Ep. 34: 2025 Roland Garros (French Open) Draw Review

Alvin Owusu (00:00.782)
And welcome back to another edition of the best of three podcasts. And it's not just any edition of the best three podcasts. is French open draw show edition. I'm Alvin Torrey. How you doing?

Torrey Hawkins (00:10.195)
Yes, sir. I'm good, Alvin, I'm good. Good morning to you, man. This is exciting. It's always exciting when the draws come out. And this one here is no exception. A little more tamed than I was thinking. The French have a tendency to do a little home cooking on the draws, you know what I mean? As they should, 100%. But it's just interesting to note just who fell where, you know what I mean? I know you've got...

Alvin Owusu (00:17.538)
Yeah, baby.

Alvin Owusu (00:27.51)
As they should. As they should. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (00:37.101)
you've been looking at a little longer than I have. Why don't you kick it off? Which one are we stepping to first?

Alvin Owusu (00:40.962)
Well, yeah, I did a coin toss early and this time it landed on heads, so it's gonna be the men's first. I think we did women's last time, but just kind of level set. is Thursday morning, almost 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, and they had the draw show live streamed this morning from Roland Garros. This is my first time actually watching it. I got my stuff together, took the kids to school, came home.

Torrey Hawkins (00:48.78)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (01:09.602)
turned it on as I got my day started and watched the proceedings. And it was quite interesting just to kind of watch it. It happens pretty quickly. There's enough pop and circumstance to make it an event that you wish you could get a ticket to, but no one can. It seems to be invite only. They did the women's draw and then Eka came out and spoke and then they did the men's draw and then Carlos came out and spoke a little bit. So, what's that?

Torrey Hawkins (01:36.076)
Yeah, like full champ kind of a thing. Last year's champ kind of a thing.

Alvin Owusu (01:40.471)
Yeah, I guess so. I'm gonna assume so. Yeah, so they both came out and spoke a little bit. No big deal. But as the draw is rolling out, sometimes you get the oohs and the ahs. Nothing is big as last year's wins Vera drew Nadal, unseated Nadal in the first round. That one I heard set the room on fire. But this year, relatively mild. Yeah, so we're gonna get started, I think. So I'm gonna try to...

Torrey Hawkins (01:50.156)
Yeah, right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:56.684)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (02:03.22)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:09.762)
I'm gonna, not a try, I'm gonna do. There's no try, there really, there's, we'll start, do or do not, do or do not. All right, so, and just for, I guess for clarity, neither you nor I have really digested this draw, right? It's just like, draw gets, draw goes up, we get on, and then we just kinda, we wanna talk through it. So we're gonna start with the men's side, go through kinda quarter by quarter.

Torrey Hawkins (02:12.758)
There's no try. Do or do not.

Torrey Hawkins (02:25.75)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:39.478)
number one seed, Yannick Center, top half of the top quarter. Anything here that kinda jumps out at you as, know, anything that shouldn't allow Yannick to kinda cruise through the top half of this quarter.

Torrey Hawkins (02:55.772)
No, but...

There's a few other people I'm worried about.

Alvin Owusu (03:06.21)
So I'm looking at this and I see like the one that kind of attracts me is Arthur Fiest versus Nicholas Jerry, right?

Torrey Hawkins (03:12.32)
Right, that's a tough first round.

Alvin Owusu (03:16.174)
I would say normally, I'd normally, yes. Like if this were last year, like coming into French Open last year, Nicholas Jarry would play in some really good tennis. I know he beat Alcarazade. I can't remember if it was, it might have been Rome. can't remember which one, but then it was, but he beat him on clay. So coming in Jarry was pretty hot. Right now I think he's, he barely, barely got in direct entry. So I'm less, and Archer's playing well, right? So I'm gonna, of anything I'm taking.

Torrey Hawkins (03:20.769)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (03:37.036)
A little cooler then.

Torrey Hawkins (03:43.977)
Right. And French and playing in France and playing in Roland Garros. The other match that draws my attention is the Mueller and Mensik match. That's a tough match up for Mensik. Mueller just knocked off Zverev in that tough three-set match. Was that Strasburg that we were watching Alvin? What was that? Or Geneva? What's the term he just beat Zverev in a days ago?

Alvin Owusu (04:04.8)
He beats Varev in... No, Hamburg. They're in Hamburg. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (04:07.649)
Hamburg, the ladies played at Strasburg and Hamburg and I gotta tell you, it didn't look terrible. And so to play Mensic, you know what I mean? That to me is a tough first round. Bublik and Duckworth, again, you know, not a, know, certainly not walkovers and all these guys in this lower half of the quarter look. You know, you got some decent.

Alvin Owusu (04:30.734)
Oh, you're ready to go to the lower half? I was still kind of just kind of stepping through the top half.

Torrey Hawkins (04:33.513)
Yeah, well, and I was gonna, before I go any further, Rublev's on the snipe. Let's just call it what it is. mean, he is, even with the addition of a main man, Morad Safin, I don't think he's right. He's course corrected just yet. And he's playing against some guys that are lucky losers, slash wild card and qualifiers. Those are guys you don't know. You haven't seen them, you know what mean? And you're on clay. These guys are coming in with a couple of matches under their belt.

Alvin Owusu (04:54.744)
So that's,

Alvin Owusu (05:02.912)
Yeah, you know what, I'm gonna say I'm with you. Yeah, Andre hasn't been playing the best tennis of late. But, and I'll say but, if he's gotta, there can't really be a better way for him to kind of wake himself up. And he's playing, I he's playing today, he's playing in the quarterfinals of Hamburg. So he's won two matches this week. If he feels good coming out of Hamburg, right, come straight in.

Torrey Hawkins (05:28.383)
Yeah, that'll mean a lot.

Alvin Owusu (05:30.06)
And then he has two matches against players who are gonna be ranked well below him, right? Before he meets, let's say, probably Archer Feast in the third round, that's about as good as you're gonna get. I think if you go into that with maybe two or three wins this week and then he picks up another two on the way, I'm not too concerned about round one, round two, but I think the rubber really meets the road in that third round matchup, which I expect is going to happen.

Torrey Hawkins (05:34.984)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (05:39.207)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (05:50.212)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (05:55.295)
in that third round match with one Yannick center. Again, I agree. Again, we can look through it.

Alvin Owusu (06:00.438)
No, he's third round against Fees going down. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (06:03.84)
Oh, there you go. Sorry. I'm looking at the arrows are a little bit tough to see on the iPhone. You know what? Yep. That's a as I say, he has a course corrected just yet. And I'm looking for a guy that's that's a that's a perennial top 10 the last handful of years. You know, just saying it would be good to see him, you know, do some nice things at the same time. It'd be nice to see him. It'd be nice to see him.

have an upset, you know what I mean? And slash hold his seed a little bit stronger and that's all. So again, with that said, the other one that was, you got the two, got Munnar and Hugo Carabelli and that's, anytime you got a couple of solid clay quarters like that, you know, and that feeds into the Jerry feast match. That's another one that just kind of keep an eye on. I always like seeing when the South Americans and the Spaniards battle, that's always a good match.

Alvin Owusu (06:55.096)
Yeah, okay, well we'll keep trekking to the bottom half of that quarter. I guess just to be on the, coming out of the top half, I assume we both feel like it's gonna be center and feast with.

Torrey Hawkins (07:06.208)
barring a natural disaster and something physical happens to, yeah, 100%.

Alvin Owusu (07:13.804)
Okay, it's Yannick. You know what, I'm gonna not necessarily step out on a limb here, but I'm not ready to write off Andre Rublev yet. I feel like Rublev is gonna be over Feast. If he gets there, I'm gonna go ahead and speak on that, because these things aren't always linear. I don't think Mr. Feast is gonna just check off one box after the other. I think he's still got some things to learn.

Torrey Hawkins (07:32.712)
Agree.

Torrey Hawkins (07:39.943)
I don't disagree, but there's enough. I'm going to disagree with you on that one. There's a lot of blood in the water with Andrei Rubalev. I think he at times has doubted Andrei Rubalev. And I think Fees is due. I don't know if Fees is due for a quarter or semi-final run, but I certainly think he's due for that next level win for him. I was thinking about this last night, Alvin, and it's funny we're talking about Fees. know, timing is funny and confidence is huge.

If you

have confidence going into a match with decent stakes. You feel like you deserve to win. You're playing well, right? If the guy across from you isn't feeling the same, match, there's just a little 51-49 in your favor, right? And then you get the timing of things, right? And the timing of things is...

Alvin Owusu (08:26.072)
Sure, sure.

Torrey Hawkins (08:34.478)
in your career to date. And I think we've seen several players so far this year that have made this, I'm going to say, upward trajectory. You're just Draper being one that comes to mind right away. You are just, you're just seizing an opportunity and each successive win compound interest, right, on your momentum. And then the timing of you beating a player that's not as good

Alvin Owusu (09:00.226)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (09:03.994)
It's more of a steamroll than it is, you know, just a wave. Few people are tsunamis. Those are typically your top five, top, you know, future top five and top 10 top players. And I don't think we have a ton of those right now and heck, we're coming off an era that had some of the best. I think Fees is ready for his next big, I'm going to say breakout slam. That's where I'm at. I've mentioned it before. I love the kids game, but I also feel like the timing is right. He's

He showed some things, he's come through with some matches. He had that little dust up with Tizzi in that match about the whole ball going at him. I love the way he responded. And now he hadn't had a bad spring, had some good matches and good wins. Hadn't necessarily had some great deep results, but had some good wins with some players he's beaten. And I really feel like he is outside of the top four. I feel like he's got a shot with anybody.

Alvin Owusu (09:41.74)
Yep, yep.

Alvin Owusu (10:00.079)
okay, thought you were about to, I thought you were about to, were working up to a full on, he's going to give Yannick a run for his money in the.

Torrey Hawkins (10:07.742)
No, no, but he needs to play him and he will need to, what will that be? Round four or whatever if he plays Janik? I'm gonna say, I think the timing and confidence is right for him to get the rubble at, is what I'm saying. That next better seed. And then we'll see, right? And then we'll see what happens with him and Janik. I think, you know, there's an old saying we used to, I don't know you've heard it before, in order to beat the man, gotta beat, you know, to be the man, you gotta beat the man, right? Well, you've also got to face the man enough times.

Alvin Owusu (10:14.615)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (10:31.458)
Yeah, you beat the man, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (10:36.221)
to be able to beat him. can't rarely gonna beat the man on first try. So I'm just feeling, here's a young man, 21, is he not quite 22 or maybe 22 years old? 20, so he's got to see him enough times to start to let that aura fall off and just be able to just say, you know what, okay, he doesn't have a cape. He bleeds like I do and let me, okay, I got this. And then kind of get your mind around this guy's beatable if I stay.

Alvin Owusu (10:44.398)
Do 20 I think it's your 20. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (11:04.953)
if I stayed the course. And I think that's where I like seeing the chances. And I don't think Rublevna, and I love Andre, I think he's one of the harder hitters on the tour, love watching him a tennis ball. I just don't think at this point in his career, he is playing the best tennis. Right, Amal? You never write a guy like that off. However, I feel like with a guy like Feast, who's been putting some work, who kind of believes maybe a little more, and if there's any, you know, if there's any one extra tiebreaker you're playing in,

France and your your Frenchman. just feel like those things add up to him having a decent tournament by decent. mean knocking off a lower seed on the way to whoever that top seat is in this quarter in this yet except.

Alvin Owusu (11:43.619)
Well, you know, I'll kind of jump on that with you then. Not that I believe this is going to happen, but along those lines, there's no Arthur Arthur's played the top players tough, right? He he took Carlos to a deciding set in Monte Carlo. Like he's he's he's playing at a I expect to be top 10 kind of level, maybe maybe even higher. Right. So I don't think he was if he if he meets up with center in that fourth round matchup.

Torrey Hawkins (12:04.346)
Right? Level. Right.

