Ep. 36: French Open Round 2 Review

Alvin Owusu (00:02.034)
And welcome to the day four, five edition of best three podcast. I'm Alvin, that's Tori. We are here. It is just wrapping up a second round of both men's and women's play here in this year's Roland Garros event. But first and foremost, TH, how are you doing?

Torrey Hakwins (00:23.522)
I'm good man, I'm good in this rainy day in Atlanta. You know what I mean? It's one of those Seattle type days where the rain is only interspersed with mist and cloudy.

Alvin Owusu (00:25.942)
yeah.

Alvin Owusu (00:34.226)
Right, yeah, it's clearing out from the last rain and then warming up for the next rain that's coming in. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (00:39.566)
Exactly for the next one. It's been there for the last couple days. It's been a week there but a lot of time to catch up on some tennis which has been neat. I have watched some good matches. Caught a few good highlights as well. Interested in your take on a couple of them and I've got two, not one, but two questions I'm going to ask you and one I'm going to save for later.

Alvin Owusu (01:06.59)
I don't like surprises. I'm the one who gets the surprises around here. don't like when they get kicked back. Okay.

Torrey Hakwins (01:08.11)
No you don't and that's why I'm one back I'm gonna hold them. I'm gonna hold both of them back just because you said that So with that I'll let you kick it off now that I know now that I know you said that that's that's great

Alvin Owusu (01:15.346)
Okay, fair. Yeah, yeah, well first quick shout out to our friend and my friend and yours, Logan Stevens, friend of the pod. He's in Paris right now. He's at Roland Garris. He'll be somewhere on center court tomorrow with the family. So his kid's getting a chance to enjoy some tennis for the first time. So yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool and I told him to keep.

Torrey Hakwins (01:28.074)
Yes, sir.

Torrey Hakwins (01:34.024)
Awesome. Awesome.

That is the best. Logan had the biggest forehand back in the day. swear to God, fast, crazy wheels for a white boy. I swear to God the kid could move and could run around a forehand anywhere on the court. I mean, it was funny how, you know, you don't want to get stereotypical, but as a black coach and seeing a lot of speed coming from my side of the tracks.

To see a fast white boy, you're like, ooh. I mean, it was just something good to see. Had racket speed. mean, you know, like a lot of good players I work with, they had three fifths of it, right? They had, you know, they had that, they had that, didn't have this, didn't have that. But, and unfortunately, as the game gets more advanced, some of those holes in your game start to show themselves. But great kid, great dad now, good dude. I miss you, Logan. Hope you're enjoying the French.

Alvin Owusu (02:09.385)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (02:34.803)
And if you pick up an extra towel for me, we'll settle up when you get back. Holler at your boy.

Alvin Owusu (02:37.162)
I might have to, I'll shoot him a text. We were texting earlier today. We'll get that one to him before the pod drops. yeah, good guy. Known him since I was in middle school and we still hit to this day. So he's there, fun stuff. Let's start with the women's side of the draw. It's been, today was, last few rounds, I wanna say not necessarily straightforward, but relatively calm. Relatively calm. Top seed's kinda taking care of business, rolling through.

Torrey Hakwins (02:44.439)
There you go.

Alvin Owusu (03:07.242)
Do I give a shout out to like American Haley Baptiste is really, you know, starting to show that she is a player that can not only contend on the pro tour, but also maybe make a living out of this, right? And she's, she's been, you know, popping up in main draws a lot this year. Saw her have a battle against Naomi and I think it was Auckland right before Australian Open. Fast forward, her in person in Charleston play against...

Torrey Hakwins (03:19.597)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (03:33.982)
She played against maybe, I think she played against, doesn't matter. But moves well on the clay. Pretty handy all court game. And she's starting to show it now. She's put together back to back wins. This might be for the first time in her career in a Grand Slam. So worth noting.

Torrey Hakwins (03:49.526)
big time. Worth noting while you plug in one, I'll plug the other one of my personal faves Amanda Nisamova through the third round had another solid win. Glad she's finally healthy playing some good tennis really looking forward to seeing how just how long can she play healthy is my question slash my hope. She's just got great talent. I remember from the younger days when she played

Alvin Owusu (03:56.03)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (04:16.15)
Girls 12s I've watched ever since. I've watched lot of the girls that have played the Girls 12s I've seen since I was the director there many, many years ago. And I just keep watching them all and just with a smile on my face, I see them at that highest level. And she is through to the third round. Good to see you. Good luck, Amanda.

Alvin Owusu (04:31.434)
And she's actually stacking performances, right? That's I think what I see from her is she obviously has a talent, right? She semi-filed this event before, obviously with this and personal stuff, took a break, came back. She's back on the tour, won a 1000 earlier this year in believe Doha. So yeah, it's good to see her kind of put the schedule together that makes the most sense for her, for both from a mental standpoint and from being able to compete at that level from a longevity standpoint.

Torrey Hakwins (04:39.851)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hakwins (04:54.197)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (05:01.034)
And now she's doing it, right? Didn't play a heavy warmup schedule, but here she is, third round. And that's, yeah, that's fantastic. I wanna make sure that like, you know, as we get along in this podcast space, that we are being true to ourselves, right? We are not members of the media. We do not cover tennis. are, that's a tough spot, it's a tough spot. We are, I like to say tennis practitioners, and we like to talk about.

Torrey Hakwins (05:20.716)
And thank God for that.

Alvin Owusu (05:29.066)
So I'm gonna say, you know, everyone's talking about Victoria Mboko right now, young lady from Canada by way of, I think Charlotte, North Carolina actually. She's got game, put up a lot of wins this year on various levels, like 40 wins this year. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (05:46.155)
Put up a second one earlier and through the third round looking like she's playing some good tennis And that's gonna be a tough match. I don't want to get ahead too far. I you got a schedule What what her go go? Queen that's right going against Queen win I'm just telling you that's gonna be a tough match because he let me say this also real quick and She came through the qualities, right? So you've got five wins now, not just two. So you've got five wins ton of momentum I'm reminded of Alexi y'all's

Alvin Owusu (05:54.724)
No, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. She's got Junction win. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (06:06.451)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hakwins (06:16.075)
run at Miami. This is very similar in the sense that at a certain point, not only she get more comfortable, she's her confidence starting to build. And I told you about those words, Alvin. She's playing well right now. mean, you don't want people saying that about now it's okay to lose to her a little bit. I don't think Queen's going to be as I'm going to say as effective about that as most. However, Boko is playing some good tennis right now and it'll be a fun match to watch this next third round.

Alvin Owusu (06:43.934)
I agree, I agree. it's, yeah, she's had a, even if she doesn't really bring her A game, Victoria's had a great run so far, beating up on players like Lulu Sun and then Avalise, this will be a different test. And I think this is for a young player, you know, first year on tour, like this is fantastic opportunity. Like what does the high end of this game look like? Like what am I measuring myself against? Exactly. Exactly.

Torrey Hakwins (06:53.643)
100%.

