusu (43:04.639)
Madrid.

So answer my question though, who were the top, are you saying Sasha and Casper are better clay court players than Ms. Eddie?

Torrey Hawkins (43:14.054)
Sasha Casper are better clay court players 100 % and I think Lorenzo's that next tier. Make no mistake. I just don't think, mind you, it's due to their lack of being that solid that I just can't give them the love. He beats your boy. If he beats Yanuk, he beats Carlos in straights, I will say, I didn't realize he was like that. That's what I'm asking.

Alvin Owusu (43:39.831)
That's not what I'm asking of him.

Torrey Hawkins (43:43.122)
That's how I'm looking at him. He's not a contender. That's all I'm saying.

Alvin Owusu (43:45.911)
Okay, well that's a different conversation because results make rankings, rankings make seedings, seedings make draws, which we're gonna do a draw show once the draw comes out on Thursday. Looking forward to it because you can't really predict the tournament until you actually see the matchups, right? Until you see the draw. So what do I expect from Musetti in this tournament? I don't know, depends on where he falls in the draw. If he falls in Carlos' quarter and they meet in the quarterfinals, well that's a...

Torrey Hawkins (43:56.122)
Looking forward to it. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (44:02.287)
Please see the draw, 100%. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (44:13.825)
That's about how far I expected him to go. But if he's not, and he lands in Zverev's quarter, not bad, not bad, not bad. And who's four of the world right now? And who is our, well, yeah, whatever.

Torrey Hawkins (44:14.298)
Dup.

Torrey Hawkins (44:20.901)
Oh, Lord have mercy. Not bad. I might give the nod to Mercedes. That's what I'm saying. But it's not due to Lorenzo. It's due to Sasha throwing up the goose egg. Alvin, you heard right here. There are players and I'm not saying that he, first of all, top 20 in the world is great. Not good, it is great. And top.

Alvin Owusu (44:47.69)
He's top 10. He's top 10. Put some respect on his name.

Torrey Hawkins (44:50.405)
I'm saying top 20 is what has, I didn't give him top 15. See, this is the same conversation you give me with JPEG, the exact same situation. You won't give her the love she needs to be to be the true top five. And if she's three, she might be over achieving by one or two spots, but she's top five all day. And that's my point about players tend to overachieve a little bit past their ceiling. I think that's where she's at. And I think Lorenzo is one of those players. I'm not throwing shade. If anything, the other,

top five players, Alexander Sveirovich in particular, is underperforming currently. And that's my issue with the rest of them having to beat that player, coming through a draw with that player or getting through. I just can't give them the credit yet because of those others underperforming. Now, if we get past that, I'm with you.

Alvin Owusu (45:38.902)
So, it's not, I don't, I think we're splitting hairs, one, but let's split them. Underperforming versus not being, I'm gonna say again, quote, that good, right? So we're gonna come into this grand slam where Yannick's gonna be the one seed, Carlos is gonna be a two seed, okay, opposite sides of draft, opposite sides of the draw, three and four will be Zverev and Draper, I believe? Now, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (46:04.738)
Wow. Wow.

Alvin Owusu (46:09.054)
So at that point it's luck of the draw. Do you land in any quarter that's not the top or the bottom one? You're like, I got a pretty good chance. Like Jack Draper's, he's solid, but like he also gets into, he also gets into the sticky matches in early rounds of Grand Slams. Like he'll get himself tired by the round of 16. Like that's happened to him. So.

Torrey Hawkins (46:09.188)
Wow.

Torrey Hawkins (46:18.584)
Yeah.

Yup. On clay.

Torrey Hawkins (46:31.332)
I'm still getting over the fact that we're talking about Jack Draper as one of the top four seeds into a grand slam. This is my problem, Alan. And this is with him playing great tennis. I just don't know if, clay court wise, at the French, if he's that guy yet. I think Caspar Ud has proven himself on the clay. think Lorenzo Mazzetti, unfortunately, has proven himself to large degree. And Draper's playing some great tennis right now. That's not my point. I'm saying where are those other three?

Alvin Owusu (46:37.053)
He's final two masters in the last two months.

Torrey Hawkins (46:58.532)
And this is my, this is my other issue with the, with just all of it. This is not about Moussa. Moussa is playing great. This is not about anybody who's coming up around. Now I Tommy Paul, I Tommy Paul had a great time. Good, good. Congrats to him to be, get the semis. These are, these are guys that are playing some great tennis and doing very, very well. I'm happy to see them in all the success. This is me as a coach given at the eye test. And I say to myself, he's going to need some help.

Alvin Owusu (47:13.269)
Glad to see it.

Torrey Hawkins (47:28.865)
He doesn't have the game by himself to go through or to match up against four different types of players on their good day. He can beat any of on their bad day and he can beat the guy that beats the guy. Is he the guy to go through one of those top guys or to go through or beat down one of the guys who's playing well that day? And I look at other guys that are just behind them or around them. I know the current rankings are what they are, a Draper, right?

Who else is playing some good tennis right now? Soron DeLope playing some good tennis right now. Can he beat Munnar? And De'East is playing well. Your boy, we just talked about him. Playing some good tennis right now. Good Lord, was just... Casper, well Casper, but De'Munnar, that's not terrible on play. So you got these guys that are all right there that you're like, I don't know if I give him straight set wins over those players. I would actually give Dre Bernand just due to some...