Alvin Owusu (12:12.942)
to go into the quarters. If that was the other, that be round to 16. I don't know that he's walking into that match, not necessarily scared, but I don't think he has any reservations whatsoever. I think he's just like, this is just, this is the guy I have to beat next. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (12:25.767)
That's right. That's right. And I, and I liked his chances getting there. And I like, I'd love to see that matchup with him and center. Should it both, should both happen. just feel like as a young player, he needs to get there, you know, to really prove to himself that he has the chops, you know, to play against the best. As I say, to, be the man, you got to beat the man. And right now we all know Yannick Yannick is the man. So anyway, we can move on, but I wanted to just. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (12:46.914)
Right. Yep.

Yeah, let's keep tracking here. Let's keep tracking here. So the bottom half of that quarter, bottom half of the center's quarter, we've got that draper's holding that bottom half of the five seed. That's the Mueller-Mensic matchup you were mentioning. And then also right below that, going in the other direction, there is Hurcatz and Fonseca, right? I think that's the one that maybe, those are probably two really interesting matchups that where one jumps off on paper, which is the Hurcatz and Fonseca.

Torrey Hawkins (12:55.92)
Right? I'll skip it. Give me.

Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (13:06.191)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (13:11.653)
Yep, yep. That's. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (13:21.314)
But Fonseca hasn't really shown much in the last few months in the spring clay court swing, right? Post, what was it? Was it Argentina where he did really well earlier in the year? But yes, he's still a young kid. He's still a young kid.

Torrey Hawkins (13:28.303)
Yup, yup, yup.

Torrey Hawkins (13:37.245)
Yeah, still a young kid, man. Still a young kid. You know what I mean? He's still adjusting jet lag and getting his diet right and what kind of hits he's hitting and probably his camp, probably doing a lot to keep him focused. But you're still, what's he, 18, 19 years old? I think he's 18, 17?

Alvin Owusu (14:00.174)
Maybe it's 17. The child.

Torrey Hawkins (14:03.181)
Right. I'm just saying, I mean, this, this young man is, I'm just happy he's in the draw and he's still freewheeling, you know, and sometimes let me tell you what I noticed that I had a player that was young on the tour. One of the things that I found and Scope, you're listening, I know you'll appreciate this. You feel like you have to have a good day every day to win, right? Which is, which is very typical, very common.

as you get out there and are out there a lot more, you realize you just have to be 51 % better than the guy across the net. You don't have to play great tennis. Sometimes these young players have such a, it's not even a respect for the opponent, Alvin, it's more of a respect for the level of game and how tough the other guys are that they feel that they have to play well every time just to have a chance. If they're not playing great,

You start seeing a little bit of desperation. You start seeing a little bit of going for some shots, just trying to force it to happen instead of just staying the course, making more shots, just kind of playing themselves into the match a little better. I think what's happened with all of the, did he win like the next gen title last year and he's coming out with all this pomp and circumstance of all this. Hey, he's the next one coming out of Brazil. Great. I think that that has kind of cost him a little bit. And right now he just has to get through.

and play more matches. You can win on a bad day, right? That's number one. Number two, you just have to be 51 % better than the guy crossing that from you. You ain't gotta kill him, ain't gotta show him that's not your burden, right? Let the match dictate that. And then let the clay court season where you play a lot more matches and let your youth be your X factor. Go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (15:46.137)
So that's the one part I'm gonna, as I'm thinking about it, it's not two out of three, it's three out of five, right? And Heoby Hurcats, while he's a great server, right? I don't like his, I mean, he's not a great mover either, and he looks a little older each time I see him on television. Yeah, I think that's gonna.

Torrey Hawkins (16:05.882)
Sure, a little worse for the wear. Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (16:10.062)
play in Fonseca's favor. He's just got more time to get himself into a match. Burn off any nerves he might have early. He's lost a couple of tight matches. I he lost to Tommy Paul 6-6 in Rome, which is like, that's no shade there. That's a couple tiebreakers, not a big deal. But I think that with a little more time with a three out of five format, that's probably exactly what he needs and will be on his side against Hurcatz.

Torrey Hawkins (16:15.502)
Right?

Torrey Hawkins (16:24.346)
Sir? Sir?

Torrey Hawkins (16:33.11)
Maybe exactly what he needs to get into that, like just to a little longer. And if he can keep that first set close and return well coming out of the opener, man, I mean, and I would love nothing more than to see him, you know, play himself in return like this, even if it's just three or four matches, which is a lot by the way, three or four matches just to get that under his belt so that we would look forward to seeing a belief instilled.

You know, y'all fun sick and that to me is what I'm looking for. And then, and then down below that with, with your boy, know, above that, I say with men's sick and Mueller do what I'm telling you, you know, not, not the easiest, the first rounds for a guy like Mueller who's cool again, trying to find his form again on the clay. You know, he had a, had a great Miami obviously, and now we're looking to see him. I haven't seen him do a ton of stuff in between then, you know, and especially on the clay, maybe you've seen more than I have, but, but both those matches I like because

both these young guys, Jakub is what, 21? You know what mean? So, you know, these guys are gonna get tested, man. These new guys coming up are gonna be, I look forward to seeing them the future. And as I say, playing against a guy like Muller, I'd love to see Jakub really, you know, kind of reestablish himself in this tournament and go to draw. And let's see what, third round, he would face Demonar. So if it all holds to form, so.

Alvin Owusu (17:44.983)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (17:50.83)
Probably Z-Men or yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (17:54.743)
Those are some matches and now you're gonna get to see, can he, a young upstart kind of guy, take on a veteran like Alex DeMunore in the match like that. And those are the matches you wanna see. Now you're really starting to see the tectonic plates of the younger versus established come head to head.

Alvin Owusu (18:09.175)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:14.83)
So the Molarov thing, so Muller takes out, took out Zverev yesterday in Hamburg, right, in three sets, and it was a, I guess there's a couple things to caveat there, and we'll get to it when we start talking about Zverev.

Torrey Hawkins (18:25.497)
Yeah, I knew you were gonna bring this up. By the way, phenomenal pass down what was it, pound five, three with that running on the run, slap, cross court pass. I mean, it was just sick. I think your boy was in disbelief, like no way.

Alvin Owusu (18:36.264)
Yeah, but like

Alvin Owusu (18:41.112)
But still, hear, again, before we get to the Zverevah things, like again, Zverevah big, and then kind of, know, let's, let's another, another match where he's in, he's in pole position, slip away. I don't know that that's gonna help Mr. Muller moving through. think Jakub's playing good ball right now. think, you know, the, really similar to Fonseca. I think it's gonna be hard to withstand that much firepower over three out of five sets, right? It's just gonna, it'll take its toll. And I actually like, I actually like Mensik coming.

Torrey Hawkins (18:46.755)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (18:50.102)
my god.

Torrey Hawkins (18:56.996)
for sure.

Torrey Hawkins (19:03.705)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (19:10.457)
I was gonna say it. think he has the game to go much farther. And Demon R is his next seed and the third. I kinda like his draw. I like his draw a lot. And that's no shade on Alex. I just feel like you got these guys that, in my opinion, Alvin, and I always defer to this, the guys with firepower are always, they always have a chance because on their good day,

Alvin Owusu (19:10.59)
out here and beating Demonor in the third round. I think.

Alvin Owusu (19:37.612)
Yes. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (19:39.405)
they can create what they need. The guys that are a little more counter punching by nature, they need, not need, they tend to depend on the other player having a bit of a lesser day. And that's just historically been the case. Now, wouldn't be it's even more that case. Obviously in the French, not so much, but still, still the men's game. A big serve, still a big serve. And if you can hit some targets and get a couple freebies back, some easier holds, I'll be honest. I just like the fact. Now, if you had,

Alvin Owusu (19:59.149)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (20:09.068)
Demon R, you know, a matchup going up against Casper Ruud. Now you got both, in my opinion, bunch of two counter punishers that are really good. Now you got a knockdown drag out between two guys that don't have a huge serve between the two of them. But if you have a bigger serving, Jakub's got a big serve and a big forehand. I just feel like now you're really, if I'm assuming it holds the form, now Alex is hoping that Jakub's not serving well that day or not landing enough of the first serves that day or is just little bit off.

Alvin Owusu (20:25.058)
Right, huge serve.

Torrey Hawkins (20:38.05)
where you can find a way to get to that backhand. I'm just saying, but that's hope, right? And as a good friend of mine once said, hope is not a strategy. So you gotta kind of work it out. And that's why I I like Yacob coming out of that, that, you know, that portion of this quarter.

Alvin Owusu (20:45.134)
Hope is not a strategy, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (20:53.07)
And there's also the compounding effects of three out of five on your legs as you move through the tournament, right? I think you and I were talking about this maybe in between podcasts, but one of the things that Jack Draper gets himself into is he gets into long matches early in Grand Slams, which tends to deplete his reserves as he moves into the winning time.

Torrey Hawkins (21:00.053)
Right? Right.

Torrey Hawkins (21:14.292)
It's energy storage.

Right? Death by a thousand cuts.

Alvin Owusu (21:20.448)
Right, exactly, so the same thing with Demonor moving, looking to move forward in this part of the draw. He's probably gonna meet Alexander Bublik in the second round and Bublik, he tends to get himself in weird matches too. That could be just enough to tax the legs a little bit. Same thing with Draper. God forbid he meets Monfius in the second round. That's gonna be, exactly, exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (21:37.963)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (21:44.984)
You know that match is going five. You know I mean? And it might go tie breaking. I forget, does French still have, is French the one tournament left that doesn't have the breaker in the fifth?

Alvin Owusu (21:56.837)
I think they break them all on the fifth now. think all of them have the break of the fifth, but...

Torrey Hawkins (21:59.357)
Okay, thought thought Wimby was was and when we do I thought Wimby was one of the ones.

Alvin Owusu (22:04.062)
I think they're all tiebreakers matchbreaker in the fifth now. Unless Wimby's doing that whole goes to matchbreaker at like 10, eight all or 10. It's something weird. I guess maybe I need to know this. Maybe I don't.

Torrey Hawkins (22:06.271)
All top rig of

Torrey Hawkins (22:15.384)
10 games all, I thought it was something wonky. Yeah, 10 games all, eight games all, yeah. It was some throwback to the old tradition that they still wanted to have that. They're never gonna have that Isner Mahoot situation again, but I thought they extended it past six. We'll look it up, we'll have it for next podcast. anyway, no, good stuff. This is, like I said, the second half of this quarter, that's where my attention was drawn when I was looking at it. was like, oof, you know what I mean? And thanks for putting that up on screen. was.

Alvin Owusu (22:27.992)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (22:31.97)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:38.509)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (22:43.084)
Yeah, no problem. No, no, no, I got you. That's what I'm here for. not gonna, as you can notice here, I'm back up in studio A. Studio B was not a big enough screen here for me to manage this properly. So yeah, we'll keep rolling. All right, so top half of the next quarter, that's Zverev's quarter. boy, boy. There's a lot of boys, and it's not really just the Zverev boy that caught my eye. It's...

Torrey Hawkins (22:43.497)
My asshole was a little tall.

Torrey Hawkins (22:50.751)
No, yet sir, sir. I hear that.

Torrey Hawkins (23:03.39)
Exactly. Exactly.

I'm looking at six of them. I'm looking at six of them, six old boys. And unfortunately, the first old boy is Varev himself, you know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (23:12.13)
Hehehehe

Alvin Owusu (23:17.802)
Right, yeah, so Lerner Tien, for those not up on Lerner, and guess they maybe most people are by now, takes out, he took out Medvedev in the Australian Open, put together some pretty solid wins, building a nice little career for himself, younger player out of Southern California here. And I just kind of feel like, I kind of feel like that's one of those very similar to the Medvedev matchup in the Australian Open, except for on a slower court, which is.

Torrey Hawkins (23:42.704)
Yep, yep, which I think aids Lerner and his speed and his lefty.

Alvin Owusu (23:47.657)
Right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I don't, ugh. I don't wanna, are you going for it?