Torrey Hakwins (07:06.783)
Right, right. What can she match when shown, right? And let's face it, you don't get to see these top 10, top five players often, you know what mean? So when you see them, you have to take advantage. to me, it'll be good to batch it. We mentioned this about Iyala, and when she played, my girl JPEG, Jessica Gula in Miami. And you have to run up against the litmus test of that top five, tell her what his queen. Eight, seven, the one right now, eight.

Alvin Owusu (07:29.724)
Right, yeah, yeah. Eight, yeah, eight.

Torrey Hakwins (07:34.698)
When you run up against that level, now you know. You've probably never seen it before, let's be honest. So it's just something really good to see. Look forward to seeing her career. Obviously she started to show some really nice things, but more importantly, look forward to seeing how she learns and what she, as I say, matches up to in short order with Queen Wind.

Alvin Owusu (07:54.664)
Absolutely, Kind of the toughest matches that we've seen on the women's side in the last few days, obviously, Danilovic, Olga Danilovic from Croatia had a battle against Danielle Collins and this was the third time I think they've met in the last year and every match has been a battle, right? So that one, think it was, yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (08:03.871)
Yup. Yup.

Torrey Hakwins (08:11.402)
Yeah, Yeah, yes, no slouch, good player, hey, and was and while she may not make, while Clay may not be our best surface, still every bit, every point was contested. I would tell you the same. And I told you that match with, with Panko and Dolehive was going to be tough. Caroline's another good player also. So I knew that match was going to, was going to go the distance and glad to see that it did. And obviously Panko just maybe a little bit much for her, but again.

Alvin Owusu (08:23.54)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (08:38.314)
two matches very thristy contested and you know while they didn't prevail they certainly showed well and you know just for whatever reason maybe a little more maybe just a little bit more foot savvy right on the clay but I really they certainly could hang their heads high with how well both of them played.

Alvin Owusu (08:51.72)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (08:56.574)
I mean, I think it also speaks to a lot of what you see in Grand Slams. It's like, get so, everyone's there, obviously. And so if you're not a seed, or even if you are a seed, and we're talking late, kind of in the 20s, the 30s seeds, there's not much difference between them and someone who's ranked 50 in the world. So you get a lot of these matchups where it's like, it's a coin toss for who is going to be the higher ranked player in that same space, because a lot of them are so competitive against each other.

Torrey Hakwins (09:22.442)
That's right.

Alvin Owusu (09:25.32)
Right now Danielle's somewhere in the 50s I believe, because she has so many points recently rolling off. And Danilovic is right there with her. And it makes for, I think from a fan standpoint, put the rankings aside, put the seedings and the rankings aside, it just makes for really, really good tennis. Second round Grand Slam, third round Grand Slam, this is really entertaining tennis.

Torrey Hakwins (09:46.873)
You said it the other day, was one section of the draw that had three or four former Grand Slam winners in that section of the draw, right? Vondrou Sobo made one of them, just to your point, Shchytchukov-Frech the other day, they actually made it for three in the third, again, tough match. Frech was the seed, a 25 seed, but still, think Vondrou Sobo is like 40 right now in the rankings. She won this tournament two or three years ago, you know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (09:53.202)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (10:06.42)
Right.

Torrey Hakwins (10:14.139)
I say that to say these are the kind of people you run up against. Well, did she find one? Did she find one or she won? Final friend won Wembe. That's what it That's what it was, right. That's right. Marketta?

Alvin Owusu (10:17.524)
She finaled it in one Wimbledon. Final French two, three years ago, then the following year, one Wimbledon. And doesn't final or win anything else besides that. So I'm looking at it now, she's playing JPEG in the next round. It's like, okay, well, is one of these two gonna make the final? Because yeah, Marquetta doesn't just go on runs that don't matter. If she wins the first round, you might as well just put her in the semis. I'm not, I'm not,

Torrey Hakwins (10:35.942)
Right, right. To their normal. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (10:43.241)
Right. Might as well.

Alvin Owusu (10:47.082)
I'm not stepping on JPEG. I'm not. me go ahead and just pick JPEG to win the match. I don't make predictions anymore. I'm out of the predictions game. But let me just say that Jessica Pagula is gonna be just fine. And I wrote this down in my matches that I'm looking forward to, Von Droseva and Pagula, and then I circled Pagula and I'm like, Jessie might mess around and just make the final of this event. The bottom half of the draw is wide open. She gotta beat Coco? Like, mean, okay.

Torrey Hakwins (10:52.072)
You

Torrey Hakwins (11:00.316)
Thank Thank you for that.

Torrey Hakwins (11:11.1)
Why not?

Yeah, yeah, that can be done. That's doable.

Alvin Owusu (11:16.97)
Okay, yeah. And no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Torrey Hakwins (11:25.522)
against each other and again, 100%.

Torrey Hakwins (11:40.967)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (11:46.183)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (11:47.262)
Donna Beckages, she's become a favorite of mine. She is coached by, think, is it, is Para Reba, is it Para Coach or? Anyways, she has, she has a larger coaching staff, couple of,

Torrey Hakwins (11:50.14)
Yeah?

Alvin Owusu (12:09.162)
Yeah, I'm just blanking right now. I totally forgot what I was talking about. And this is whatever, happens. I'm not even gonna edit it out. We're let it roll. We are, we are. Pam Schreiber is the person I'm thinking about. So a couple years ago I ran into Pam Schreiber at a bar in Melbourne during the Australian Open. I'm out there with my buddies. It's nighttime. Oh, oh my God. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (12:21.126)
Yeah, man.

Torrey Hakwins (12:31.623)
tall was Pam than you that's my one question I met Pam once before Pam Pam felt like with her hair Pam felt like she was about as tall as me and I'm 6'6 so

Alvin Owusu (12:41.706)
Pam is in your space, she's definitely not in my space. And I saw her and I was like, hey, I'm Alvin, I've listened to you on Tennis Podcast, think she's wearing a Tennis Podcast sweatshirt or t-shirt or something like that. And we started talking tennis and I'm talking tennis and she's like, oh, you know tennis. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know tennis. And so Pam Schreiber kicked it with us and the boys for like an hour and Pam and I just got, we got into it and it was, this was probably like 2023.

Torrey Hakwins (13:03.345)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (13:07.399)
Solid. Solid.

Alvin Owusu (13:11.274)
2023 Australian Open and we were talking about Cocoa in the forehand and like we got into it and So she's she's super cool. And you know Vis-a-vis I have become a Donna Beckett's fan because Pam is one of her one of our coaches. So yeah, yeah, so Yeah, I mentioned the Von Dros of a Pagula match that I'm looking forward to but we are Probably the best match on the women's side in the third round is probably gonna be

Torrey Hakwins (13:26.016)
And yeah, love it, love it.

Torrey Hakwins (13:36.024)
of one.