Alvin Owusu (48:01.183)
Peace.

Alvin Owusu (48:10.1)
Casper.

Torrey Hawkins (48:25.237)
some weapons you know I'm not sure if I can give that to a Lorenzo Mossetti just yet and and I would say that to say should he go through the French on without dropping a set and get to the semis now you're right here you're right here I will go out and have a Lorenzo Mossetti shirt made and I will wear that shirt on

Alvin Owusu (48:43.41)
I hope it's the baggy sleeveless one that he's been wearing. That'd look good on you. Yeah, all right, great, great, great.

Torrey Hawkins (48:46.34)
It baggy sleeveless. You can pick the shirt. I will put Lorenzo Mazzetti president for all I care for all you care on that shirt because it's not that he cannot it's just I don't think he's there yet and I just am questioning his I'm questioning the the rest of the players that I still feel wrongly or correctly in high regard that I think are currently underperforming that should have checked a Lorenzo Mazzetti at the round of 16 that if not that have let him

skip through, you know, and pass go and collect the $200 and got into the semis. Just saying.

Alvin Owusu (49:20.592)
Luckily, luckily we will see. I just say between three and 10, he's probably looking around going, why not me? Why not me? Let's take a break. We'll come back, we'll talk about the women's side and then talk a little bit about some French Open pre-draw stuff.

Torrey Hawkins (49:23.458)
I'm looking.

Torrey Hawkins (49:30.401)
Why not me?

Torrey Hawkins (49:41.367)
Look forward to it, Lorenzo Mazzetti.



Alvin Owusu (53:57.944)
And we're back. All right, so we just clicked through the men's side of the draw or the men's side of tournament. Talk a little bit about the women. We got Coco losing to Jasmine Pavlini. Actually, let's spin that backwards. We got Jasmine Pavlini beating Coco Golf. First time in 40 years, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (54:13.856)
Ready? I'm just looking at a few of my scores here.

Torrey Hawkins (54:19.273)
Yes, sir.

Torrey Hawkins (54:35.466)
First time in 40 years. I like that. Mr. Ghanian, I appreciate you rewinding that and giving your fellow, almost fellow country woman a much needed shout out. Not only does she need the shout out, Alvin, she played great. Played great all week. She really took care. The crowd was behind her, but that's not her fault. And she played up to it. I was very, very impressed with her style of play. I forget what.

Alvin Owusu (54:43.641)
My people.

Torrey Hawkins (55:04.702)
Was it Madrid? Was she lost to Sabalinka in the semis, I want to say? was it semis or quarters? I thought it was semis.

Alvin Owusu (55:12.954)
think it was Madrid, think it was, I think it was Semis.

Torrey Hawkins (55:16.096)
And I remember her kind of, kind of, Arena went through a little bit as Arena can do. And especially with the size and high difference that Jasmine and Arena bring to the table. But I was not only impressed to see her do this well, I kind of always thought Jasmine played a little bit better on hardcore. She can play her on the ride style and move and basically be a type of counterpunisher, really counterpuncher really and counterpunisher when she's playing really well.

And I thought she played great. I thought she played well all week and she just is that little engine that could. She just completely, completely showed a new level, a new ceiling for me as a fan of hers. But I was also kind of taken aback that I really felt that Coco had an opportunity here, especially with Sabalenka and her loss to Queen Wen. I thought that was a situation that

she had opportunity to go through and really kind of notch her belt one more time. I, again, I get it, Italy, know, Paulini, I understand it, but I also felt like it was yet another match where I felt like Coco was not able to go through someone as big as her game is becoming. The serve and the form, once again, Alvin, the serve and the form, once again, are not big enough to be world number one. And they are, the backhand is there, they're on the rise, the returns are there.

I just, I keep coming back to those two strokes to say to myself, it's getting to the point where everyone's starting to realize, oh, just match up on the foreign side. You know what I mean?

Alvin Owusu (56:47.182)
Yeah, and so it was one of those weird things. I'm watching the match and I'm watching the match and I notice one particular thing where we've talked about this before where you have to be fast enough to cover your own power, right? So like sometimes, right. For her, it's obviously that's not the problem. She moves best to move around tour on the women's side. But the one thing, her superpower is her ability to take the ball, any ball.

Torrey Hawkins (57:00.607)
That's right. Otherwise you hit yourself out of your cupboards area.

Alvin Owusu (57:16.866)
any pace on that backhand side. She very much so like Yannick Center will hug the baseline, rip on that backhand side. She has phenomenal timing and feel in the left side of her body, right? But now she's in a bad spot where her technique on the forehand side now forces her into a bad spot with that tactic, right? So if she's on the baseline, hugging that backhand, she needs to have, she has to go like almost.

Torrey Hawkins (57:27.091)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (57:41.374)
He's almost going the opposite way on the foreign side.

Alvin Owusu (57:45.284)
back or diagonally to give herself enough time to hit the forehand because she doesn't space it very well. Like she gets, it gets so close to her.

Torrey Hawkins (57:46.43)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (57:51.966)
Yeah. And hits it for whatever reason on the run, incredible, but on the step up and on the cross court, not so much. And that's to me, that's spacing and that's just, you know, maybe.