Torrey Hawkins (23:55.851)
You heard it right here. You heard it right here. That match, nope, but it could go five. And what I don't like about that match for Sasha is, and there are others waiting their turn. it's just, he's not playing the kind of tennis that I could see him taking out Lerner and Straits. And therefore, you talk about death of a thousand cuts for D-Menor, buddy, Zverev is not getting the younger. Zverev, we noticed,

He needs a few shots. He needs a few forehands to be able to pull the trigger. a guy like Lerner is only going to get better longer in the rally. So it's just a bad matchup for him with a guy that's lefty fast and doesn't mind the grind. It almost would be better if he brought firepower that gave Sasha a little bit of firepower to work with. Now you got a guy that's going to use your power, absorb your pace and kind of bring it back to you 50 more times.

We know Zverev doesn't like his own step up forehand. I mean, he prefers the backhand. Well, now you're matching up to Lerner's forehand. it's one of those, just couldn't, own clay. It just couldn't be a, you know, he's not as adept coming forward and knocking on volleys. Lerner has good passes. I'm not gonna call Lerner for this match. I'm just gonna say, think that this will be that long four or five set match that Zverev doesn't wanna have. And as you're looking down,

Alvin Owusu (24:59.309)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (25:20.618)
You got Felix and Analdi right there coming up. They'll meet in the.

Alvin Owusu (25:24.044)
Wait, wait, before we go down to Felix and Arnaldi, because I do wanna talk about that match, I wanna make sure this microphone is on, microphone's on. I am gonna call Lerner Tien to take out Alexander Zverev first round. Anarchy, I'm here for anarchy.

Torrey Hawkins (25:30.816)
yeah.

wow, you're gonna put it up there. Okay, like I said, I gotta go in close. I hear you. I gotta go in close. I just don't know if he's ready to Zverev first round and that's my only thing. But could it happen? 100%.

Alvin Owusu (25:49.741)
I don't think Zverev's ready to beat Lerner in the first round. Yeah. He would need somebody else. It's not a good first round match. That's not the one you want. I'm gonna have to play for probably four hours. This is going to be a four hour tennis match. And if it is, the longer it goes, I think the worse off Alex is. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (25:54.698)
Wow. Wow.

Torrey Hawkins (26:02.707)
Over.

Torrey Hawkins (26:09.109)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (26:14.358)
100%. Speak to that match. You said you were gonna come back to Zverev and Muller. What did you not like in those... You sent me the clip, so I know you watched it. What did you not like? There's a few things I didn't like. I'll get your opinion.

Alvin Owusu (26:25.43)
Yeah, yeah, so there's two things you have. Yeah, well I think one part you have to consider, Alex was not, he was under the weather coming into that match, right? I he might have got food poisoning or something like that. And he played well going into that match. So we'll take that, right? But he went down to Hamburg, to his hometown, to pick up a dub. Like the only thing I feel like coming, he takes that wild card into that event after losing to Musetti in Rome, takes the late wild card.

is the one seed. I think if you do that, the only thing that you could really expect is to win the event. I'm going to do this so that I can feel good about myself coming into rolling garros. So what else besides winning the event is considered mission accomplished, right? And so for whatever reason, he loses against Muller. I think it's, from what I could tell, you take a long match and to well it down to a couple sound bites.

Torrey Hawkins (27:04.798)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (27:12.76)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (27:22.658)
I feel like it's just more of the same. Like his inability to close. Like close, serve, and finish. Like not even close matches, but close points efficiently. Be the big guy that he is. What about yourself? I assume you went back and watched the highlights of that one.

Torrey Hawkins (27:23.637)
Right. Close. Yep. Yep. Sure.

Alex D'Anazverof does one thing that drives me crazy.

Alvin Owusu (27:49.473)
Only one.

Torrey Hawkins (27:53.075)
He doesn't continue to come forward after that massive serve. You could say, doesn't feel for him. He prefers his backhand. could say he likes to grind his way into points. Nadal did the same, but Nadal was lefty and didn't have that big of a serve and wasn't that tall. Sasha is very much as tall as I am, Alvin. Maybe a tad taller. I saw him playing, he was playing first round in second round matches in the middle teens when I was still playing, when I was still going to tournaments with the players at the US Open. He's all day six, seven.

Alvin Owusu (28:22.86)
Yeah, he's a guy.

Torrey Hawkins (28:23.142)
All that big guy and he's only gotten thicker and stronger in the year since. Massive serve. mean, I've seen the guy serve his that his kicks got good action, a slice bites. I he just, he's just a big, lanky, tall guy. And to see him, he hugs baseline enough, don't get me wrong, but to see him not continue to come forward and take away time and take away options drives me crazy. The point that of that breaker that you sent me and motors on the full stretch, easy.

six feet behind the baseline. Sasha watched that ball. He didn't wrong foot him. He didn't guess. He didn't move early. He watched. And what I mean by that is you got a guy on the full stretch. You're up in the breaker trying to close the guy out. Alvin, short of Boris Becker, 17, 18, diving for the volley on clay. You close the volley. Get burned by a late buggy whip lob. Get burned by a let court.

But you closed the net. You came to the net to close. He got passed Alvin. And then he watched the pass. That tells me the player is not wanting to close the match. He's wanting the other guy to lose. He's wanting the other guy to miss the pass. And then the next few shots, I'm going to the very next point, he missed the backhand early. How should I have missed backhands? So that told me that he was rattled. Right? And at that point, once you, you boink in a breaker like that, you're done.

Alvin Owusu (29:41.432)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (29:51.906)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (29:52.697)
And so that's what I didn't like. didn't like that breaker to me was a microcosm of his play of late. He's looking for help. He's looking for the player to give him the match. He's not playing to win. He's not playing to close. He's hoping that the pressure that he's created will do enough for you to fold. And to me, that's wrong for any player, let alone a player who's top four in the world or top three in the world and has, in my opinion, arguably has the skill set, the profile in your words.

Alvin Owusu (30:09.486)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (30:22.484)
their profile to win a grand slam to see that guy not finish the deal. No, I was, I was, I was disappointed and which is why I'm being so, you know, I'm gonna say pessimistic on his chances because you don't change that overnight. You don't just all of a sudden wake up tomorrow morning. Guys, I'm gonna take it from tomorrow to today. mean that.

Alvin Owusu (30:35.543)
And yet...

Yeah, but and yet you think he's going to be learned to see it.

Torrey Hawkins (30:43.879)
I think he's gonna beat Lone Ten in five. In five. So yeah, I'm close four, at least two breakers, and five. And that will also be part of the demise. So.

Alvin Owusu (30:45.422)
Okay, in five, okay.

Alvin Owusu (30:55.982)
Okay, all right. I think the other match we wanted to talk about a bit here is Arnaldi versus Felix Ogier-Aliassime. Now, Mr. Mateo Arnaldi, you know, surfing right around 40 in the world, so he was just outside of being seated in this event. Noteworthy recent result, he did take down Novak Djokovic in Madrid in straight sets. And funny, they're playing again today.

Torrey Hawkins (31:03.443)
course, feel it. Alias.

Torrey Hawkins (31:14.492)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (31:19.015)
Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (31:23.027)
there you go.

Alvin Owusu (31:24.588)
Novak and Arnaldi, third round or whatever is it, round of 16 in Geneva in a couple hours actually. that, hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (31:31.623)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:37.518)
What does that mean for Felix? What does that mean for Felix?

Torrey Hawkins (31:40.719)
I think, I think Felix is on the snipe too. And he's a, he's right there in my list with Tsitsipas. That list starts with Zverev, but that, on that same list is Tsitsi and you got to, and Felix is right there in my opinion at number three. You, this is, this is a put up or shut up time. These are guys that have been out there for a while. They're going the wrong direction. They know it. They, they're a little long in the tooth. And in my opinion, Alvin, Felix has a, if you think about it, Felix has a pretty good draw.

you know, considering if my seed has blood in the water and I can get to him and I can play these two matches, they play a lot alike, Felix and Alex. I feel like that's a, if I'm the team of the Aja Aliassin, I got to think this is a draw that we're looking for. If he's playing well, he could do, but man, there's a lot of players in the middle that could disrupt some things. And if I'm anybody else in that.

harsh portion of the quarter. I'm thinking of all the seeds to draw these aren't bad seeds to draw. Yeah, they got big serves. Yeah, they got big games, but we know deep down their belief is a little bad and I mentioned a few episodes back. No one is saying they're playing well right now and if you don't have that kind of fear factor already guys on as tight guys kind of get that feeling about about ball seven ball eight in the rally that you're not going through them. You kind of waiting around for the mistake.

Alvin Owusu (33:06.36)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (33:07.247)
guys start settling in saying, no problem. I can hit 10 balls, you know, and that's not what you want. If you're those kinds of guys where you want to be able to hold serve, get that early break, ride, ride that break into an easy six, three, you know, situation, maybe a six, four, and just let it be a routine match. The fridge doesn't usually have routine matches like that. And both these guys are not known for, for capitalizing on their big serve. So

Alvin Owusu (33:34.487)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (33:34.673)
I don't like this. I don't like either one of them. And I'll be honest, don't give either one of them the personally, don't give either one of them much, many, many odds to get past third round, let alone fourth slash round 16.

Alvin Owusu (33:49.017)
Well, I'm looking at it and I, know, kind of looking at Felix's recent results, like outside of Geneva, my man hasn't won a clay court match in a while. He lost in the first round of the Estorold 250 like last week and it's been first round and out I think in Rome and Madrid. So, yeah. I don't, yeah, I don't love where Felix is right now and I feel like Mateo can easily get into this match. Like if he gets into this match, if we're looking at a set of piece going into the third.

Torrey Hawkins (34:02.639)
All right.

Torrey Hawkins (34:11.216)
Right.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (34:19.328)
Yeah, I don't like where we're going there. Mateo's gonna make him make a lot of balls and Felix tends to, you know, he likes to take care of points on the early side. If he starts getting into like, you know, ball eight, ball nine consistently. I love his ball strike, like his forehand sounds like it's one of the biggest sounding forehands on tour, but that thing can go off the rails. He doesn't have a lot of safety to it, let's put it that way. Not a lot of safety.

Torrey Hawkins (34:21.243)
Could go the other way. Could go the other way very quickly.

Torrey Hawkins (34:29.328)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (34:43.121)
100 % and and Arnaldi loves long points I mean he you know he just he loves getting in there and and to me that's the kind of you know those are the kind of players where again it's just a bad matchup so again I don't like it for him I don't like to be the one of them and if I'm in that if I'm in that section of the draw I'm like you know what mean

Alvin Owusu (35:02.286)
Yeah, there's a lot of volatility in that section, a lot. But even more interestingly, I think going into the draw, the men's draw, the big question was like, believe, most of us agree that where is Novak Djokovic gonna land, right? So we see that Novak lands in Alexander Zverev's quarter, which I've now determined is no longer Alex's quarter, it's Lerner Tien's quarter. But.

Torrey Hawkins (35:05.521)
100%.

Torrey Hawkins (35:26.945)
huh. We have spoken.

Alvin Owusu (35:30.592)
Yeah, I mean I said it. don't know. I'm not gonna speak for you. I said it out loud. I said it out loud. So, you know on the bottom half of that of that quarter is is one Novak Djokovic, right? This one this one is I'm not gonna say interesting. It's a

Torrey Hawkins (35:47.92)
You some of the squad or Mac and McDonald's?

Alvin Owusu (35:50.147)
I'm not talking about Mackie McDonald. I'm not talking about Mackie McDonald. I'm talking about the Novak Djokovic thing, because I'm the one who went on the record and said he wouldn't even be in this tournament, right? And to my credit, they haven't actually started the tournament yet. He's in the draw. It doesn't mean he's going to. He hasn't hit a ball yet. We still got, we have days until that happens. It's Thursday. We got at least three days before that's possible. OK, so we'll see. We'll see.

Torrey Hawkins (35:52.024)
Okay. Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (36:03.185)
he's still just saying he's still funny.

Torrey Hawkins (36:10.512)
my goodness. I want to add one quick insert here. I was very, and I was very disappointed with the way that the wording came out about the partnership split with him and Andy Murray. It it reeked of, let me paraphrase and then I'll come back to my point.