Torrey Hakwins (13:44.423)
That's gonna be a tough one right there, Alvin. That was one I had circled. I'm not gonna say a close second, a distant second, Keys and Sophia Kennan. That's gonna be another match. Just because the two know each other, girls are growing up together. know, there's just so many other good matches that are coming up that are, mean, the one.

Alvin Owusu (13:53.546)
Yeah!

Torrey Hakwins (14:10.617)
Mboko Queen win. mean we talked about there's gonna be there's a lot of good third round matches here that I like this I'm liking what I'm seeing You know and and you know The Nilevich is gonna be going up against Savalinka who looks like an unstoppable freight train right now. I've got some weapons. You know, I mean Olga might be able to at least at least Go stroke for stroke. You don't I mean You can you can I'm just

Alvin Owusu (14:25.106)
Right? Yeah.

It's it's it's it's in string.

Alvin Owusu (14:34.418)
Yeah, I hate, right. I mean, she can definitely hit the ball. She moves well. I just have a feeling that when you see these players in person, there is a difference. So when we were in Charleston a couple months back at this point, I was out watching Katie Volionette's practice a little bit, right? And you go from watching Anna Samova play, I watched Madison Keys play, and then you go watch Katie Volionette's hit, and it's like,

The difference is almost just in like, it's a math equation, right? This is just physics. Like, you can't be that light and produce a ball that's going to hurt someone that is six foot tall, full frame, like unloading on the ball. And I say that to say like Olga, she hits a good ball, but like she's a little light in the, a little light in the tail to be really hurting Irina and that you're gonna have to hurt Irina badly at this point to push her around.

Torrey Hakwins (15:08.368)
Yep. Right.

Torrey Hakwins (15:14.818)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (15:29.254)
100%, but she is a footer and all six footer, wire risk she may be. Maybe we get some extra sandbags or something, we get a little extra. Remember the old school pro Kinex with the sand in it? Maybe we get in the old school pro Kinex and get a little kinetic dust in there and let her get a little extra mad time acceleration. I'm just saying, she certainly covers enough court and she hits the ball pretty big by herself. So I like her game.

Alvin Owusu (15:33.257)
Right?

Alvin Owusu (15:46.122)
Just little Little swing weight help. Little swing weight help. We'll see. We'll see.

Torrey Hakwins (15:58.63)
I don't think many people are gonna stop Arena. Arena seems to be playing in great form right now and just seems to be enjoying it and enjoying herself at the moment as well. And she's dispatched her opponents in pretty short order, but looks like she's having fun doing it. She doesn't look to be looking past the next match, past the current and the future. She's having fun with it. She's having fun with her box. She's having fun.

Alvin Owusu (16:22.292)
Right.

Torrey Hakwins (16:27.877)
with the challenges of what's going on. You can tell she's in the moment, which is really a great place to be, a great place to watch as a fan. You see the players playing that way, but to your point, about four or five really good matchups on this tomorrow. And then of course, we'll get more as the draw continues to filter out.

Alvin Owusu (16:42.088)
Yeah, and I think the other interesting part of the Rebecca versus Othepenko match is the winner would also play the winner of Eega versus Christiane, which Eega looks fine. She looks fine and I don't expect her to look like she has any issues until she comes up against a player of pedigree, but it's like now it's coming. If Eega is going to defend her title,

Torrey Hakwins (16:53.296)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (17:05.796)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (17:09.894)
she would potentially have to go through, either Panko or Rabakana, two players who had not much issue with her. Potentially, Paolini in the semi, pardon me, the quarter, yeah, quarterfinal. And then Sabalenka in the semi before even getting to the, it's.

Torrey Hakwins (17:10.425)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (17:14.725)
Right.

Right.

Torrey Hakwins (17:25.987)
You probably favor Panko on this matchup just to see the tougher matchup for Ego. It may know him.

Alvin Owusu (17:31.722)
I, you know what, I am a Panko fan. I'm a Panko believer. I am down with all her shade and all her nonsense. Sometimes it, yeah, yeah. And sometimes it really, it gets in the way of recognizing how good of a tennis player she is, right? She has an all court game. She's a fierce competitor. She has won a grand, she has won this tournament before. Not a lot of people can say that. So, but I think.

Torrey Hakwins (17:37.41)
Yeah. And there's some considerable traded on 6.

Torrey Hakwins (17:48.888)
Sure.

Torrey Hakwins (17:55.588)
Right, Yep.

Alvin Owusu (18:00.33)
know, Rabakhan, you know, I'm a big fan of like, stories need to make sense to me. And right now, where we are in this space of tennis, I do feel like the best three players in the world are Iga, Sabalenka, and Rabakhan in whatever order they happen to be in at that current period of time. I just feel like what she did in 2022, was it 2022, 2023, like,

Torrey Hakwins (18:07.171)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (18:20.204)
Hmm

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:29.864)
winning Wimbledon, finally Australian Open. Like she is legit. mean she's playing a tennis right now. I didn't mean to spend this much time waxing poetic about Elena Rabacano, but she won a tough three set match in the final of Strasburg against, who did she play? God, it's not all that important right this minute, but she's here. Like she's here, she's ready to play. And I think.

her making a return to form is what the game needs to fill out the top end.

Torrey Hakwins (19:05.368)
Don't disagree. I will not say anything anti or pro. Alana, we're backing up. Period. She does not live rent free in my mental space. Period. So I'm gonna let you have your moment. You can wax on Poetic all day. Even better. Bringing me to my first of two questions. The Daily Double. Cocoa Golf.

Alvin Owusu (19:09.672)
Okay. okay. Okay. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (19:17.706)
Okay? Okay.

I'm done. Now I'm done. That's it. That's all I got.

boy. boy. Okay. Yes, I know her.

Torrey Hakwins (19:33.473)
made a comment today about night matches, women's sports in general was what she was trying to do. But she made the comment, Alvin-esque I might add, about.

Alvin Owusu (19:39.601)
huh. huh.

Torrey Hakwins (19:52.536)
there should be a women's match in one of the two slots in the night slots of the French. Basically saying, if I can paraphrase, our tennis is just as quality, just as good, deserves to be, I think was her words, deserves to be one of the two night slots. Didn't want players to go on afterwards, which I think was a smart statement. Your thoughts, and I want Alvin in tennis broadcasting.

Alvin Owusu (19:55.016)
Right. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (20:07.86)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hakwins (20:21.032)
speak not Alvin waxing on poetic about other players and whatnot your thoughts Mr. Omusu

Alvin Owusu (20:25.31)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (20:30.93)
Yeah, so, okay, so the French introduced a night session probably two years ago, right? Three years ago, something like that. Yeah, they finally got lights, yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (20:38.082)
Right. Right. They finally had lights. People don't know that. French Open, like Wimby, was one of those tournaments that never had lights before their domes. Before they're covered, they didn't have any lights, so matches were called to darkness. Keep going.

Alvin Owusu (20:45.79)
They got lights.