Alvin Owusu (58:00.912)
Timing too, like it's like on the run you're running, you have more time to figure it out. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (58:05.744)
more time, well certainly more space, right? I don't know about more time, but I get your point. I'm saying, and that to me is a developmental issue where there should be a lot more time playing against people where you had to go through them on a certain wink. And I think, I feel like there's a little bit of, you know, and that's just a shot to people at home. Don't hide a side that needs some work. It will come to a point. You hope you're lucky enough that it happens on the tour one day, but let's be fair.

Alvin Owusu (58:34.063)
Good problems.

Torrey Hawkins (58:35.838)
But great problem to have, but at the same time, still a problem. You're gonna have an opportunity. You're gonna have that, it's gonna catch up to you one day one way the other. Get to the point where there are no holes and you're just as comfortable. You might be more comfortable on the other side, but don't get to the point where you don't, where you feel like you, that's not just, you're not comfortable at all doing that. it's, mean, those that showed it, Paulini showed it today. I mean, there's just, there's just matches up, there's matches where I feel like the people are starting to say, yeah.

I'm not so sure you can go through me on that side. Let's just see. And that's going to continue to be a bit of a Achilles heel. that's, you know, it's been that way and it's continuing. And unfortunately, I think Jasmine picked up on today. And how early are she taking the dark return? mean, I feel like the ball's landing out of the box and Jasmine's airborne. I mean, airborne, pulling the inside in backhand. I'm like, wow, that's early.

Alvin Owusu (59:21.839)
Dude.

Alvin Owusu (59:27.673)
So she is like, I mean, she's.

Alvin Owusu (59:32.847)
She's obviously small in stature, but her game style makes it like you feel like she's six foot. She's like five five, five five, what were she small? But she's on the baseline. I really forced myself to like, so Jasmine kind of like hit her ascension last year, Doha, wins Doha, and then comes back and does well in the other UAE tournament. then obviously finals, fridge open, finals Wimbledon.

Torrey Hawkins (59:42.961)
But to your point, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:00.871)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:02.392)
Whoa, where'd she come from? Age 28, right? But it's more than just a cool story. You start looking at her tennis and her timing on both wings is phenomenal and she hits the ball clean as Christmas. Like straight through it. Like on the rise, I'm going there.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:09.767)
Yep. Very good. Yep. Straight through.

If there was one issue, especially in that Sabaliga match from a few terms ago, it was a second serve, right? The second serve sat up like a pinata. And that's something I didn't see Coco, good serving percentage obviously from Jasmine today. Let me not forget to mention that, but I didn't feel like she punched her enough on that ball. I also feel like Jasmine did a great job of not giving her time. There was an episode in one of the Star Wars where Yoda comes out. You never really see Yoda

wheeled the lightsaber, but he's all over the place and size was not obviously, you know, it was tiny, what Yoda lacked in height, he made up for in speed and being literally everywhere. And you had, you didn't know where he was coming from. Jasmine reminded me of that today. It's like either side, either way down the line, cross court, open, didn't matter. And she was as potent on either side, either direction.

and literally felt, you look like, it looked like to me that she was more comfortable on the plate then, than Coco. And it also looked to me that she believed in her game a little more than Coco. And I don't want to read too much into it. She's playing well in her home country, but it just seemed, there was some moments where you saw she knows she will win this match. Before she won the match, she believed she would win. And I don't know if I saw that.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:31.682)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:44.972)
Well...

Even go back, I was just kind of like quickly checking this. So Jasmine lost to Sabalinka and Stuttgart at the Porsche Open, indoor, whatever. But Jasmine also beat Coco in that tournament. She beat a four and four. So four and four's not overly telling, but it is. Right, yeah, it's just like I beat her a few weeks ago. I'm at home now. I can probably do it again. I know how to do it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:05.883)
Right, not one-on-one, but yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:13.693)
Sure. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:17.431)
So that's, you could also say, okay, Coco just finaled Madrid, tough final there, comes right into this tournament, gets to the final again, we could be a little bit exhausted, had a hell of a, not good, long match against Junction Wind, It's a six, seven, four, six, it's a seven, six, four, six, seven, six, long, ugly, dirty match, but.

That's what winners and champions win those kind of matches and she did and nobody gets the dirt in the mud better than Coco Golf. Like the uglier the match, she believes in herself, she believes in her fitness, she believes in her mental. Yeah, she'll be there all day.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:51.676)
Yup.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:59.814)
Yup. This was there. Speed was there. Queen Wind also has a good backhand and can be a little up and down the forehand. I'm going to say this Alvin. I'm just going to say it. Coco has a higher ceiling. I would just love to be talking about her development on those other two pieces to increase said, to realize said potential. that's all I'm going to say about it. I'm a huge fan of Coco.