The headline read, I'm paraphrasing, couldn't get anything more out of the Andy Murray partnership. And that just didn't sit well with me, Alvin. It didn't sit well with me at all. I said, well, maybe if you were playing better tennis, you might have gotten more out of Andy Murray. Because the person who seems to have that kind of mindset that you used to have was Andy Murray. And maybe Andy Murray signed up to play with his longtime rival, helping him to get that number 25.

Alvin Owusu (36:46.638)
Mmm

Alvin Owusu (37:00.941)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (37:10.465)
I understand father time, in my opinion, just seemed like Novak has kinda started giving himself a little bit of sympathy Kool-Aid and has been drinking it copiously in the last couple of months. And it just didn't seem like if I'm an Andy Murray competitor from day one, I am like, didn't, I didn't unretired to this. I didn't come out here to be, to make excuses for what I'm doing, you know?

Alvin Owusu (37:36.878)
Yeah, yeah

Torrey Hawkins (37:39.437)
I didn't take it myself. So why am going to coach a guy that's making excuses for himself, let alone my friend rival? He can't see it right now, but he's just being soft on himself right now. Either he's going to put up and shut up right now. And right now he ain't. So I got to go. And then couldn't get more. Now I know that's code for this other things. Maybe there's some tournament conflicts. Maybe there was more he was looking for, hoping for, or, give me, give me six months. Let me get healthy, whatever. But to your point, it could have all just been a big smoke screen for

him knowing he may pull out. In my opinion, it was another Novak dig at it wasn't me, it was him. And I just, and that's one of the things that's always pissed me off about Novak is when he's doing well, everything's great. When I'm not doing well, it's your fault. And those are just that, that's just his, that's the knock on him. And I got to be honest, I don't mind that if it's his own camp, his own family, they chose to be there, but now he's going up because of a main man, Andy Murray. And I got to tell you that.

Alvin Owusu (38:18.796)
Right, you know, of the two...

Torrey Hawkins (38:39.958)
That made me a little, just got under my saddle a little bit weird and I'm still kind of like, took a no back.

Alvin Owusu (38:42.883)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (38:46.52)
Two things there, two things there. One, of the two recent breakups, which one would you pay more money to get the real answer about Novak breaking up with Andy or Yannick Center breaking up with Anna Kalinskaya? Both, know, both. I'll take, I'd actually take either. But from an actual tennis standpoint, know, when Andy and Novak got together, I was thinking, you know, a lot of people were excited about it.

Torrey Hawkins (39:06.989)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (39:13.614)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (39:15.95)
But I was kind of thinking, what does, what does, what does, what can Andy actually bring to the table here? Like it wasn't like Andy went out world beating before he retired, right? He and, he and Novak are kind of in the same position except for Novak is still performing at a top 10 level, right? He, he's, well, I mean, he, he did, he, okay. I'm going to give him some credit here. It was like not six months ago that he beat Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinal of the Grand Slam, right? was, that was recently. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (39:22.56)
Mm.

Torrey Hawkins (39:33.932)
I'm gonna say performing.

Torrey Hawkins (39:43.131)
Six months ago, I'm gonna I'm I'm with you and I'm not we all know he's the current goat and we and there's no dispute on that I'm saying currently in the last six weeks I'm going to say performing six months six months was almost two years ago in tennis years what I'm getting at is I Felt that Andy was the perfect coach for him because he understands He's not going to expect him to play like he did when he was 21 or when he was 31 and if anybody can appreciate

Alvin Owusu (39:55.075)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (40:12.59)
the need to take care of the body. It's an Andy Murray. Andy Murray spent the better part of his career hurt. So if anybody can appreciate some Nixon and some stingers and some injuries, it's Andy Murray. I am saying that in my opinion, Novak had the perfect coach who both played, respected, can put up with his crap and give it to him. And Andy was no nonsense. And Andy was like, look, let's do this. You going for number 25?

Alvin Owusu (40:34.968)
Yeah, I-

Alvin Owusu (40:38.998)
Yeah, I think that part, that's the part I don't necessarily agree with as far as putting up with the nonsense. Andy Murray's a knight, right? Andy Murray is retired now. I don't think he, I mean the way that Novak berates people in his camp, right? The yelling and all that stuff. I just feel like, I for one was like, why would Andy even sign up for that? Not like Novak's gonna change and start taking it easy on his box with the people in his corner. That's the way that he runs. That's the way that he is fueled by.

Torrey Hawkins (41:01.026)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (41:06.862)
Yeah, that's way he rolls. Fair enough. But that's with people that he can do that with. I don't think he did that, and I didn't see that being the case when he was in the box. Fair, fair.

Alvin Owusu (41:08.897)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. mean, you know, but anyways, OK, so for this particular

Alvin Owusu (41:16.618)
Right, and I think that's a problem. I think that's it. That's inherently a not a good situation for Novak Like he can't he's not a hold it in kind of guy. But okay, I'll just put I'll

Torrey Hawkins (41:21.998)
Fair, Noted, noted, but to your point, my personal one would be the Novak-Andy Mervin. I just happen to know both players. But at the same time, the center one was confusing to me. The center one was absolutely confusing to me. You know, we see this all the time though. Sometimes these players get rid of their coaches at weird times, man. mean, do you remember Marcelo Rios?

Alvin Owusu (41:45.297)
wait a minute, no, I said center and Anna Kalinskaya, like when I was talking about his girlfriend, don't know. Center, That's for, that's literally for another talk show. It is a different talk show that might be coming soon. Let's put it that way. But.

Torrey Hawkins (41:49.901)
well, I was,

Right, let's see that one.

Torrey Hawkins (42:01.421)
Right. I got to bring up, I got to bring up Marcelo because I brought him up. Larry Stafanke was his coach back then. And I think he got to the finals of Australia that year on a rocket. And I don't think he reached another final. And I'm not saying that Larry Stafanke was the best coach of all time, but a darn good coach and a proven coach for a long time with several players. Marcelo never reached another final and was off the tour within 18 months.

Now, all I say that to say, sometimes these players have a little bit more of stilted view of themselves and their talent and where they're going. And they don't always appreciate the stability, the reinforcement, the things that that coach can bring to that player over the course of time. And I feel like a lot of these guys are just really quick to, you know, to change direction, change camps like they, you know, like it's, like it's a pair of shoes. And I feel like let it...

stay the course just long enough to let some things they're trying to do take place. I was really impressed with how Federer went for a period of time with the very same Federer's career, darn it was 20 years, and he just let it roll. He just let it roll. He went a while without a coach, and then he got a coach, and then he got a coach that he wanted, and then he changed when things weren't working a year or had some changes before he went to Lubitschik. And so I look at those kinds of things, I'm like, that's how you do it. You don't have a bad result and all of a sudden you wanna change coach. That's what a lot of the...

Younger women on the tour do it. Oh, I'm changing the coach. Okay, good for you. You know, now I'll see what you do. And no one pulled that move to me.

Alvin Owusu (43:30.873)
Well, we'll come back to that one a little bit later when we talk about Eega and her relatively new partnership with Wimph asset. That one seems like it's maybe one more bad result away from severing. But let me ask you this though. Before we leave the top half of the draw, how do you feel about Novak here? What are you expecting out of Novak?

Torrey Hawkins (43:36.812)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (43:45.728)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (43:56.725)
Nothing.

Alvin Owusu (43:57.571)
Well, what about in the bottom half of this quarter then? Let's be more specific. Does he get, does he...

Torrey Hawkins (44:01.004)
He's gonna be lucky to get past Mac and McDonald in straights. To be honest, and I think the longer any match goes, the more likely a stinger, back, hip, a groin, something. I think he needs to get out his AARP card. The guy's phenomenal, don't get me wrong, has been phenomenal, but in the last six weeks has been anemic. If he gets past him, Motet is solid. Shapovalov's not terrible.

Alvin Owusu (44:04.142)
Wow, okay, it's rates. Okay, fine.

Torrey Hawkins (44:30.14)
You got there's just everybody in his in his, you know, if the top and the bottom are flipped and he had a Warrinca in his half and the senior citizen match could happen. I get that all day Novak, you know, even even Medi. I could see him just roll time safe having many but the guys he's running up. It's almost weird how they kind of split the age gap in this in this section of the draw. I got to tell you, don't I don't give him

really good odds to get past the third round. I'll be honest. And fourth round.

Alvin Owusu (45:03.212)
You so you don't feel like he's going to hold us. He don't feel like he holds a seat here.

Torrey Hawkins (45:06.272)
God, no. And if he gets to the fourth, is that fourth round minus 16, right?

Alvin Owusu (45:11.086)
He'll be, yeah, 16, route four, third round is round of 16, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (45:14.379)
Right. So if he gets to that round of 16 and that'll have him playing many, right.

Alvin Owusu (45:19.254)
No, that'll have him playing would be Zverev. Like that's Zverev's quarter. So he's in the bottom half of Zverev's quarter.

Torrey Hawkins (45:24.229)
yeah. Bye bye bye. So third round, he, yeah, well, I'm looking at, he played Meti, assuming Meti would get in, fourth round. To my point, I think, I don't think, I think Novak gets the fourth round at best, in my opinion. So no, doesn't hold C. And to your point, should he finish, right? Should he finish? I don't know. And it's just, and it's not about him, the player. It's about his health, it's about his body, it's about five a time. It has, if this were Novak,

Alvin Owusu (45:31.788)
In the fourth round, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (45:53.973)
Three years ago, nobody has an outside chance of winning the thing. Two years ago, outside chance. Right now, lately, I don't know how he's gonna get healthy and get sharp in four days, five days.

Alvin Owusu (46:08.332)
without the, it's, you know, to steal your, the phrase you used last week. French Open and Wimbledon are, is it dihedral opposites? Yeah, only on the Best 3 Podcast do you hear both dihedral opposites and Overton window in the same episode. But the amount of endurance necessary for the two,

Torrey Hawkins (46:22.943)
Diagonal absence.

Torrey Hawkins (46:28.968)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:36.526)
for the two Grand Slams that that proceed each other or follow each other. I could see Novak kind of old manning his way through Wimbledon, right? He did it on one leg last year. Like, yeah, yeah, back to the basket, elbow jumpers, the whole deal, yeah. But this one, it's a lot of work, man. It's just a lot of work and even easy matches take a lot of work. And do we get there? Like,

Torrey Hawkins (46:47.604)
great returns, know, block the passes. Right, Right.

Alvin Owusu (47:03.15)
does the body hold up for three hours, three and a half hours, three hours? It's like, ugh, it's asking a lot. It's asking a lot. I'm gonna side with you. don't see Novak getting past the fourth round either.

Torrey Hawkins (47:05.61)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (47:20.074)
And you heard it right here, Shepavlov, if he's serving well in that match after two or three tough rounds, that's just not a great situation for me to run into a big server lefty at the end of my range of motion, three rounds in. And then I gotta play a few tough ones? No, you're talking about death of thousand cuts. That match is the epitome of that situation right there. So we can move on.

Alvin Owusu (47:49.007)
Alright, let's get to the action part of the drawing here. think the bottom half is where the kids are. The kids are hanging out. The youths. So this would be... Yeah, know, Botic's fun. Botic, it's a tough one. I got Dutch tendencies, so it's a tough one. I feel like this is the top half of third quarter, so this is...

Torrey Hawkins (47:51.252)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (47:56.233)
Yep, yep. There's your boy Vandusloop right there. I keep butchering his name. I'm sorry.

Right.

Alvin Owusu (48:17.71)
Taylor Fritz's quarter, I believe. This is, you know, it's a fun one. This is a fun one. Something like, know, Musetti and Holgeruna in the same section is, God, I'd love to see that. That's like a match of the next five years. Like, I'd love to see that consistently. And I don't really see much reason for them not to get there. Yeah, we feel good about that.