Alvin Owusu (20:50.248)
Right, yeah, so Emily Morezmo, tournament director, ends up taking, fielding a lot of the questions about what matches get selected for the night's session. what I've seen so far is people are like, this is the first year where they've, the French kind of like have openly said without, you

Maybe not as many words is like we don't feel like the women's matches are quality enough to sell them as a standalone session Right, so every so I get the u.s. Open we just you know Some tickets are going on sale tomorrow morning for the general public pre sale was two days ago I was able to snag some tickets for Thursday. I'm gonna buy some tickets for Friday tomorrow excited, but all Grand Slams are sold in Sessions, right? There's usually a date that every day has a day session and then for the and then there's a night session, right and generally depending on the

Torrey Hakwins (21:20.631)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (21:44.274)
on the venue or the tournament, the night session, you can get night session tickets for one or two different courts. So like US Open, Arthur Ashe has a night session, starts about seven o'clock, you'll get two matches, right? There's also a night session, I think, on Louis Armstrong as well, because they have the roof and so on and so forth. So the issue with the French Open is that they keep putting men's matches on the night session. They don't put women's matches on the night session.

Torrey Hakwins (21:56.342)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (22:13.074)
I think it's not important to note, I think it's just okay as we're laying out the scenario before we give any type of comment on it, yeah, is that they only put one match on for the night session. It's one match. So while it, and I think even before Coco gave her support of women's matches should get a night session, Ange Jabbour also spoke very passionately about it.

Torrey Hakwins (22:20.066)
about it.

Torrey Hakwins (22:24.876)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (22:43.176)
With that being said, I believe, and someone can check me if I'm wrong, I believe there's only one match in the night session at the French Open versus two matches in the night session at the US Open. So from a tournament organization standpoint, and I'm still just laying it all out, right?

Torrey Hakwins (22:59.214)
I'm waiting for you.

Alvin Owusu (23:00.906)
You have to not only, let's put the ticket aside, the actual ticket aside, what you have sold against to rights holders, those who are going to broadcast this tennis, is a block of time. A block of time. Sometimes that block of time is, either in two, it's either two or three hours generally, if you're talking about one match. So, against that block of time, rights holders are then gonna be selling advertising space, right? So they have this entire like,

Torrey Hakwins (23:04.287)
Yep. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (23:30.406)
of commercial breaks that they have to sell against, right? This is just how the business of media goes. I'm just laying it out. I'm just laying it out. So what you start to run up against in this scenario is like, okay, we have to sell against, we have sold all of this inventory and now we have to fill this inventory. The worst possible thing would be to undersell, right? You have blocked out three hours that you have sold.

Torrey Hakwins (23:36.866)
And I'm loving that you're laying all this out.

Alvin Owusu (23:58.632)
Right, broadcaster has now paid that money, they've sold ads against it, and then let's say Ega shows up and drops a bagel and a breadstick on somebody. Well, shit, okay, now we've gotten an hour and 10 minutes of tennis, maybe, maybe, and we gotta now fill.

Torrey Hakwins (24:15.519)
Now we're showing the semifinal of 2024.

Alvin Owusu (24:18.758)
Right, exactly. So that is a thing that broadcasters are weary of, right? So they have a lot of influence. The ESPNs, the Warner Brothers Discoveries, the tennis channels of the world have a lot of influence as to what matches get put on when and where based on who's playing, what time it is in their home region. Like Andy Murray's, the British are typically going to be playing, like if it's the US Open, they're going to be playing afternoon matches so that it's prime time in Great Britain.

Torrey Hakwins (24:47.809)
and pay well. Sure, for sure.

Alvin Owusu (24:48.65)
That is like the thing that goes into scheduling that probably isn't taking consideration by a lot of people. Now, I've laid all that out. Having said all that.

Torrey Hakwins (24:55.393)
and said all that.

Alvin Owusu (25:00.436)
They gotta do a better job. There is a way to do this. A way to provide three hours of content at a minimum, right? That is both good for the fans that are buying tickets and paying for the session, good for the broadcasters that have paid money to broadcast this session, and also equitable for both genders in the tournament, right? And this also kind of speaks to like what's going on with French tennis right now.

Torrey Hakwins (25:21.65)
and WTA ATP.

Alvin Owusu (25:29.906)
the way that they view women tennis players is also starting to reflect in the amount of women tennis players that they produce, right? There's something in the ethos and maybe in the culture that seems to be very embedded and it is reflected in the way that they make decisions. An easy fix would be to do two women's matches. Well, mean, adding both. If you're gonna do both, okay, that's fine, put a women's on.

Torrey Hakwins (25:39.168)
Prize money, I mean, you can keep going. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (25:52.446)
And both, Right.

Torrey Hakwins (25:58.272)
To my point, US Open, right? There's almost always a women's match, men's match, double session. Boom. Right, to my point.

Alvin Owusu (25:59.837)
Yeah.

If they do it right if they do it right the worst case scenario is you do a blockbuster men's match that goes four hours or something like that and then Follow it up with a women's match you often see people end up leaving and you've got now It's just bad TV, right? It looks bad I think there should be a pretty consistent flow of you know women's matches It's a pretty it's the amount of time a women's match can take because the two out of three set format is It's a much tighter thing that you can control or at least plan around as opposed to the men's like, you

Torrey Hakwins (26:15.582)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (26:32.82)
You know, it could be two hours, could be two and a half, it could be five. You don't know. I think the safest bet would be to roll with a women's match first and then go with a men's match. And maybe just, yeah, no, no, good.

Torrey Hakwins (26:40.096)
That's what I'm saying. To the point she referenced, sorry to cut you off, Ioko referenced when she played before Novak. I mean, clearly a lot of fans are there to see Novak. And of course they're eager to see her as well. As a ticket paying fan myself, I would rather see two matches versus one in general. And I would love to see the girls play with the guys at the same time. I don't devalue women's tennis.

Alvin Owusu (26:58.067)
Absolutely.

Torrey Hakwins (27:08.478)
But I may have an issue if I came to watch Sabalinka for an example. As you mentioned the breadstick and the bagel against someone in a very efficient 47 minutes. Right? And I paid top dollar for an evening session, plan my evening around it and no shade on the girl she played or shade on Sabalinka. But 47 minutes was probably a little short on what I was thinking of for a solid final and evening match of tennis.

To your point, I get your point. You lay it out very well. Try to do better. At both if possible, have to do better. I think the other question that I'm getting at, Alvin, is, and I've always had this issue with women's sports.

Alvin Owusu (27:43.71)
You have to do better. They have to do better. They have to do better.

Torrey Hakwins (27:57.984)
from a strictly time frame situation. Two out of three versus three out of five. You give me the exact same thing. I walk into Ruth's Chris Steakhouse tomorrow and I get, you offer me for the exact same price. You're offering me a six ounce filet or a 12 ounce filet. I'm taking 12 ounce filet, Alvin. I just am. Even though I'm not that hungry, I'm gonna take 12 ounce. You offer me.