I've got a list of about eight players that are still out there playing that played my girls 12 nationals tournament way back in the day. Anissa Mo was one of them obviously Coco, know, my girl Katie Bolling that was in that same group and Kester I don't I'm not sure if McCartney played but there's a few there's a few others that are still out there that are still playing that I you know I Lauren Davies and a few others there's a few others that are still out there kind of hanging around my point being

Alvin Owusu (01:03:40.619)
Katie Bollinets, think she was probably McCartney Kessler, that kind of group.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:53.495)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:56.476)
I love them all because I remember watching them when they were so high and was neat to see them. Needs to see their game continue to improve. So I will always be a CocoaGolf fan. But the bigger a fan I am of you, my players, the coach, players that I like on the tour, the harsher of a critic because I know what your potential is. Right? I don't, I'm more, I adore Jasmine because of how much she's just continued to, I'm gonna say the word overachieve and it's not an overachieve.

because she's not that good. It's just when I see five, two, five, three battling against six, one, you know, I'm thinking to myself, she's maximizing everything she can. There are no three points for her. And yet she finds ways to get three points off returns and off shots that I'm like, just, and you wish that a player who's five, nine, five, 10 could have the same mentality, you know what I mean? And attack arm return like she does. And so anyway, that was just something that I was very happy to see and I would love, love.

to be sitting here talking to you one day with my Cocoa Golf shirt on saying, New Balance saying, Alvin, Cocoa has a forehand and it is big and it is clean and it is just a wonderful say. I would love to sit here and say, Alvin, Cocoa hit 23 aces, including the down the tee, including the slice tee ad. I would love to be sitting here and Alvin, only hit one double fault for the last two, stop it.

Something that I would love to be sitting here telling you that instead of saying, you know, what other players starting to catch up to, don't match up to Coco on the back.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:20.905)
Ray.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:29.897)
Let me, while we're talking about Cocoa, then we'll move on to, I wanna talk about Arena just a smidge. Last time we got together, we were talking about Cocoa's backhand being world class, right? But having your backhand being your best shot is gonna take you so far, You can't dictate based upon figsits. And you mentioned something, you're like, yeah, you can't hit a buggy whip. And we went on talking so much about it, but I wanted to come back to the buggy whip, actually. Beautiful.

It's a beautiful thing, but I wanted to give you some time to explain like one, what is the buggy whip forehand? And two, why is it important to have? Give you a little space to kind of, because you taught me the buggy hip when I was in college at some point.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:15.544)
Yeah. The buggy whip or the vertical finish forehand as it's technically known is a shot that has morphed. goes back way back almost to Borg. I mean Borg did it from back in the day. Pete Sampras was one of the players that I felt did was one of the best players to bring it back into Vogue where he always had on the run for specifically he always finished above his head.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:38.699)
On the running forehand

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:44.868)
players like Lindsey Davenport, who almost did it exclusively when they were on the move. And of course, Rafa Nadal has made it his trademark shot. The buggy whip forehand from a technical standpoint has a finish over the same shoulder. Now done correctly, depending on your grip, obviously, the more semi-western you have, the more you're going to kind of go over the head and the more Eastern you're going to finish more vertical. But either way, you're going to have a finish over the same shoulder. Now, the thinner you can hit it,

and still either hit it low enough and big enough over the net or the higher and thinner and buy yourself some time. My main man, Sebastian Grosjean, there's a name for the, Sebastian used to hit this on the run buggy forehand up the line as a reset, would take the next backhand hitch kick back on the line, take it on the rise and then would camp out for the inside out or inside in. Just, was like a pattern. Like, I know you're go here. I know you're gonna go here. You're gonna take my back, you're gonna take my heavy ball back to my backhand. I'm ready for you.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:23.567)
Torrey Hawkins (01:07:43.041)
And when you go back to the back, because you're not ready to pull the trigger, I'm gonna sting you and all the way to top 10 in the world, whatever you got to seven, eight, whatever. My point, and again, not a pretty fairly vertically challenged, you know, as as he was. But I say it to say it allows a player to play bigger than they are because it gives you both power and depth or gives you thinness and height depending on how well you hit it. Nadal had the ability to hit all three. He had the inside in thin.

that was a long lasso. had the inside, he had the back, the forehand deep heavy, that he went almost back behind his head. And he had the step up with the buggy finish. It almost went over the right shoulder and brought it back around. And that to me is pretty phenomenal. I've seen a bunch of different buggy whips. The buggy whip on the inside in approach is a great one because you're barely able to lift the ball over the net and couldn't get it in the close.

It's just a ball when you have tight spaces or you have tight time constraints. The vertical finish is faster. It's less of a shot, less of a swing, and it gives you the ability to manipulate the ball in different ways. What is it? It's a vertical finish. What does it do? Just about everything. we have these there's times when you have to improvise and this is that shot. The hitch kick backhand is a similar a similar.

shot where you have to kind of take it on that right leg and hit your left knee. Those of us were right handed on that backhand early to kind of almost push into the ball a little bit where the buggy because you're already open stance just allows you to take the ball a little deeper in the stance a lot higher or lower as the case may be. And it really is just a, it's a shot that a lot of coaches are kind of torn on. They don't necessarily like it from the purity standpoint, but if you're playing tennis and you're in an emergency situation, buddy.

If I have a, you know, in a Berkshire break glass, that glass is broken off in tennis because I have to. I'm out of time, I'm out of court, I'm out of options. And if the buggy gives me that, hey, why not?

Alvin Owusu (01:09:48.777)
I'm glad you mentioned the hitch kick backhand because both of those shots are, they're almost, know, opposite sides of the same coin, right? Like they are break in case of emergency tactics when you are compromised for time, right? Hitch kick backhand, right? You're gonna get up on your, balance your backhand side, you get up on the front foot and you bring the right foot up off the ground to compensate for actually being a little late, right?