Torrey Hawkins (48:32.938)
100 %

Torrey Hawkins (48:40.202)
I agree. I agree. The two Spaniards are aging and they're gonna be, they're gonna put up a fight. Don't get me wrong. I just, if I had to put Corbias Baena against Musetti, I gotta give it to Musetti even though I think, is Roberto his first name? I see him getting, I see that being a good second round match, but I Musetti's solid. I'd love to Brandon, you know, do some nice work.

and try to get to the third round. he's got to, you know, I could, he's the better one coming out of those four in my opinion. But I don't know if he's got the skills right now to take down a Mousseti on the clay, but that'd be a tough matchup. I'm looking on the side that you're showing him with the Vanda Zanslouper. I'm trying to get there. Batista good is just getting older. I think Runa's got the wheels and firepower to go to withstand that one.

Alvin Owusu (49:28.856)
There you go, Van Duzanschlup.

Yeah, that's too much.

Torrey Hawkins (49:39.625)
And, you know, and Mahatma, I think I've always been, I think he is the next player to me to really kind of prove himself. He's in that part right now where he's like, I need to really prove that I have top 10 potential. We talked about Feast. He's in that same category. I've been hovering around 20s for a while with some good results here and there, but not a lot of deep runs in tournaments. Let this as a turn for him.

in this part of the, in the section of the draw. I think he's got a pretty good one to be able to put himself in the conversation for third round or better of a slam and then give himself a shot at Runa. And then can he go four or five and show that he's a contender to get that deep. And now that, you know, to, make that next itch, you know, toward you being a top 15 or top 12 guy versus being a 20, you know, and some change guys. So I like all the matchups here. There's not a bad match.

to speak of, I would love to see Runa play Moussaidila. That's gonna be a great match. I think everything holds the seat here from what I'm seeing.

Alvin Owusu (50:46.222)
Yeah, I am a Thomas Mahatch fan. just don't, it would take a lot for me to get on board with him taking down a whole, especially on Clay, best out of five. Even Clay, best out of three, I'm willing to take that chance on him, but best out of five.

Torrey Hawkins (50:56.425)
And especially on the clay, right? Especially on clay.

Torrey Hawkins (51:05.093)
Right. Best out of five. His height is not an advantage for him. He hits the ball almost too big, in my opinion, and on the clay that's almost going to hurt him a little bit. So again, Wimby possibly. Hardcorp, for sure. French, not so much.

Alvin Owusu (51:11.083)
Yeah...

Alvin Owusu (51:20.014)
Not so much. Yeah, okay. right, well, it looks like we just bought ourselves a little time here. This is the quick one to get through, I think. All right, so we're gonna move into, which one is this? Let's go Taylor Fritz's bottom half of the Taylor Fritz quarter. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Uh-huh, I was talking to, we've talked about this and I was talking to my brother about this. How does your boy Sebi Korda continue to hold

Torrey Hawkins (51:35.174)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (51:48.879)
a top 30 ranking. I feel like he plays 10 tournaments a year and maybe gets to the quarters of all of them. I think that's what it is. He's found the mathematical way to continue to always be seated at Great Slams.

Torrey Hawkins (51:54.536)
Ha

Torrey Hawkins (52:01.318)
the mathematical equation to stay top 20. Hey, and buddy, that is in itself an achievement, you know what I mean? To stay, because that means you're not running into the other seats, you know what I mean? And so, I mean, you know, maybe between Nelly and Peter, they're guiding them on his trajectory.

Alvin Owusu (52:14.69)
It's important.

Alvin Owusu (52:20.428)
Yeah.

This is a career here. We're not trying to, maybe slams are great, but doing it for 12 to 15 years is the goal. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (52:26.054)
Right, thank you. Do it to 12 to 15 so you can get a house next to us over here and then wherever we're living, you know what I mean? Isn't that crazy? He might be the most underachieving in his family and the guys 20 in the world. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (52:36.686)
So this...

What? Yeah, this is a interesting section of the draw here. It's soft. It's real soft. Like, it's real soft.

Torrey Hawkins (52:50.568)
I don't disagree, certainly not the one like the one we saw a little bit above, but I like Seve's chances. I'm a little worried about three players in this one here, Tiafoe being one, obviously Fritz being a second one. And I gotta tell you Alvin, I was very, very impressed with Mickelson coming into the, in Australia, he started to do some nice things.

Alvin Owusu (52:55.266)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (53:19.843)
I just don't know if Alex is playing the, this would be a good term from the rebound. I'll say it like that. He's still young. He's working with Neps who's here in Atlanta. I think he's got a really good shot. He's got a pretty good draw. If you ask my opinion, you know, and if his draw would net him a third round matchup against Taylor Fritz, that would be a good match for both Americans as well as for Alex Mickelson. I'll be honest. just speaking harshly on my current Americans. just, I don't like,

They're all in this section together, which is good. So that helps them all. And they all are several slots apart. So they could theoretically meet third round at best. But I'll be honest, I don't know if they all make it.

Alvin Owusu (54:05.11)
Right, so as I'm looking at this and kind of looking at each match kind of individually here, I do feel like Francis gets to the second round. I almost feel like Jensen Brooksby gets to the second round, same thing with Sebi. I like, actually I like all of our Americans in the first round.

Torrey Hawkins (54:20.455)
I like them all getting there. Like I said, it's up perfect for Francis, Sebi, know, Mickelson and Taylor. It's set up perfectly for them to get there. And then at least you got at least one American, you know, coming out of, you know, going into the round of 16. I mean, you couldn't ask for a better draw from the French Federation here. I mean, you, as far as the...

Alvin Owusu (54:34.668)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (54:39.83)
It's like we can't help you all, but we can help. We can help one of them. We can help one of you. One of you. If I'm forced to, you know, make a, not necessarily make a prediction or anything, but I don't hate Francis coming out of this bottom half of this quarter. I don't hate it actually. I'm always a little iffy on, this is the only space where I'm iffy on Taylor is on Clay.

Torrey Hawkins (54:42.967)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (55:08.782)
I feel like I can be down with him for a quarterfinal showing on an indie surface outside of clay. Yeah. Not because I love it, I don't love it, but I just, it feels like this is a really, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (55:14.342)
Especially hardcore and I'm with you and I'm with you on that but I think you know Right It's just not it's not as my service, right? He's not he's a he's not as fast He's not as great a mover and this and the foreign serve get are just gonna be a little slower. It's clay I am he is not where he's nowhere as old but his game and I feel like his body's taking a lot of punishment and Francis I think that's why I'm gonna go with Sebi in that matchup should they both get there

I love Francis. He's a great kid. He's been an ultimate competitor. From what I've seen, he just seems a little bit dinged up right now and not playing his best physically. And he's getting a little older. He's lost a step. If he and Sebi get there, I could see Sebi coming on top on that one and going for it. And I'll be honest, I would prefer Sebi to go farther because a tad younger, a little fresher, he might

do more damage to that next draw than Francis would from what I've seen the last six to eight weeks slash four months. And that's what I want a guy who's gonna keep pushing the next contestant, not a guy that's gonna barely get through that next match. And to your point with Taylor, same thing. I think he's a great player. I know he's been hurt. I think he's been hurt a little bit since Miami when he lost to Jacob.

Alvin Owusu (56:35.36)
Yeah, Taylor hasn't played much in the last few months. Yeah, he played Madrid, played Rome, but yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (56:43.459)
Yeah. Officially love to see each one of the Americans get to the third round and play each other. That would be phenomenal on many notes. But, you know, we'll see.

Alvin Owusu (56:55.694)
We shall see, we shall see. All right, we'll keep trekking here. da da da da da da. All right, getting down to the bottom half here. So this is the top half of Carlos's quarter towards the bottom of the draw here. Interesting, this is also a fairly manageable section. I feel confident saying we get Tommy Paul and Caspar Roode.

coming out here. Yeah, that's about, mean, Hachinov lurking, right? You get Hachinov and Tommy Paul in the third round, that's interesting. I like Tommy's, Tommy is the poor man's, know, Yannick center and his ability to run and run and hit quality shots, know, stretched out is, I think that carries him well. just semi-finaled, just semi-finaled Rome.

Torrey Hawkins (57:26.785)
I

Torrey Hawkins (57:31.396)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (57:41.273)
Yeah.

Yup. Yup.

for sure, for sure. And there's nobody else that I could see, even Puskovich who hits a big ball and others, I don't see anybody else that, you know, and the one that could give him some problems is Anishioke and he's on the other half of that. You know what mean? So, you know, I just feel like there's a good, Casper's good on clay, period. You know, all of his titles will come on clay. There's, this to me is, you know, no offense to anybody else in the draw.

looks to be pretty straightforward when you look at it. you look at the body of work, Kasper and Tommy are both proven movers, both fast, both don't have any weaknesses, maybe not a huge first serve, but both very, very accomplished on the clay. I just see this one being pretty straightforward.

Alvin Owusu (58:33.856)
Yeah, if, assuming they meet in the fourth round, who do you got here?

Torrey Hawkins (58:38.764)
I like Tommy, man. He's from the South. I've known him since he was a kid. I got to go with Tommy for personal reasons. As far as who do I think is a little bit, a tad better on clay, Casper.

Alvin Owusu (58:49.422)
Casper, yeah, one has listed this. So Casper has been to the final twice, right? And Tommy has, he won French Open Juniors, that counts for something, right?

Torrey Hawkins (58:55.133)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. just feel like, again, my heart's with Tommy, my head, I'm a betting man. go with, depending on the over and under, I'm going with Casper. just feel like he's, not only has he been there, he's done it, I feel he believes that he belongs there. And Tommy is an ultimate competitor and I love everything about him. So it'd be a good match to see. That would be that match we mentioned earlier.

Alvin Owusu (59:24.206)
That'd be a fun one. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (59:28.068)
To see both those two guys get to that get to that that that'd be a great match

Alvin Owusu (59:33.231)
That would be a fun one. All right, and we'll round out the men's draw here. We're gonna go with bottom half of Carlos. Carlitos way, yeah. Yeah, okay, so you got some, I mean, you've got some, we'll call them names, some eyebrow razors here. Most importantly, a potential.

Torrey Hawkins (59:41.454)
Carlitos way. Carlitos way.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:02.05)
I would say potential third round matchup between Sits Pass and Shelton. But does Shelton get out of the first round?

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:06.596)
Okay. Wow. This hits the basket out of the first round while you're playing. that could be tough. I think Ben.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:13.966)
Ugh.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:22.68)
You don't know who these qualifiers and lucky losers are, but to me getting past that one, and obviously you got the whoever's playing, that one to me, just off of experience and him getting through, think Ben's got a great draw. You don't know who the other guys are. You don't know what the matchups are, but I got to think that all the way through this whole thing, you got to a TZ who's playing in my opinion, very up and down a little bit.

worried about himself and while he's had a resurgent first part of the year, still hasn't had anything. He's gone, he was a top, wasn't he number three or four in the world at one point in time? And now he's in the twenties. He's a little worried about himself. He's a little bit, know, he's probably got the media in the back of his ear, but hey, have we seen the best from Stefanos? I just feel like this is a great space for Ben to really just put his foot on the gas. Serve big, come forward.

and just hold serve and play solid. And I think this guy could get to the third round, I think. And then have a chance. Have a chance against Carlos, you know what mean? And speaking of Carlos, I see that being a pretty, he's playing some good tennis right now. I do have to ask you, Alvin, GMP, what has he done? I have not seen GMP since he lost. Didn't he lose to Monfiste in Australia?

I haven't seen his name in much of anything. And again, he's French. He's got the huge serve. He's a good kid. go, we can't put dirt over the casket by any means. He's got a lot of years left. I don't know if the clay is his best surface. And I don't know if that serve alone and that darn backhand block return of his, I don't know if that's going to bode well for him.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:48.086)
He did, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:06.062)
I mean, I know it's not.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:15.873)
They gave him as good a draw as they could give him, you know what I mean, for being in Carlos' section. But, you know, I...