Alvin Owusu (28:01.802)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hakwins (28:25.535)
Three beers or you offer me one beer? I'm take three beers, I'm just am. I may leave the other one there half drink, but I'm gonna get three beers and so on and so on. It's just my mentality. And I feel the unfortunate part of the thing for me, and I probably think I'm speaking for a lot of viewers, the volume, for what it may be, tends to be a little better on the men's side because of the three out of five. Now, does that mean the women have to go three out of five in the slams? No, but it does mean that the men will take precedent because of three out of five.

Alvin Owusu (28:50.291)
No, no.

Alvin Owusu (28:55.049)
Right.

Torrey Hakwins (28:55.424)
I've heard the argument back and forth. I've heard the situation. Tennis, good tennis, good tennis. Renee Stubbs made a very powerful and very articulate case, I might add, for women's sports. That didn't even need to be said. We love women's sports and the game would not be what it is without some of the phenomenal women that have played this sport. Shout out to US Open for putting out Thea Gibson on the US Open poster this year. You know, in 50 years celebrating her rise to the game. Looks beautiful, by the way.

Alvin Owusu (29:20.522)
Oh yeah, I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, okay.

Torrey Hakwins (29:23.582)
Bottom line, we don't, we don't, that didn't, we're not talking about women's sports, we're talking about volume, we're about scheduling. I'm not so sure, Alvin, if I'm a ticket payer and I have the option of watching a two out of three versus a three out of five, I'm not so sure that I'm gonna pick the women's game. I better really like that player or that matchup over the men's matchup given the situation.

Alvin Owusu (29:50.996)
I mean, I think that it's the volume of tennis that one can see needs to justify the ticket price. That's also that, that's the other side of it as well. talked about the, I talked about the, well, I talked about the broadcasting side, right, of the inventory sold, but the other side is the, no, are two sides of the same issue. It's just like one affects people that are watching on TV and the financial aspect on that side of the equation. The other one is like the financial aspect like on the.

Torrey Hakwins (30:00.433)
And to me, it's the only thing.

Torrey Hakwins (30:05.427)
But doesn't the volume affect it? Wouldn't you the volume would affect both? Right, right, right.

Alvin Owusu (30:19.082)
like if I'm going to sell the ticket, and night sessions are not cheaper than day sessions, they are oftentimes the same price if not more, it's like, okay, well, what am I getting for that? And that, from a fan standpoint, is really about how much tennis am I going to see? Because if a day ticket might be in that same seat, might be the same cost, but you're going to get three matches, right? So I think that is the trade-off. So what do you do? I think the answer is,

Torrey Hakwins (30:26.109)
Right? New York, there more. Right.

Torrey Hakwins (30:43.355)
Right? Right?

Alvin Owusu (30:49.062)
If you want to roll with one night that's men's only, like one men's match, fine. The next night it's two women's matches. And then follow it up with a men's match the next night. Just alternate. If you need to do it that way, if they have some curfew concerns, like they don't want to go too late, okay. Like too late to do like women's and then men's, because then you could do women's and then men's every day. There's ways to do it, but it doesn't seem to be...

Torrey Hakwins (30:58.033)
Right. Right. Right. Alternate. Sure. Sure.

Torrey Hakwins (31:11.515)
Yeah. Until at some point they overlap and obviously you have one page.

Alvin Owusu (31:16.166)
Right, it just doesn't seem to be that important to the FFT. It just doesn't. And they're like, whatever, we're not going to, they're getting very brash about it now. They're just like, you know what? We don't actually think it's of value. We have a women's tournament here because we're supposed to. That's all we have to do. That's it. They're calling themselves out. They've been very full-throated about it this week. yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (31:33.957)
Mmm. You're calling them out. You're calling them out. I like it. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:45.354)
I'm glad you mentioned that because we didn't get a chance talk about it last time. But they seem to keep, they seem to continue to keep doing and they don't, there's no signs of them stopping. mean, hell, shout out to Emilio Nava, but like Nava versus Rune last night was not like, I mean, what are we talking about? What are we talking about? What are we doing? I bet both of them were like, Right? Us? It's round two. It's round two. Okay.

Torrey Hakwins (32:03.345)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (32:08.967)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (32:15.55)
All right, fine. Anyways, anyways, let's go back. Let's not go back, but let's move forward. Move over to the men's side. No break tonight, we're rolling right through it. Interesting couple of days here with some of our men bowing out, some of the seeds bowing out. Obviously, we lost Caspar Roode, seven seed. Alex DeVanor, nine seed.

Torrey Hakwins (32:16.922)
Torrey Hakwins (32:37.233)
Yep.

Torrey Hakwins (32:43.293)
you

Alvin Owusu (32:45.98)
Minsik, 19 seed, sits a pass, 20 seed, for a variety of different reasons, right? Casper hurt, dealing with an E issue, props to him for even finishing the match.

Torrey Hakwins (32:54.035)
Yep.

Torrey Hakwins (32:58.045)
100%. 100%. And honestly, props to him for not withdrawing, not saying that Dimitrov couldn't or what have you, but I think he, had it been any other term of the French or slam, he might have withdrew, you know what I mean? And that was, you know, always sad to see, you know what I mean? I wonder at what point, I wonder at what point that...

I my man's name who was playing. I just watched some of the matches. I wonder at what point, God bless it, his opponent, what's his name? Rude, rude, rude, rude. I'm looking at my phone. Nuno Borges. I wonder at what point Nuno, the Portuguese player, realized that he was hurt. wonder, because at some point, watching the match, I felt like he thought he was just starting to play a little better.

Alvin Owusu (33:40.607)
Nuno. Nuno Borges. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (33:54.25)
I mean, at the end of the second set, like Nino played a good second set, but then, and then like, and then, after that it was like, you could see the quality just like dropped like exponentially very quickly. From Casper, yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (33:58.599)
Play it very softly like I said.

Torrey Hakwins (34:04.381)
from Casper, but I'm saying, wonder at what point did Nuno realize that Casper was hurt? I mean, he was pummeling him. I will say this, I think he had to realize it mid about early in the fourth. To his credit, he did not start drop shotting. He did not just start running all over. He played normal. And to me, that was a little, let's assume he did know.

Alvin Owusu (34:10.506)
Not his problem. Not his problem. I ain't worried about what's going on over there.

Alvin Owusu (34:24.83)
Nah, just playing.

Torrey Hakwins (34:31.162)
very classy on his part to continue to play through. So I'll shout out to my main man, Anunyo for that. By the way, played at Mississippi State back in the day. Didn't know how to do that. I was looking them up because I'm like, know, I aspire to move to Portugal in the next three to five. So I've been looking at all things Portugal and I came across his name obviously as a top Portuguese player. And sure enough, right on his wiki page, there it is, Mississippi State. like, there you go. So there's probably about 30 of these guys that are, you know.