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:55.809)
on the

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:03.48)
100 %

Alvin Owusu (01:10:17.639)
Ball is, ball's in front of you. Yeah, ball's in front of you. You can take it on the rise, but you didn't make the commitment early enough. So now the ball's, your contact point allows you to go higher. Yeah, and still be able to rotate through it. Yeah, making yourself taller almost.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:17.664)
Right. Late to move.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:30.466)
percent and still have leverage. And still leverage. Right? 100%. And it makes you because of the way side is because your knees coming up. You almost have to have a higher backswing as a result and there's no leverage up there. Right? Nobody has a high backhand. know, it's none of us do it. It's anatomically incorrect. But by hitting that hitch kick, you can make yourself six inches to a foot taller, depending on your jump and your timing. And you meet the ball at the best point with your weight going forward and up.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:57.447)
Wait going forward, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:58.986)
And that's the key. to me, to your point, great, great analogy, very opposite, diagonal opposite, but both shots, you're out of time, you're out of options, you gotta do something. And it's one of those shots. You I remember Morat Safin, there's been several others, but Morat was one of favorite who had the hitch kick backhand and he would move inside the court and take the hitch kick on you. And he was hit hitch kick back cross court. Morat was a big guy on top of it, but you see a hitch kick guy from a guy six five or how much was he six four, crushing a backhand already. Now he's taking a hitch kick on you early.

I mean, he wasn't hitting it slow, you know what mean? So now you got this ability. I'm seeing one-handers now hitting hitch kicks, you know what on the side because they just, know they have to hit it that way. So it's just a, that's a great adaptation to a situation that happens. And I don't think you can be topping, you can't be a pro player and not have a buggy with a forehand. I mean, you just, you gotta have that snap and you gotta have all three. You gotta have a reset one, the laser pass on the low rope and you gotta have the buggy angle.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:46.588)
Right, but.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:56.408)
I mean, if you don't have those three shots to me, you know, as a good, as a top junior, you're not going to make it without a buggy whip because you're to run out of time. I don't care who you are and what you're doing. The balls are coming too fast these days. You're going to run out of time. There's no time to finish over the, over the opposite shoulder on all shots.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:12.584)
Yeah, so from a technical standpoint, this is kind of getting even further in the weeds. I think we're already in the weeds. Let's go into the dirt. When a right-handed player is running out wide and you can see this is the opportunity to hit the buggy whip forehand, what are some things that that player should be thinking about? Maybe like one, two, or three things that you technically need to effectively hit a buggy whip.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:19.86)
Hahaha

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:38.583)
100%. Number one, I am the person on the run. I've got to get as late and as powerful a leg load as I can to hit this ball with the best height I can find. On the run, especially I'm going backwards slash sideways on a dead run, not dead run, on a medium run. This is a weird one, Alvin. I call this on the move, not on the run. I'm running, I'm comfortable, but it's why. I can get there.

What will I do when I get there? The buggy now buys me time. And this ball, will almost always, again, being right handed, jump off my right, land on my right, and open stand, 1000%. But this ball has to bring down raindrops. mean, this ball's gotta come down with such a trajectory that the high part of the net might actually be past the net. It might be closer to middle of the service box, not quite service line.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:18.139)
Open stance, so it's an open stance. Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:36.811)
to bring this ball down because my only defense, my only way of getting out of this jam is to make the ball so difficult for your on the rise backhand that it bounces above you or forces you back, hence my reset. And so that's the first part. I gotta time it well. If I time it, if I'm early on it, I'm hitting it. If I hit it late, I can yank it up and I really want this ball to go back wide so I can pretty much predict where you're gonna go in the next ball.

Hit it too low, step up the other person. Hit it too middle, crush forehand anywhere. Hit it down the line perfectly, good rope. The ball, I'm back in the play two or three shots later. You actually saw that today in a couple of points with Alcara as he hit a couple of buggies and got back in the point center. And if anything, because the backhand on the rise almost always goes cross court, right? You take it early, you almost can camp out on that side. On the next side, the buggy pass.

This ball is the laser. You got to hook the baseline. I don't care if you're five feet off the baseline. You got to cut two and cut off the baseline and you've got to get low and like a Porsche 911 Carrera, you got to be low and that ball, you got to be about ball height with your head and you've got to buggy that thing out past your ear and go lasso just past your ear out because that ball has to be hit straight and low and just enough lift.

and hit that ball big and low and make the person go for it because you know if it lands it goes. And that's on the run. You're going through, you ain't come back for nothing. If you have the wheels to be able to slide, great. But to be honest, you are mid slide, lacing this ball here. And the other one to me is the buggy angle, in which case you got kind of a lower ball, not a step up, not a ball above the shoulder. You got a ball that just got low enough, just landed short enough.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:07.942)
And that one is that one's on the run so you're not, you're running through that one, you're not really hitting that one open stance. yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:33.142)
It's not an approach, it's not anything else, but you can move up a couple of quick shuffles and this ball has to be able to get up and around the outside of the ball well enough that you're that service box corner-ish, depending on how good you can hit it, and getting it wide enough on either side. Nadal was great at this ball. He pulled it wide on everybody. You had hit a slice off of it because he yanked you so wide with it. I think Carlos just hits this ball beautifully. Well, he hits that kind of low hook forehand.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:59.268)
He does.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:01.525)
And usually you see him let the do it, right? You're not used to seeing a righty do it. But that hook forehand is something serious. Because now that ball breaks double sideline, you might be inside the baseline trying to get it back with a slice. And now players like Carlos are actually starting to come in off that ball because they know you got a slice. And as any player who sees that open face, that continental grip, you know that person's a little bit in trouble and they look to come in. On the flip side of the how to hit one, when to hit one,