Alvin Owusu (01:02:21.742)
I mean, hasn't, hasn't, GMP hasn't won a tour level match since Indian Wells, in which it was a retirement against, from Fabio Amarajan, right? So, so like hasn't won, like finished and won a tour level match since first round of Dubai. This is, this is February, right? So he is, he is in a find himself kind of space right now. And maybe, you know, we, we put a lot of, so he hit the scene at Wimbledon last year.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:31.427)
There you go.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:51.5)
Right. So that's in July from Wimbledon all the way to when I saw him at Paris masters, right? That was like, that's, that's three months, four months of, you know, favorable, I would say favorable surface. Fresh. Like, yeah, he's, he's un, no one knows him. Yeah. And I think that was a, you know, that was a good time for him. And now he's, know, he's a young guy. He does have to figure out how to be a professional tennis player. Like there's.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:04.705)
Yeah. And conditions. Live arm. Nobody knows me. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:20.546)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:21.23)
And I'll be talking about that a lot a large part of that is like getting your way through a year and No, nothing. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I mean he's 21 years old like

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:26.434)
I understand.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:29.954)
going to take them some time and the big guys with big serves, right? They tend to take a little more. They've rarely played a lot of matches where their serves starts coming back. I think Riley Opelko in the previous screen that we were showing, has still struggled to do that. He's a good player and he's done well to stay relevant inside the top 30, 40, whatever he is in the world. I just don't know. I hate, it seems too early to tell for GMP and we'll see, but it seems like the big servers

have the tall big very one dimensional game big servers have not voted well in the scheme of things in the recent because for whatever reason you know the development of the other parts of the game have you know have been has been stunted because of the obviously the mammoth weapon that they possess so it's you know it's but we'll see we'll see how he can

get behind it, maybe he's been on the plate, maybe he's been there in Paris at the French Federation, getting his mind right, we'll see.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:33.196)
Yeah, I don't think it's gonna matter. At a certain level, it comes down to how well do you play on clay? How good of a mover are you? And that's where it becomes pretty cut and dry. You can fudge a few things on hard, you can definitely fudge a few things on grass, but on clay, it's like, can you run and hit balls on the move and do it for three hours at a minimum? No, so that's when I start to add up, even looking at Carlos,

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:43.519)
Pick period.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:51.051)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:55.207)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:02.734)
Okay, Carlos versus Keenishakori, that's fun on paper. I'll watch. It'll be a fun one because it's like a fantasy matchup or something like that. it ain't gonna go well for very long for Keenishakori. And then likely matchup with like a Fabien Marijan, right? Who beat Carlos on clay last year in his downtime before the French Open. But yeah, I don't know if Fabien Marijan can do it for three out of five. Maybe two out of three?

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:06.081)
Yeah. Right. Right. Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:19.463)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:31.677)
Right. Catch a hot set and Carlos is a little bit off. Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:31.861)
Maybe Carlos.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:36.808)
Yeah, which is effectively what happened last year when they played in the spring, Carlos is, I mean, my man went 17-1 over the course of three tournaments.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:46.273)
He's playing as well as I've seen him play right now. And let's not forget, beat center handily in the set. I mean, going away, you know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (01:05:54.147)
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, let's give present form and pedigree it's due, like you might catch one out of 10, but that one ain't happening right now. So yeah, all right, so let's take a little break. We'll take a break and then we'll come back and we will take a look at the women's draw.


Alvin Owusu (01:10:58.19)
All right, cool.

And we're back, all right. So we are going to jump into the women's draw here, starting with the top half of Irina Sabalinka's quarter. Anything, yeah, I mean, feel like this is gonna get real straightforward, real fast. I see nothing here that's going to keep me from.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:02.146)
Boom.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:22.191)
see some great matches in and of themselves. know, right. That was one that I looked at right there. Love to see that one. Obviously, Leila and Danilovic is going to be another one. Daniel's playing well. Daniel Collins playing well.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:24.802)
Yeah, like Clara Towson and Magnolah Nett. That'll be a fun one.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:37.28)
Yeah, mean Layla, okay Layla, Layla Danielle in second round

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:41.357)
Right. see. But as far as anybody dethroning the current queen, I do not see either of them having a chance to knock off Arena the way she's playing right now. So this one to me is again, pretty straightforward. If everybody holds the form, I do want to send out a quick shot. got my girl Amanda Nisamova man coming through. I love to see her. I would love to see a match with her and Kovita. That would be a great match up for me just from having seen her when she was playing my girl's 12th tournament back.

day love to see her play Petra in that one.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:14.382)
Let me ask you this, do you feel like a potential matchup with Collins versus Sabalinka is anything worth paying attention to? Like let it be known that Sabalinka holds the.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:24.517)
I think Danielle's got the kind of game, man. She can match up to anybody pretty well. I mean, she's, do I think it's anything the way Sabalink is playing right now? No. Do I think it'd be a good match to watch? For sure. Do I think she could, I think she could push her to three sets? I do. I do. don't, I don't know if I just feel like arena has shown me too many different ways to win.

She showed me change up. She showed me bang. She showed you come for, she showed me slice. She showed me a dropper. She showed me that she's not just a one way to win type of player. And that's why I'm giving arena, not just her success, how she's won is what it's what's been impressive. So that's why, unfortunately, because of that, as they say in Shark Tank, and for that reason, I'm out. And for that reason, I got to give it to arena.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:12.878)
I'll just leave you with that one because I have nothing else to add. No notes whatsoever. You have to come up with fictitious scenarios under which Irina Savlinka seems to be bothered right now on the tennis court. Looking far ahead, two weeks ahead, is this her tournament to lose?

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:18.364)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:23.564)
Right, 100%, 100%.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:33.708)
Yeah. And, and I don't see that happening, but let's, let's get through the draw here so we can see because. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:39.671)
Okay, fair, all right. Bottom half of Arena's quarter here. We've got Junction win with the AT here. Potential third round matchup with Peyton Sterns. Potential second round matchup with Alexandra Yala. Hmm. Hmm. Should we get there? That could be interesting.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:51.041)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:56.043)
Yeah. Yep. Yep. That could be that again, a lot of great matchups. I'm seeing in all these draws. I'm looking at so many good ones that that a y'all are matches a good one. Lisa and Stearns good one. there's just a lot of good matches. I see. I don't really see a lot. Everything looks, you know, Schneider there's just a lot of good players. I, everything looks like it's going to hold the form and that would be a nice matchup to see Schneider and,

Queen win, you know what I mean? It would be a nice one. We'll see. We'll see if Peyton could definitely come through that draw and play spoiler. I would love nothing more.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:33.836)
Yeah, think Peyton against Junction, yeah. Peyton's whole thing is finding, like I mentioned last time, last episode, believe, finding that safe space where she's controlled aggression, right? Because her ball has a lot of action on it. It's a big swing, especially on the forehand side. Can she find the gauge where it's a heavy ball that's hurting her opponent as opposed to a big ball that she's just kind of pulling all over the place? And I think for her, the key is.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:49.408)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:55.226)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:00.062)
not only getting into the tournament, but getting into matches, into sets, right? So, let's assume she does, let's assume she does, and at least holds her seed, gets to the third round, like that's one where the seedings and the rankings don't necessarily represent how close these players are. I think they're a lot, her and Queen Winner, much closer.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:03.988)
Yep. But assume she does. Assume she does. Right? Four rounds in. Right? Three rounds in.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:24.034)
100%.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:29.582)
as competitors, then I think there are 20 ranking spots between them.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:32.266)
100%. Dare I say Peyton has a bit of a recent uptick in momentum. do know, you know, Queen Wind did knock off arena in the last tournament, but to me that was still under review. So we're just going to say that that being the case, actually, if Peyton should get that far on the clay, I would give that. She to me has the upper hand. I mean, it might be a closer, it might be three.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:47.576)
Sure, yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:00.256)
but I would actually give Peyton the nod in that matchup should things hold the form.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:05.646)
Okay, fair. Can I go there with you? Can I go there with you? No, I'm just trying to think, I have the conviction? Actually, I do. I'm not leaving Stearns Island anytime soon. I'm here. I'm here.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:09.323)
D-dots?

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:14.888)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, you put the flag down, you put the flag down. It's Stearns Island, it's just down the street, down the way from Madison Keys, you know, the metropolis. mean, you gotta... Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:28.96)
It's Keys quarter is right next door to Cern Street. This is where I buy property. So I'm gonna stand on it because she's gonna take down Quinn Wynn. Give me that gold medal. The whole deal, the whole deal. Feels right. I love anarchy. I'm here for anarchy. So.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:39.019)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:44.128)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:51.65)
I love it. Love it. That one's not too far of a stretch and anarchy, I have to tell you. That's a pretty conservative limb to jump off on that one.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:03.028)
Okay, moving down here into top half of Jazmine Paolini's quarter.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:10.69)
Great draw for Jasmine. Let's just say that. I haven't seen Serrano Sostea's name in a long time. I know she's been out there still playing, but I'm telling you, was happy to see her name out in the draw. I gotta say Jasmine's playing some great tennis right now. I mean, this is to be honest, mean, there is, I don't see any, there aren't any, from what I'm seeing, huge hitters. Sabalinka asked, Madison Keys asked,

Alvin Owusu (01:17:26.478)
Great, Titus.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:38.816)
what have you that are in this section that can really just go through her. And she's proven that she can hang with those that are bringing anything less. And so to me, provided she gets through, makes quick work and doesn't have to burn that four cylinder engine of hers too much per match. If she handles things like she can very surgically, to me, Jasmine gets through this pretty much unscathed.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:58.093)
Hehehehe

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:07.582)
Just with her game style in which she's playing. She moves great on the clay. She moves great period and takes away so much time Again, it would have it would take I don't see any of these Names being huge huge servers. Nobody's gonna go through her. No one has great craftiness per se. There's not an honestly board There's no but there's not a name in here that I'd say who is gonna be a tough matchup for Everybody plays if they play pretty standard tennis that bodes well for Jasmine Palin

Alvin Owusu (01:18:36.13)
Yeah, I think the fourth round matchup, which I assume we're gonna see between her and Svitolina will be interesting. That's about, because Svitolina's pretty smart. She plays a very heady professional game, but that second serve is, that's lunch for Jasmine, that's lunch. Yeah, yeah, so I'm with you there. I like Jasmine moving through to the.

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:48.852)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:54.866)
Attackable. that's where Jasmine lives.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:05.608)
at least taking care of the top half of this quarter. And then we'll take a look at the bottom half where I don't really recall top of my head what we were looking at, but.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:18.254)
What do we got here?

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:19.68)
There's your girl. We're back in a...

Alvin Owusu (01:19:21.998)
This now this this this part of the draw is this is thick

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:24.275)
lot of depth in this one here. You got Kostya, you got Panko, you got Kurumitova, you got Carolan Dolahan. I'm doing this draw here, man. This section here is like, woo, and Eega. Woo.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:36.108)
in a 16 person portion of the draw. So this is the bottom half of Jezen Palini's quarter. have one, two, three, four former Grand Slam champions, including the reigning Roland Garros champion, Egus Fiatek. So...

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:41.888)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:53.908)
Yep. And, and easy 10 former top tens. mean, so in this, in this, in this section, so you got some

Alvin Owusu (01:20:02.754)
gold medal winner, Belinda Benchich. There's a lot here. There's a lot here. let's.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:07.808)
Yeah.

could not be a worse draw for Egosw- Sviatek, I mean, could not be a worse draw. So many good players. Again, unfortunately, she did it to herself with her recent slide. But, and fortunately for her, fortunately for her, Panko's on the upper portion of that so she can at least get fine form. But man, I gotta tell you, this is a tough, the person I'm most worried about is Rebecca. She grew up first round.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:31.81)
The pet-

Alvin Owusu (01:20:39.854)
Yeah, okay, so this is where I wanna stand with it. So short of losing to Alexandra Yalla in Miami, it's not like Ega's just gonna lose to anybody. She'll lose, that's fine, right? She's taken some, she hasn't had the best year, but she's not just randomly giving up L's to nobodies, right? You lose the Panko, you lose the Coco, lose the Coco, like Danielle, these are legit players who have made or won.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:00.072)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:08.536)
Grandstand finals, right? So now the top half of the, so let's put that to the side for, no, let's tackle it. If we get a Raticanu, Scutek, second round, one's playing well right now. Emma's playing well right now. Egan not playing so well right now. But.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:20.851)
Yup. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:27.948)
I don't think this is a problem for Ega. I think of all the places Ega could have landed as a five seed, right? As a five through eight seed that comes random out of a hat, like which quarter do you land in? I think Jasmine or Jessica's quarter would be the ideal. Either or, anyone besides that, really anyone besides Sabalinka at this point like that early in the tournament. And then being on the bottom half of Jasmine Paolini's quarter.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:33.353)
This was the bet.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:45.897)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:51.187)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:57.16)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:57.711)
think is where you wanna be now.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:01.288)
Having said that.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:01.826)
Having said that, having said that, the other, the other side of that is you got Panko creeping, right? Do we think Rebecca even gets to third round? There's a lot of, there's a lot of, I don't know, I don't know.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:21.278)
stuff around here. Benchie is playing well right now too. So.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:23.298)
Bidget's playing well, we're back in a you never really know, but if it's a good day, I feel bad for the opponent, if it's a bad day, I feel bad for the viewer, right? ugh, ugh, I don't, luckily this is not a, woo!