Alvin Owusu (34:39.754)
He did, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (34:57.406)
Yeah, yeah, I-

Dude, there's so many of these dudes, it's weird. You'll see them probably at Orange Bowl, they are this player from this country, and then the next year they pop up in a college uniform. like, wait a University of Kentucky, that seems weird. And then two years later, they're on the tour bearing their country's flag again. It's like, what happened? There's a lot of these guys, like Fernley, Diallo, there's random dudes, there's Cam Dora, all these guys.

Torrey Hakwins (35:01.21)
So I'm below and there's so many guys that have come through. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (35:11.388)
Yep.

Yep. See on the tour.

Yep, 100%. Firmly, yeah. Cam Norrie, your boy, Serendelo. There's somebody else.

Alvin Owusu (35:31.866)
I think that I saw today, so, Philip miss, milicich, mil.

Misalich, Misalich, think it's Misalich. Got a tough, tough five set victory over...

Torrey Hakwins (35:39.675)
I know you don't. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (35:52.276)
Chapavolov, yeah. Man, I'm not on it tonight. On Chapavolov today. And it's a four hour match, right? They're battling on some outside court, getting after it. And there's a lot of emotions. We often say that tennis is like, it's like boxing, but you never get a chance to touch your opponent, right? It's very intense, it's very emotional. There's a lot going on, especially when you're out there for so long playing a best out of five set match.

Torrey Hakwins (36:01.818)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (36:21.982)
that happens to go five. But then like, there's some part of me that feels like at the end of that match, if I were to play a match that long, I would feel like I just went through something with this person. Like with that person, we went through something. And this guy, you know, qualified, gets himself into the second round, takes out a, you know, a seated player, means a lot to him. They go up to the net and it's just like, good match. Like they just like,

Torrey Hakwins (36:33.253)
Yeah. Yep.

Torrey Hakwins (36:40.837)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (36:51.882)
randomly hit together for 15 minutes or something. I thought, for the hit. And it's like, guys just went through something. It was a full on thing. I don't know, maybe it just means, maybe it means more to me than it means to anyone. Like, don't, I've never played five sets, played four once, but not five.

Torrey Hakwins (37:06.139)
There's a certain cardiac arrest that happens in a five set match. And I hate to say it, we're going back briefly. I won't go too far back in earlier in the same podcast. Five sets, you start getting emotionally invested in what's going on both sides. You start seeing, there's not much you haven't already seen. You're wanting to see how much more the player digs in the tank. There was a match, Skull played George Bastel.

in the first round of the US Open, the year before he played in the doll in the second round. And Alvin, I got to tell you, five, it was not quite five hours, about four hours and maybe four hours and 30 minutes. It was Sco's first five setter, my first five setter as a coach. And Alvin, I got to tell you, everything from wanting to go to the bathroom, starving, tired, and I'm on the bench.

Alvin Owusu (38:02.76)
Right. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (38:02.939)
You know what I mean? So I can only imagine five, four and a half hours. I've done four and a half hours on the court before as a coach. No problem. That's a day. That's afternoon. That's a Tuesday. Right? You know what mean? On playing your heart out at a grand slam with a guy that took out Samper's is a different situation altogether. So when I see a five set badge, I'm with you. You and I probably both watched

Alvin Owusu (38:13.322)
It's a light day. Yeah, it's a light day.

Torrey Hakwins (38:32.794)
I'm gonna, I gotta, give me a second, I gotta go back and get one of the best five Sid Maxx's of all time I've watched, I've witnessed was an American player, god I can't believe I'm forgetting his name. I know everything about him, played at Northwestern, tall, big serving volleyer, was the president of Todd Hart, good god. Michigan, I'm talking about Northwestern. I thought Northwestern, regardless, I'm gonna go with you, I'm gonna go with you, but I thought it was Northwestern.

Alvin Owusu (38:51.434)
Todd Martin. No, Todd, no, Todd, Todd went to Michigan. I went to Michigan. It's not Martin, regardless. Yes.

Torrey Hakwins (39:02.86)
Anyway, long story, Todd Martin. Todd Martin went around the crowd giving everybody high fives after a fifth set match. And it either round of 16 or quarter match at US Open one year. It was like 1130, 1230, it was late. And he gave everybody, he carried the flag around. To your point, you felt like you endured it with Todd, right? Thank you. There you go. Thank you. The point I'm making is the fifth set match does something to you.

Alvin Owusu (39:20.392)
Yes, it was Northwestern by the way, just checked you were right. But it's Todd.

Torrey Hakwins (39:32.28)
And the fifth set match puts you in this gladiator arena of sorts, right? That I don't know this is on the women's game. It's just the gauntlet's thrown down. You just can't replace it. It's something you just can't fully replace on the women's side. And as a result, the knowing that you might have the chance to go that far. Like you said, Nav and Runa the other night. In a random, I don't think either one planned on going five sets.

right before that night and the match went five in your life. Dude, a four set match can be tough match right there. He almost had him. I just feel like the fifth set to me is something so pure and so gladiatorial that you just love seeing it when it happens and there's just no, there's no, there's no replacement for it. That's, that's like.

Alvin Owusu (40:22.804)
Fair, okay, let me, I did not plan on going this route, but let's go here. Okay, if one of two things had to happen, either we had to, either the women had to also play best of five, or we got rid of best of five and had everyone play best of three in a grand slam, which one would you choose?

Torrey Hakwins (40:42.167)
Women go three out of five, all day.

Alvin Owusu (40:44.228)
I'm on the other side of the coin. Because one, don't think going five, I don't think five set tennis is necessarily better than three, that's not a three set tennis. I've seen great matches at a Masters 1000, you see great matches at a Grand Slam. I don't know that drawing it out makes it better. There is a gladiatorial spirit about it, right? It is unique. I'm glad we only do it eight weeks out of the year.

Torrey Hakwins (40:46.125)
What's up?

Torrey Hakwins (41:13.753)
Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (41:13.866)
Because as a fan, I don't really want to watch it that much more frequently because it takes a long time, as you just mentioned. Right. And as the game continues to evolve and players are just getting taller and faster and hitting the ball harder. Right. The matches are getting longer and longer. It actually has a detriment, like a negative effect on the rest of the tournament. Like, and I was going to this is the part that I want to talk about today is like, you know, the one of the long tail impacts of playing a best out of five.

Torrey Hakwins (41:20.747)
It does. It does.

Alvin Owusu (41:43.624)
going five sets in rounds one and two, I think round three on the men's side is gonna fall apart a little bit because so many players went five in round two that you don't go five and then just show up and you're ready to go. So one of my questions I was gonna ask you, is the path to recovery? You finish a five set match, right? And then less than 48 hours later, you're going to have to play another match to kind of walk me through that process.

Torrey Hakwins (42:13.603)
First things first. And I saw this first hand at same tournament by the way. There is a player you may remember this guy's name, Serge Sargeycian. used to be, Serge Sargeycian used to be the hitting partner for Agassi and a very good player in his own right. Had a long five hour match. I witnessed this firsthand. I thought it was textbook and I'll walk you through what he did and what.

Alvin Owusu (42:25.812)
Suggies? Suggies, Suggies here, yay!