We just talked about on the move, on the run, and obviously you're trying to get in control. If you are receiving the buggy, you have got to come forward. I mean, you've got to take that ball early. When you see that player drop it down that high, the later you move, the worse it is. Because once that ball drops on you on the buggy, you're done. It will bounce and check up on you so high. And your backhand side, if you're the same, obviously if you're right handed playing a righty or lefty playing a lefty.

It's just a ball you can't handle. It's gonna be over you before you know it, pushing you back. And you're gonna go from building, building, almost offense to, crap, defense within one shot. So you gotta take it early. And I think the other thing to keep thinking about is, that know the player you're playing. If they're comfortable on the run, there's a 90 % chance they have a buggy with forehand. Because if the guys got that good of wheels, you are those kind of players, Alvin, you were so fast that you almost were better on the run, right? So when you got out wide,

Alvin Owusu (01:17:19.792)
Sure. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:29.108)
And once we got you to handle the buggy, you had a buggy angle, you had a buggy cross, you had a buggy line. And we got to the point where, I remember working with you one time over at old school UTA, you had, you kind of connected the buggy passes. We're doing a little pass shot drill. And out of the passing shots, you got better defending, right? Sometimes they're around. People take their defending shot and they turn to a pass. You took the pass and...

Alvin Owusu (01:17:44.634)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:55.844)
and found a way to defend from the ground. And that's really either way you get it. It's same thing. But the point is that buggy can get to be so versatile that once a player has it, you don't really mind getting ran.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:08.74)
And it's one of those things that also like the grip, right? The grip a player uses, not chooses to use, but the grip the player has dictates how well they can hit the buggy. Like you mentioned on the open that the more western the grip, like the easier it is to get that spin on the buggy. even from personal experience, my grip was, you know, semi-western on a good day. Slipin' further and further west.

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:20.34)
100%.

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:35.816)
Hehehehehe

Alvin Owusu (01:18:38.978)
But in my 20s, well after college, almost into my 30s, I spent the time, I was forced to, to bring my grip around something that's more traditional. Shout out to Doug Davis, he told me once in my face, he's like, hey, I'm glad you're here. You can't teach here with that forehand, so you're gonna need to slide that grip over. So I spent an entire summer hitting red balls in between summer camp sessions, like just like.

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:57.246)
Ha

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:04.626)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:05.54)
Coach Doug is talking to the players. I'll just be hitting with someone else like short court red ball, like trying to figure out how to hit this thing, the thicker grip. Obviously, one of the best things I ever did for my game was to do that. Like now I can hit a forehand with, like I can actually tag a forehand, but that is one thing that I find it harder to do is hit a bug with forehand. It's more or less like non-existent now. can't find it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:10.547)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:19.859)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:27.015)
Yeah.

And I will tell you that the problem that you're probably having, where you are used to letting the ball be a little late and yanking, that with the grip being a little more out, you have to get the ball a little further out in front of you now. And hence the lasso out. And once you found it, lasso out, not lasso up, that's the only difference you're making. Because remember, your face is going that way now. That's how your racket path, the path your racket is going. It's going out. It's not vertical anymore.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:43.299)
I can't find it.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:47.3)
Lasso out, not up.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:01.233)
The grip's no longer there. It's no longer close. So you're going to have to find a way to match that path. So more out, less up. And again, depending on where you are, Pete was darn near Eastern on some of his forehands. And that's why you saw his buggy was almost all out here. He didn't even really go behind his shoulder. All of his on the runs were almost in front and stopped almost over his head. And he was lacing those forehands. Where Nadal, Nadal is somewhere between, he's a full-fledged semi.

And with them being on the bottom of the grip like he is, might even, he might be a little more, he's closer to Western than he is to Eastern, I'll put it that way. And so when, and that's why he gets all the way back and around. He almost finishes behind him sometimes on the buggy finish.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:36.802)
Yeah, yeah. Well...

Alvin Owusu (01:20:43.832)
Yeah, I was talking to a woman who is a tennis content maker, super funny. I'll drop her information down in the description at some point, Faren But Faren's super funny, love her take on tennis, she's a beginner player. And then she was like, I was like, you should come on the show sometime. And she's like, I'd love to, but you guys get into it. She's like, I'm like a two five. I'm like, okay, fair.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:10.353)
Ha ha ha ha.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:13.122)
Sometimes, sometimes we do get into it. And Faren, if you're listening right now, I see what you're talking about. But anyways, okay, so we'll leave Coach's Corner and let's wrap it up. The one thing I wanted to say about Arena, the loss she took to Junction win, whatever, right? Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:30.739)
No, that was a loss. I thought it was a walkover. It looked like walkover second set. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:34.691)
The loss she conceded. She conceded. Obviously she's had a fantastic spring, She won Stuttgart. No wait, no, she lost in the final of Stuttgart to Panko. But then won Madrid, came here. She's got plenty of matches. She just needs to get out of here healthy and get to a era. That's the, I think, odds on favorite right now. But there's one thing that I...