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:27.87)
You know that.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:33.052)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:37.855)
I'm calling Panko coming through this one. I'm calling Yelena coming through it strong. You heard it right here. She just on clay. I like it. If it's hardcore where she can be a little on the slower side and her balls big enough on that backhand to run herself out of recovery, Jerry, but on clay, it actually works better. She moves pretty good on the clay. I love her returns the backhand just all day. I just feel like coming out of that.

Caroline's a good player. Obviously we're back in the benches, both good players, but that'll be a third round. And if she gets too eager, I don't think anybody misunderstands that matchup, including Ega. And so, and that to me, and that's why I could see Panko coming out of this whole thing, this draw, you know, pretty much I give her, to me, this is really her quarter now. And now you've run into Jasmine. That could be a tough matchup.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:31.447)
oooo

So, okay, so you're saying, so let me make sure I get this correct, Ega is 0-6 lifetime against Yulina Ostapenko, right? That is well documented. The first, before, okay, so she most recently beat her in Stuttgart on clay, right? And that was the first time they played on clay. And I think it was a three set victory for Panko. So now we're starting to look at what are the circumstances under which

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:44.168)
Doc. Ended. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:02.336)
Iga can beat Panko or will beat Panko. I feel like she probably will beat her at some point. But you're saying if they match up it ain't, this ain't the point.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:07.236)
for sure at some point.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:12.157)
I don't think that's the point. It could happen in Wembee. I could see it happen in Wembee, you know, to be honest. I mean, we talk about Diagealopsis, her returns, scrappiness, hit some balls in the run. I think if this matchup, this very draw were happened in Wimbledon, I'd be like, you know what, Alvin McGuadalem here and say, Ega beats Yelena in this turn. Right? But on clay.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:29.772)
That's wild. That is wild. That's wild that you would say that because I think he gets one for she won four all yours is.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:35.094)
And I know that Ega's a proven Claycorp roll on girls player, but that matchup is just a tough one for her and she's not playing well. And all these other players there that are, that she has to get through. And I'm going to add one more to it, Alvin. Look at the players that Yelena will go through to get match sharp to get to Ega.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:56.91)
think you're gonna make the same argument about Ega though. Like she's gonna have to go through, let's assume it's Radikanu, then let's assume it's Mardukostiak. Right, that's, okay, all right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:06.238)
I'm hoping EGA makes it through.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:09.194)
Torrey Hawkins (01:25:10.977)
I think the matches help Yelena. I'm worried about Ega, just with her mental spaces right now. I think there's so much blood in the water and there's so much talk about how she's playing that I, and I know Ega, how she is, at least as a viewer, she seems to let that get to her. And so now you've got even more talk. There's pressure on every match of her just to get to the fourth round. And to me, that doesn't bode well for her. She's already a bit of a

Alvin Owusu (01:25:36.654)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:39.386)
over thinker and kind of perfectionist and uber competitive. She does anything short of dismissing players two in one. People are going to already be talking about she beats a quality player four and five, right? Four and five. She will it will already feel like we already she's already having trouble getting out of and and the talk will just start to consume.

Alvin Owusu (01:26:04.12)
Four and five is an odd EGA win score. When you say it like that, it's like it's either we're taking a trip to the bakery, own one, or we're somewhere else. Yeah, gosh.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:11.974)
Right.

Barely, barely get through. Yeah, and that's my point. And with Raticano playing that well, with Kostya, I'm just saying, and then you get to her nemesis. I'm reminded of the snatch line. Do you know what nemesis means?

Alvin Owusu (01:26:31.118)
I mean, this is a murderers row of players that, know, not that she's had trouble with, but Rebecca has, you know, handled, has had no real problems with Eega. Panko, obviously. It's that's tough sledding. That's tough sledding. And luckily this is not a draw prediction show. It's only a review show. I don't have to say anything. I don't know what to say. And that's not my task. I don't know.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:33.681)
It is.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:41.927)
Yeah. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:49.839)
this.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:55.325)
Yeah. Let it, no Captain Anarchy on this one.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:01.098)
No, got no, no, no, I'm holding my, I'm holding, holding my bullets here. I like, I, I, yeah, Kudamatova and that's Kudamatova and Othopenko. Which Kudamatova is that though? That's.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:09.83)
That was good, yeah?

Alvin Owusu (01:27:17.676)
Well, you know, we're just gonna keep moving. got, I it's a,

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:19.002)
Yeah, keep it moving. We've talked that one. Yeah, we've covered that one thoroughly. But it'll be fun to see.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:23.458)
Yeah, we'll come back to that. We'll come back to that one if we, that's a check in, check in on day five kind of situation to see where we are with that one.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:28.944)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the cardiac arrest on room 3A over there on this floor of the hospital. You know, gotta check on that one often because that one's gonna be, man, check, make sure that EKG's plugged in.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:43.117)
Yeah, that's good little section right there. All right, I'm moving into the bottom half of the draw here. Top half of Jessica Bacula's quarter, which is headlined by Mira Andrava. Let's just get to the good stuff here. Down at the bottom, we got Osaka versus Badosa.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:02.481)
Tough one man, that's a tough first round. Tough for both of them, you know what I mean? Tough for both of them and they're gonna get started right away and then you got in the winter places, the plays Roos and Kessler. No, certainly right from the frying pan to the skillet on that one. I'll be honest, I don't know if Paula's been playing a lot since she got hurt and

If anybody can withstand Paul is firepower, it's Naomi. I'm going to go out on the limb here and think Naomi. Pulls this one out and can go through for what I can see from the Kazukinas and the Vegas and obviously, Roos versus Zuck and then Kessler. I think Naomi could put a little run together here. And the reason I'm not giving it to Paula, just the recent injury and her not being maybe being in top match shape. I think she's a wonderful player. love watching her.

I just don't know if she's been healthy ish since Australia enough to put up a good run. haven't followed her very closely, but I don't think she's played a ton since. Right. And so, that's what I'm worried about. Right. And I think Naomi is Naomi's is anyone's bad day, right? Even if it's just normal Naomi, we're not talking three or four years ago, Naomi and Naomi is still, if you're, if you're just a touch off, Naomi can play her way through a match.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:03.063)
Yeah.

she hasn't played, she hasn't really played any. And that's kind of been, that's been the kicker.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:27.891)
And if she continues to play well, this, she could come out of this whole section, her little subsection here and do quite well. And you heard it right here. That will be a phenomenal match to watch with her and Mira should things hold true to form. But cause she is, let's face it, probably just missed being seated. It was probably one those players that was just kind of just out of being seated. And that's a tough first round for Paula, but with Paula not being

Alvin Owusu (01:29:51.597)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:57.252)
not pen play, I have to give it to the former Grand Slam champ. You have to.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:01.29)
Yeah, I feel like, yeah, I'm with you here. think Bidulsa is not, she's not ready. mean, she's playing, where are they right now? They're in Schausberg, in Schausberg? She's playing Schausberg, it's first event in a while. mean, she hasn't physically held up. like, even take that aside, I like the way Naomi's been playing in last few weeks. I like the strides that she's made as a tennis player on clay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:23.417)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:27.193)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:31.246)
I like I'm a big champion for the second career of Naomi Osaka. think I think she has some good things still coming I think that I think that that high end is still there I would love to and everyone's gonna point towards the you hard court season here coming this summer But I would love to see her get some what we'll call some free some free wins here on you know on clay where she can pick up wins against players Maybe you don't think she should be And really prove something to herself that she's more than just a former

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:43.158)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:47.355)
Right. Yep. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:31:01.378)
Hard-court Grand Slam champion right a former hard-court backed world number one I I feel like this is the this is her she can definitely I think she beats Paula I think she definitely beats I think she beats Kazukina as well Her versus Mira Should they both get there in the fourth round with some matches under their belt? I feel like Mira is definitely gonna be there That's gonna be a fun one that will be a fun one and I think

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:16.515)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:31:29.728)
You catch Naomi Osaka in the second week of a grand slam. Like, I'm here for it. I'm here for it.

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:33.932)
Buddy, no question. She's only gonna get only gonna get better with each win. You know what I mean? You know she knows how to win. That's not a problem. Just a matter of her holding up mentally and her holding up physically. think both of those are good. Quick shout out to Ashton Krueger and Katie Bollinets and obviously McCartney Kessler. So I'm looking for all of our American girls in this draw. Each of them has a good chance of getting

at least through the first round of each one of them and possibly, depending on the possibility of a second round, if so, obviously it's gonna be tough sledding against Mira for Ashland, but for the rest of them, there's a good chance to get deeper. And historically, the American women have not always done phenomenal in the clay. So that's a good matchup.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:03.223)
Yeah, pick up.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:21.996)
Yeah. Speaking of which, we're entering the bottom half of Jessica Pagula's quarter.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32:26.735)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:30.03)
I will let you go first, since all I do is get myself in trouble whenever we talk about Jessica Bula.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32:30.574)
Hey, girl.

Yeah, hey, the biggest thing to keep in mind for me, Albert, is you just got to give my girl her respect. That's all. I think sometimes you just steamroll over my girl.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:44.142)
Can we focus on the tennis? Can we just focus on the tennis? Jesus.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32:50.306)
With that said, Alvin, with that said.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:51.854)
She's in the same section as one of my favorite players, Carolina Mojoba, who has not played much tennis of late. I feel confident even cutting to the punch here. I feel like JPEG walks through this part of the section of the draw unscathed. I see no problems here.

Torrey Hawkins (01:33:00.537)
I love.

Torrey Hawkins (01:33:10.842)
I would say so. I do not like this Von Joesova matchup. The girl is just solid. She's just the finalist. She slices well. She bangs well. She's scrappy. She can handle pace well. That's the only one. I'm Osseona. They're all good. That's the one that makes me a little bit, little bit leery of that one. And then we can't forget about recently unseated Azjabor sitting here, Alvin, who's, you know,

Alvin Owusu (01:33:18.498)
Former Roland Garros finalist. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:33:39.738)
If depending on how healthy she is and how she's playing, that could be a heck of a matchup or second round is should they both take care of business in the first.

Alvin Owusu (01:33:46.327)
Yeah, Anze is also starting to little long of the tooth though, and her tennis is following. So I feel like Anze is gonna have to do some work. Like Magdalena French is no joke. And then I don't know which version of Marquette is gonna show up. But if whoever gets to

Torrey Hawkins (01:33:49.09)
Yep, she is.

Torrey Hawkins (01:33:55.735)
That reference is very good.

That's true, that's true. And you can say the same with Elise Mertens though, know, and Maria Sakari. mean, we got some players that are getting long in the tooth up here, Alvin, in this draw. You think Maria's done?

Alvin Owusu (01:34:08.11)
Well, feel like Mertens is the one that I think Zachary is. We're moving past Maria Zachary. I feel like the Elise Mertens of things, because Elise tends to always show up. She always shows up. if Carolina manages to get past Alicia, who's been playing more tennis of late than Carolina has. Now Carolina did final French Open last year? Was it last year?