Torrey Hakwins (42:40.854)
the physios and the trainers there at the US Open did and obviously just go to the same that night after his five setter. First thing you do, you come off the court, you hit the bike. You're on the bike for 30 minutes. You got get that lactic out. You got to get your temperature back up to a point. This is before you get the massage, before you get your rub down and before you get anything regarding any treatment.

Alvin Owusu (42:51.114)
Get on the bike. What does that do?

Torrey Hakwins (43:04.492)
You get your body temperature back up again and you literally get on the bike for 30 minutes and just keep it at a low speed and just to work it out, have to bring, people don't understand this, lactic acid is within your cells. You now have to get it out of the cells. You now have to get plenty of fluids because you now have to flush it out of your system. How do you get out of your system? Well, you drink fluid, but you have to let the body continue to work to push that waste out of the cells. And at that point, you get it out.

The second is you go from intracellular to intramuscular. So now you have it there, it's out of the cells, but now it's still within the muscles. So now you gotta massage it out, you gotta foam roll it out, you gotta stretch it out. And now, and only now, are you ready to fully flush it out of your system, finish it off with a very, very, I'm gonna say hearty meal in some cases, for those that can handle it.

Lots of fluids, of a salad would be an ideal heavy dinner with a bunch of hydrated greens, some grilled chicken. And then you get up in the morning and you start off with a little extra stretching, little extra, get there a little extra early. It's almost antithesis of what you would think. I'm so tired, I sleep in more. No, I'm so tired, I need to work out more. I need to be more ready for tomorrow's match because I don't want the delayed onset soreness, the dons, I can't let the delayed onset soreness catch up.

I can't let it affect me and any lack of activity is going to show up in my play and in my feel of my body. have to actually get out more. I got to do more. I got to want more. I got to get on the bike sooner. First thing I can and the best thing I have is 48 hours and I have to maximize every bit of that 48 hours to make sure my body has fully recovered again from a physical standpoint, from a nutritional standpoint, sleep standpoint.

and literally do extra. It's counterintuitive, but it's what you do.

Alvin Owusu (45:05.577)
Okay, okay, that makes sense. I appreciate that because that is, we had a lot of players go five today. Artrofys against Hibiya Munar, right? Bublik versus D-Minor. Mensic versus Roka, right? We talked about Misalich and Shapo. Our boy Ethan Quinn went five against Shevchenko and was able to pull it out. Fantastic win for him. But you're gonna see this start to show up in the next round when these guys have to come back.

Torrey Hakwins (45:13.623)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yep.

Torrey Hakwins (45:22.721)
talking about Runa.

Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (45:35.018)
One of the ugly ones is like, okay, Bublik is gonna play Roka who has qualified into the event, right? And then now played a tough first round match, gets himself to a five setter in the second round. Like, Bublik also just went five, but I have a feeling like just that five is gonna feel a little bit different than Roka's five because of the, you know, a lot fewer miles in the odometer.

Torrey Hakwins (45:40.737)
Yup. Right.

Alvin Owusu (46:00.482)
But that's gonna have an impact on the quality of play in that match. It's not gonna be pretty, yeah, yeah. What's the best case scenario there? One of the guys pulls up lame early in the match. The person who gets somewhat of a walkover goes into the fourth round, has a couple days to rest up. Exactly, there's nothing good that comes out of this whatsoever, except for if you happen to meet one of those guys in the next round.

Torrey Hakwins (46:04.481)
Right. And the next match, to your point.

Torrey Hakwins (46:18.647)
Which is bad for the fans, bad for both guys. I get you.

Torrey Hakwins (46:28.757)
You on the other side of the net.

Alvin Owusu (46:29.962)
Right, exactly, exactly. Which is looking like Djokovic. He's got himself a nice little setup here. He's gonna be playing Misilic in the next round. Djokovic had himself a nice little workout today. know, a comfy little tennis match he played. He's like, yeah, please, please come on with your five sets of weariness a couple days ago and get involved with this nonsense. So those are kind of the things. The Bublik versus Demon-Ore match.

Alex versus Alex. I watched a decent bit of that one. I think I caught the third through fifth set. didn't see the first two sets, but Booblet comes back from two sets to love. Is that correct? Two sets to love and battles back. What are your takes there? think you... Okay, God. Okay.

Torrey Hakwins (47:11.935)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (47:16.255)
Ding, ding, ding, here comes my second point I've been wanting to ask you about. Demonar comes out in the press conference about the schedules too challenging. Alvin, Alvin.

Alvin Owusu (47:28.222)
I have on my sheet here written down, rude, deminor, complain. So this is perfect. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it.

Torrey Hakwins (47:37.33)
I am so pissed I did not catch you off guard. But I am also, I wouldn't, I didn't put it past you. I just wanted to let you know and sure enough you're ready. I'll be a crafter the next time. Alvin, Alvin. I really like Alexander Zverev. I really like Alex de Manon. But they have been habitually, in the words of, may he rest in peace, Charlie Murphy.

Alvin Owusu (47:39.242)
You

Alvin Owusu (47:50.078)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (47:56.756)
Zero. Okay.

Torrey Hakwins (48:06.936)
habitually line stepping with the excuse machine. I mean the excuse machine is cranked up so strong right now Alvin. I don't know. Mind you always in some loss always trying to explain away or cast the light on something else. The guy was up two sets to love Alvin. Up two sets to love. Dimitra pulled a hamstring and still won a second set. I'm just saying I'm all I cannot I'm not in his body I don't know what he felt.

Up two sets to love Alvin and a three of five in your clay quarter. Fit Alvin. How is the tour and the schedule all of a sudden an issue? Play it with your chest Alvin.

Alvin Owusu (48:41.908)
So.

Alvin Owusu (48:48.252)
Right, let's, okay. Let's, let's. Let's just take it at face value, okay? The tour is demanding. It does require a lot, it requires a lot. It requires a lot out of everyone. It

Torrey Hakwins (48:59.593)
That's gonna be hard. Yeah! It's the Manic Republic!

Kublyk from Kazakhstan. I don't think about five-star, six-star hotels in Kazakhstan, Alvin. Maybe they have 18 of them. But when I think of Kazakhstan, I think of old country. I think of going down 100 yards to get water, bring it back, you know what I'm saying? And Dimonov, to say that after being up two, it's not like he had five three-setters and two five-setters going into this match. And he's like, hey, the tour's just tough. These guys need me to play.

Alvin Owusu (49:16.723)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (49:35.797)
bullets in my head. No, no, no, no, no. You chose to play with that bonus pool. You chose to those extra tournaments. And now that you come up lane, you come up hurt, you come up with an L, now you're gonna complain about the schedule? Demonard, you can do better than that.