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:48.401)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:04.995)
hook from that match against Qinwen Zheng

QZ was 0-7 going to that match against Arena, right? And she finally beat her. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, yeah. And I think about that win. I mentioned this maybe in February, March, something like that. Jack Draper got to the semifinals of the US Open last year on some, we'll call it some shade. Not shade, but like everyone was just kind of like falling in his path, right? But he got there. And that was like,

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:12.905)
Yep. Yep. I read the article out. Gap or two, my first bag, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:37.051)
Yep. Yeah, for sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:39.725)
kind of the beginning of the ascension, the true ascension for Jack Draper. And I was thinking about the same thing with, that I about Draper about judging win, is like, it almost doesn't matter why it happened. The players, it happened to the player, it happened. And so now they just, yeah, Jack left New York as a semifinalist in a Grand Slam. Cool. He now sees himself that way. And fast forward nine months, he's top five in the world.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:54.403)
happen. Sure, I'm with you.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:08.564)
And he didn't, he didn't become top five of the world because he made the semi-final of the Grand Slam. Not those points. It's, I am now carrying myself like a top five person and he's, he's chase, not chasing, but like proving to himself all the time that I am this good, that this is me. And I'm starting to think about it with Junction wins. It's like, okay, she won this match. doesn't matter why she won this match. She now has data that's like, I can beat her. It doesn't matter why I beat her. I did, so I can.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:24.121)
Yeah, and everyone else.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:35.717)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:38.486)
That means I can do it again. And that is, I'm not saying that if they match up at French Open that I'm worried about Arena. I'm just saying, hmm, let's hold on to that for a second.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:53.136)
Are you willing to go on record and think that Queen Wynn is going to get to Simmers or better of the French? Is that what you're saying?

Alvin Owusu (01:24:01.28)
Well, everything I say here is on record unless I edited it out. This is a public podcast. And I do have that ability to do so. Could she make the semi-final? I just asked you the same question about Musetti and you went on your own Musetti diet trip. It depends on the draw. It depends on the draw. If she's not in Arena's quarter, sure, why not? She beat Ega at...

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:03.387)
Ha

Alvin Owusu (01:24:28.322)
I granted it wasn't the tournament, but she beat her there at the Olympics, right? It's still two out of three sets. What are we talking about? Like, who else am I concerned about? She's finaled at Grand Slam. Who else am I concerned about?

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:42.255)
and has done nothing else of note since. Here's what I'm saying. And I'm gonna give you a shorter diatribe this time on Zhang, I always butcher her name, Zhang Wenqi. This is my issue. Her game matches up to certain types very well. I love her game, by the way. I think she hits a beautiful ball. I think she hits a, she's clean. I'm loving everything she's doing.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:46.273)
It's a game of matchups. You didn't ask me if she was the second best player on clay court. You said she was, you asked me if she can make semi-finals of French Open.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:57.109)
Junction win. I got you.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:11.417)
for tennis in Asia, China specifically. She's awesome. However, she does not have some of the weapons. She's much like my favorite player with out of serve in the forehand to speak of at a high level, Coco Golf. The backhand at some point is just not as big. And I think her back, her form may be a little bigger than Coco's. Now here's my point. Here's my problem. If I have a player that doesn't match up great, she needs help. And when I say that the player needs help, they need a bad day.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:15.156)
ever.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:40.656)
They need a good draw and they need the right kind of matchup on certain times and right surface with their game being, in my mind, playing pretty solid out of the gate and all the way through. And that just also doesn't happen. It doesn't happen to the players that have all the complete package. It doesn't happen for Arena every time. So it's just much more unlikely to happen. Do I think they can get the semis? Is it possible numerically? Of course. Is it likely? I don't think so. And that's my problem with Losetti. They have the potential.

Yes, if the sun, stars align, you're absolutely right. I'm gonna say you can't do it, he's done it. I am saying, is it likely? And when I say is it likely, my answer is no. Now, could she? I look forward to seeing it. Does she see herself now more plausible because she's done it? Sure. Do I think it changes anything with her game? Does it change anything on court? No.

Alvin Owusu (01:26:22.613)
Okay, so.

Alvin Owusu (01:26:31.563)
Okay, so when I ask you, when I give you this question back then, okay, so if you think Junction Wind will not make the semifinals of the French Open, Roland Garros, sorry, let me be specific, then who will? Obviously, we're doing this before the draw is out, right? So this is just really like, who are the four players that you expect to be in the semifinals if they're not playing each other ahead of that?

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:45.402)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:53.648)
I'm gonna go out on limb here, of course, Arena, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, and I think Coco will certainly be there. I'm gonna go out on a limb and tell you, I got four of the players that I have a better shot. One of them is Jazmine Paolini. Second one is Oster Panko. Third one is Peyton Stearns. And the fourth one is...