Torrey Hawkins (01:34:31.158)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:34:38.382)
Was it last year? I might have been the year before. Can't remember. But you know, there's a lot of ifs, but Mertens is a pro. I can easily see her into the fourth round, like taking care of that small part of the section there and meeting Jessica Boolula. And if that's the case, we have a different conversation to have.

Torrey Hawkins (01:34:50.658)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:34:58.819)
Right. Do you like, assuming they both stay the form and I'm hoping they do, JPEG and Mojave. Who do you like in that matchup?

Alvin Owusu (01:35:07.85)
JPEG and muhova. Why would you do that to me? I'm gonna

Alvin Owusu (01:35:16.274)
My mic's not broken, I'm I'm thinking. Oh man, okay, if they get there, if they get there, which means they both have to win one, two, three matches to get there, right? I'm gonna take Mahoba, no, no, I'm gonna take Mahoba. I'm not gonna share for it, because you gave me a hypothetical situation, and in this hypothetical situation, both players have won three matches to get there. Now I'm taking, okay, who is just,

Torrey Hawkins (01:35:17.625)
Captain Anarchy, come on now!

Torrey Hawkins (01:35:28.344)
Okay.

I'm going to give you a little out. think Merton's.

Alvin Owusu (01:35:45.423)
Who's that matchup favor and on clay I'm gonna give it to Carolina Yeah, that's that's straightforward. I think that's straightforward now. I also don't think Carolina's gonna get there She hasn't she hasn't had enough tennis. I'm gonna take recent form which leads me to believe that it'll probably be a Lisa Mertens and then

Torrey Hawkins (01:35:52.034)
Okay. Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:36:02.232)
Yeah, there's a 50 more than 50 % chance in my opinion as well. Vondra Sova just because of her recent success on her historical success on the clay and Mertens both could surprise a lot of people going through this part of draw. Bottom line, great thing on paper, tough section here. mean, tough section here in Sprigald, right? Sprigald, you got some good names, some names that haven't been playing some good tennis as of late. You got some other names who are very volatile.

Alvin Owusu (01:36:17.4)
Well, that would be a surprise.

Torrey Hawkins (01:36:30.071)
very likely to do some damage. So what's our last, what's the last?

Alvin Owusu (01:36:35.342)
Last quarter here, we got a top half of Coco's quarter headline by your friend and mine, Madison Keys. Yeah. Yeah. Where are the tricky spots here? I think the tricky spots.

Torrey Hawkins (01:36:39.073)
There you go.

Torrey Hawkins (01:36:43.166)
Absolutely.

Torrey Hawkins (01:36:53.16)
Right here as a ranker, Wickmire is a that's a that's a trick one a little both of them a on the older side of both really good players as you say professional you the other one I'm looking at is you know Shout out to Rob Montgomery, you know one of the young Americans coming out as well as Haley Baptiste and Sophia Kennan. However, obviously Emma Navarro. I see the toughest matchup being

I see the toughest matchup for this one being the Navarro Keys eventual third round, fourth round, whatever that is, a matchup. think both of them have the firepower and game to get through whoever they're playing up to this point. And I would love to see the others make it be a tough second and third round, but I think Madison goes through and I think Emma goes through and that would be a heck of a match to watch right there. I mean, you're talking about.

Talk about a couple of players that don't mind banging the ball. You know what I mean? I would love to see that. And I'm really happy that both of them are in this section together because I feel like, you know, there's a, what I didn't like about JPEG playing Vondrousova is what I liked that there's not that Vondrousova in this section per se. There's no crafty, wily, wristy, lefty, you know what mean? That can, you know, JPEG gets a back and it's clean as anybody. but she's going to be going up against

a pretty good counter and assuming that the Vargitova is playing as well as she has in the past, that's a tough one. This one here, I don't see that same thing here. I don't see Bolter doing that to Madison. I don't see, you know, Perry or Robin being able to do that to Emma. I don't see, you know, Haddad Maya and, you know, as good as she is, I don't see her being a huge threat for Emma. So my point is I just, I like both of their chances with the current matchups that are in front of them.

to get through.

Alvin Owusu (01:38:52.422)
Hmm hmm hmm It's it's it no no it's it's yeah, it's more theater there. It's the Sophia It's the Sophia Madison matchup that worries me actually the third round

Torrey Hawkins (01:38:53.921)
You have some thoughts? Who gets through for you? Sophia Cannon. I mean, do you think Sophia?

Torrey Hawkins (01:39:02.549)
Yeah, that's the only matchup I can say being a going up through this because of the and the two of them have had some history and obviously, but that's my point though is should should Madison hold serve well play well to get that far. I got to think she's serving better than before in some previous matchups. Maybe that serve hadn't been there. think serves there assuming she gets there and it's playing well. I don't you know, I'm not I'm not so certain that

Sophia is playing that much better than Madison currently. Danielle Collins right now possibly J-Ped for sure. Just saying recently and obviously we can't knock off the Queen from the previous slam from her perch just yet. I wouldn't say she's the most sure-footed on clay but with her strokes being what they are, know.

Alvin Owusu (01:39:37.87)
Okay, I see what saying, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:39:53.603)
Yeah, her serve, yeah Madison's serve does a lot for her though, because if she can, if she's hitting that like big aggressive heavy kicker as a first serve, which is allowing her to get forehands like off of first ball, then I think just her weight of shot and she moves actually really well on clay for someone as tall as she is. I could, yeah, it's hard for me. The Madison, it's hard for me. I don't really have anything of value to say.

Torrey Hawkins (01:40:03.562)
Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (01:40:08.106)
Yep. Yeah, very tall. Yeah. You're like me watching, going through a KU bracket and the, I know, I know them so well that I know who can beat them more than I look at how much I want them to win. You know what I mean? So I mean,

Alvin Owusu (01:40:26.666)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:40:37.916)
Every every opponent is a possible is a possible upset just because I know I know my J-Hawks but I'm with you. We'll move on this this will be a good one to watch and we'll we'll just keep our fingers crossed on on on number seven number nine coming yeah

Alvin Owusu (01:40:45.068)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:40:49.428)
All right, yeah, let's, ugh, God, that one hurts me. That one hurts me. Okay, all right, well we'll move into the very last section available to us here, which is the bottom half of CocoaGolf's draw here. I think it's nice that we haven't looked at this moving in really much before filming here. Cocoa really got a good section.

Torrey Hawkins (01:41:00.191)
Go, go.

Torrey Hawkins (01:41:14.611)
Yep. She did.

Alvin Owusu (01:41:17.214)
mean, Kaliski is playing good tennis right now. I we joked about her dating situation right now, but.

Torrey Hawkins (01:41:23.016)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:41:26.633)
Alan Skye is playing, but so is Coco. mean, Coco's playing well. She's finaled the last two 1000s back to back on clay. I she's gone, something like 10 and two in the last two tournaments on clay. Coco doesn't really lose the players ranked outside of the top 10 very often. Like she's kind of, she's gonna lose, she's gonna lose to someone quite good. And I feel like that holds up, you know, former French Open champion, Barbara Krijikova hasn't played much.

Torrey Hawkins (01:41:32.649)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:41:39.155)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:41:46.025)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:41:50.23)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:41:59.168)
lately same kind of same spot as a Badosa's in and we got a lot of, got a lot of our players on the women's side who have been injured lately and they were coming slowly starting to come back, know, Mahova, Krachikova, Von Drusova, Badosa. So yeah, I feel like this is, this is probably pretty straightforward for, for Coco. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:42:08.958)
Good, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:42:21.716)
It looks to be, it looks to be should she and she's healthy, right? She's healthy. She's playing well again, just while she lost to, while she lost to Jasmine still, but still in the final. I mean, we can't, you can't discount the, you know, the, the, results she's been having on some clay, you know, just took out, just took out Ega in the previous tournament, pretty, pretty handily. I mean, so in my opinion, Coco, this is a great, not a good draw for Coco, but she's playing well right now as well. As I said, those are the words you never really want to hear about a player.

as an opponent, you want them saying that about your player, if you're the coach or a part of the team. She's playing well right now. When you hear that, you just know, there's no help. You're not gonna get any help. And I think that's the part of it. And let's face it, with a lot of these players, you need a little help. You know what I mean? You need a little help. You need a little bit of a bad day. need them to be a little bit off. You need them not to believe in themselves a lot right now. You know what I mean? And Coco is certainly playing well right now, feeling good.

You know, on clay, think she's got something to prove and I'll be honest, Alvin, with the other bigger players on clay, I give Cocoa as much of a shot as anybody because she can have that extra second to rip the backhand. Her forehand is a little heavier. It can do a little more damage. She can hit that sliding forehand and slap it down the line. Her heavier ball buys her a little extra slap on the clay where she might just be laying out on the hard court.

where on the clay she has a little bit more time, just a little bit more time to catch that thing. And I'll be honest, her serve isn't as huge as I'd like it to be, but on clay it doesn't matter as much and her speed can make up for it. So I really like Coco's chances in the French. I would love to see this be the next slam she wins. Will it be this year? Not so sure, but will she get a step closer? I think she can.

Alvin Owusu (01:44:10.286)
Yeah, and I will say, will give a champion, give a two-time Grand Slam champion her due. Like, Barbara Krugyikova is no joke. I'm only withholding my enthusiasm about her potential here because of her lack of, just lack of matches of recently in the last 90 days. But let's be clear, if she is healthy and gets to the fourth round, I don't like that matchup for Coco. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:44:18.58)
100 %

Torrey Hawkins (01:44:27.82)
of late.

Torrey Hawkins (01:44:33.492)
That could be 100 % don't like it at all on clay especially

Alvin Owusu (01:44:39.094)
Yeah, because Barbara will carve her up. Like, will carve her up. She is, you know, she's won the French Open. She has won Wimbledon. She's not messing around. So if she's here for it, then she's definitely someone to be dealt with. So that's our 2025 Roland Garros draw preview episode. Feel really good about it. Been standing here for a minute. I will say, before we get out of here, I will say one thing for those who are still listening to us.

Torrey Hawkins (01:44:46.247)
Yeah. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:44:55.908)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:45:02.419)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:45:07.534)
during this tournament we are going to go for it. Like we're gonna go for it. You're gonna see our faces and maybe a rotating cast of faces a lot over the next two weeks. So I hope you guys enjoy it. Would love to hear your feedback about matches that you're excited to see, the matches that we've been watching. We might try to pop on here and go live every once in a while or at least give our, if there's some matches that really jump off the page for us or jump off the screen for us.

Torrey Hawkins (01:45:22.769)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:45:32.823)
give some feedback on those, but you will be seeing a lot of us from now until the trophies get hoisted in a couple weeks here.

Torrey Hawkins (01:45:33.031)
Go.

Torrey Hawkins (01:45:37.48)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:45:45.521)
man, I guess with that, we can call it. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:45:49.179)
It's going to be a fun few weeks. Looking forward to it, Alvin.

Alvin Owusu (01:45:51.214)
It is same here. French Open is Australian Open is my favorite is my favorite, but the French Open is the I think the best expression of our sport like the way that they the way that the game unfolds on clay. It's a beautiful thing. This is the this is the top of the mountain. The highest, you know, the highest points of our sports are the Grand Slams, the things that we all, you know, when we're talking about these Masters 1000s, we're looking at them through the lens of what does this mean as we look forward to the next Grand Slam and here we are.

Torrey Hawkins (01:45:57.853)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:46:06.193)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:46:12.689)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:46:19.654)
Yeah, yeah, Couldn't come any sooner. I felt like that the lead up to this has been like four months, I swear to God. So happy to have this here. was more, I don't know what part I'm more excited about that the lead up is finally over or that the French is here. They're both very similar.

Alvin Owusu (01:46:21.24)
We're here, so let's all have fun and yeah.

It's been a while. It's been a while.

Alvin Owusu (01:46:38.802)
Right. All right, well, off to the races. Off to the races. We'll just drop it there. Best of three. We are out.

Torrey Hawkins (01:46:42.566)
Yes, sir.

Torrey Hawkins (01:46:48.86)
Peace.