Alvin Owusu (01:26:53.653)
Arena, obviously.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:19.28)
And this is, and I gotta, I gotta throw it in there, Alvin, because you've been sleeping on my girl.

Jessica Pagula.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:28.353)
Okay, all right, Jesus. okay, all right. That list is, nothing wrong with it, nothing wrong with it. Okay, actually, I don't disagree. That makes a lot of sense.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:32.153)
See ya.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:46.231)
And Paula Bedoza would be in that list and might bump out with us if she were healthy, but unfortunately she's not healthy.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:50.142)
Yeah, okay, know, if ifs were something, we'd all be something. So Jasmine, Jasmine's solid. Yeah, I could see her making the, she'll be probably the four seed. Maybe, yeah, I could see her being in the semifinals again. Absolutely, her game holds up. She's solid, she's been there before, got it. Who else did you say? You said Coco? Probably, why not? Coco's probably the, Coco's the second or third best clay quarter in the women's side, like so.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:53.189)
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, my point.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:19.509)
That's it. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:19.837)
Yeah, sure. And she's final French open before. Yeah, she lost the eagle once. So, okay, I'll give you that.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:26.945)
Mira is who I want. I just haven't seen Mira play that solid tennis going in. I think Mira is going to be incredible. And I just feel like she goes on these runs and then she goes then she goes radio silent. And I really would like to believe more Mira. I just, I'm on the clay. But she's who I like as far as who I want to see. But I'm going with just who I think.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:42.655)
I don't trust her to hold up on clay over two weeks. That's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:54.095)
has the experience, has the match ability and so on. And again, you heard it right here, Peyton Stearns and Emma Navarro both are in my opinion, very similar game. Peyton's got a bigger forehand and plays a little more, plays a little bigger officer, but if not Peyton, a player like Peyton, it'll be an Emma. It'll be somebody like, and you heard it right here, Peyton's playing some great tennis right now.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:13.305)
Don't come at me with Peyton Stern's propaganda when I am the Stern's propaganda machine.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:17.774)
I'm not, I'm not, but 100 % I'm just telling you, I think she could do it this year for that same reason.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:25.407)
So if I decode that, you're saying, Alvin, I finally see what you've been seeing for the last year and I agree with you. Cool. Got it. Yep. Awesome.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:30.302)
good god. Alvin, I have always liked Peyton Stearns and yes Alvin you're right to call Peyton Stearns. Let me decode this one. I do not think.

that clean wind has the goods to go to semi to the semis and beat three players that are top 10 in in route. That's what I'm saying.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:51.045)
I'm okay, fine. It's the, you always put me in this position where I end up saying something negative about Jessica Pegula and I don't want to. Only because traditionally she hasn't done that well in the tournament. So I don't actually think that it's not, she likes to play through the middle of the court pretty firm, right? I hugged the baseline. That just doesn't equate well in this particular environment. That's all. It's not shade. Jess, it's not shade. It's not shade. It's not shade.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:58.318)
Say it. Say it so I can wear my JPEG.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:20.435)
She won Charleston. I saw it. was not no shade.

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:22.818)
Yeah. Jessica, hate is gonna hate. That's all.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:27.059)
I'm not, Jesus, Jesus. I'm done, I'm done. Okay, you know what, we're done, we're done. We're gonna wrap it up. We will come back, we're gonna get together later this week. The draw for Rolling Gators come out Thursday in the morning, our time. We will take our looks at it and then we'll get together, we'll talk about it and then you guys are gonna hear and see a lot of us for the next two and a half weeks. It's gonna be a lot.

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:41.248)
I look forward to it. This is going to be a good one.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:57.641)
So be like.

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:58.21)
would love to get a few questions from some of the viewers about various matchups. I would love to see the viewers to kind of throw out some, I'm gonna say some barb questions to get us to take a, know, Stephen A Smith level of, know, where do we stand on certain things? that possible to put that out in chat?

Alvin Owusu (01:31:17.544)
Well, it is. Shout out to all the people who have been engaging with us on YouTube. Very active. Love to hear that people are rocking with us and laughing with us and taking in some tennis with us. I will put the question out to people. How do they want us to talk about the French Open? Because I have ideas. It might be, what match did we enjoy on that particular day? And we'll try to get some feedback from the...

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:28.558)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:37.581)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:41.4)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:31:46.973)
from the audience, what matches are you guys excited about when the draw comes out? Maybe we'll live stream this. Maybe we'll live stream this podcast and let the users, not the users, sorry, let the fans, the listeners just chime in live with us. That'd be scary. That'd be scary. We're gonna do it. We're gonna do it. It's not about if, it's a matter of when. What round?

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:51.276)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:56.066)
Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32:05.496)
Simultaneous. That would be absolute money.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:16.797)
Should we have some of our friends join us to talk through some of these matches? I think Sk0 would love to come back. I think Bobby would love to come back. I hear your boy Gussky might be available. Maybe Ansley. So we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We love Grand Slams. But yeah, let's wrap it up. We will come back. We'll talk to you guys later on this week after the draw drops. I'm still Alvin. That's still Tory.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32:16.845)
Yeah, and match, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32:27.594)
Yep, yep.

Absolutely. Goose!

Alvin Owusu (01:32:46.621)
That's the three. We out.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32:49.26)
We out.