Alvin Owusu (49:47.786)
I mean, here's the thing. he and Casper, he and Casper Rude had similar thoughts after their matches, right? About the tour is too long, the year's too long, we feel like we can't miss events, we can't take time off. Casper went on to talk about, know, if we miss the Masters 1000, we lose some of our 25%, it's not even 25%, you have to miss two to lose your 20%. But let's just,

Torrey Hakwins (50:10.132)
25 % of my money I heard, I heard all.

Alvin Owusu (50:17.574)
Look at what we're talking about here. We're talking about professional sports. We're talking about people who are extremely well paid when they perform. This is also an entertainment product, right? People who entertain often get paid an outsized amount of money for the job that they do, right? Because lots of people wanna do it and it's a hard job. It's a hard job.

Torrey Hakwins (50:27.998)
Thank you.

Torrey Hakwins (50:45.652)
Thank you. Only so many people can do it.

Alvin Owusu (50:47.378)
And it's not like, right, and it's not, and I totally get that, you know, these are the best players in the world, right? But being the best in the world at this sport, in this profession means you have to do a lot of it. You have to do a lot of it. And it just gets, it boils down to, this is the job. I'm sorry, this is the job that you chose. This is the job.

Torrey Hakwins (51:10.612)
Chose. Chose is the operative word, because let me say all that crap about the bonus pool, the money we get taken away. That is your choice to play the actual tournaments, Take it on the chin and don't, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (51:15.976)
Yeah, we take it away. Okay. That's right. Alex was talking about Davis cup. went to Alex. Demon or went on talking about Davis cup, complaining like, you know, I play Davis cup and all this. I was like, you know, I made you play Davis cup. You wanted to play Davis cup. Davis cups, not an ATP sanctioned tournament. Like don't blame the, don't blame the ATP for you playing Davis cup or United cup.

Torrey Hakwins (51:29.907)
Thank you. Thank you.

and don't blame the ATP for the schedule that you chose to play. How many those guys played that Geneva tournament? How many guys played all eight, nine events of the, and we've talked about how long the ClickCore season is. You don't have to play all of them.

Alvin Owusu (51:48.554)
You got it. mean, well, if you need to make a living and you feel like you have to play to make a living. Okay. It's your job. It's your job. I'm not sorry. And I'm not trying to take like a hard line stance here, but like that's the job you chose. That indentured servitude. It's the job you chose. You competed.

Torrey Hakwins (51:58.023)
Thank you. Bye. Good job.

Torrey Hakwins (52:05.427)
called professional sports that is way, way more profitable than it was even 15, 20 years ago. But that was a Russian player. You remember Evgeny Kofelnikov from years past. Kofelnikov, the big rub on Kofelnikov was he was just trying to make some money. I guess back in the day Russian, but maybe still today, Russia has taken 50 % of the earnings and he was basically playing catch up from what I heard from other players and coaches around the tour and.

Alvin Owusu (52:15.914)
Of of course.

Torrey Hakwins (52:31.505)
Hey, his last six years, I he moved to Monaco or whatever and had all his money put there in some, unquote, the old Swiss bank accounts and whatnot so Russia can take his money. But again, the rub on Yevgeny was he played every week. He played 40 some odd weeks a year, but played more if he could, because he was trying to get that money. He's playing for himself, playing for his future. Guy came up, probably without a lot of coin, knew this was his future, this was his way of his hard money earning years.

Alvin Owusu (52:45.93)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hakwins (53:00.499)
I say that to say that was the old school in my opinion. I'm not saying anything about the new schedule or what have you. I just found it very upsetting and unsettling that these top of the world tennis players would complain about a schedule that they chose to play in a losing effort and largely their opponents have done the exact same thing. And when I hear that kind of talk, it just tunes me out. I just start shaking my head. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.

Alvin Owusu (53:28.522)
We do have to, we also do need to take into consideration that like, you I am 42 years old. I'm a, and you're probably 52, probably 10 years older than me. We are full adults, right, have kids. A lot of these guys are in their mid-20s. Like they're still very young. And while we watch them on TV do amazing things with tennis rackets that we could never dream of doing, they are still very young. I was full of.

Torrey Hakwins (53:37.586)
Yep, 53, just watch. Yeah. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (53:53.746)
I was one of your employees when I was in my mid 20s. I was full of bitching and complaining at that point in time, right? You don't know what you don't know, your perspective, when you're in it, you're in it, you can't really think about the macro when you're in it. But.

Torrey Hakwins (53:57.257)
Yep. Yep. You don't know what you're doing.

Torrey Hakwins (54:07.954)
Still unsettling.

Alvin Owusu (54:08.708)
I get to think about the macro and talk about it this is what I'm saying. Like you guys need to chill out. Like, yeah, you're almost, you're.

Torrey Hakwins (54:13.34)
You need to step up. You need a full 16 ounce can of Man Up and get yourself out there and play some tennis and keep it moving. You know what mean? You take an L, you take an L. You get hurt. Hey man, I got hurt out there midway through. I want to finish the match out. Fans paying for this and that and third. There was a famous quote, not so famous, quote, Roger Federer made a comment one night.

Alvin Owusu (54:21.642)
Yeah

Torrey Hakwins (54:40.483)
I think one night at US Open it was swirling winds. I think the gusts were up to like, you know, 30-some miles an hour. Right? They asked Roger how bad the wind conditions were. Okay? Let me tell you what True Class said. He said, we're professional athletes. He said, if I had to, I could serve in a wind tunnel if I had to.

Alvin Owusu (54:45.758)
Yeah, it can get nasty and ash.

Torrey Hakwins (55:08.241)
and get the ball in the box. His point was, it doesn't matter. It's the condition of the same on both sides. We play outdoors. We've all played in some tough conditions. You know what? Do what you gotta do. There was no, oh, the US Open should think about putting in an indoor, this and that and the third, because the win. I can you believe the win? I mean, really? And I was so impressed by Roger's answer.

Alvin Owusu (55:22.826)
Do share it out.

Alvin Owusu (55:34.545)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (55:37.581)
Not that he didn't feel the wind, not that he wasn't affected by it. His attitude on the wind was like, hey, that just comes with the train. You know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (55:47.466)
Right. Yeah, and that's that's the way you gotta I mean, that's the it could be a generational divide and I want to I don't want to go too far down that path at this point, but Yeah, we're getting a lot of that a lot of a lot of a lot of complaining at the at the press table But anyways, that's less about the complaining. Let's celebrate because our boy Archer fees did did the thing he tried to he tried to not do the thing but So he gets up he gets up to says to love today

Torrey Hakwins (55:55.14)
Yeah, please.

Torrey Hakwins (56:03.056)
La Prova

Torrey Hakwins (56:07.804)
My boy Arthur Finks did his thing.

Alvin Owusu (56:17.46)
playing against Jaime Munnar. Like I mentioned, looking into that, said, Jaime's a proper clay quarter. Like, boy's got thighs like tree trunks. Like, he can produce off the ground. And it was a fun one to watch. And it was on earlier this morning, and my kids were running around before camp. And I'm trying to explain to my wife, like, yeah, this guy, Arthur Fees, he's young. He's playing, like, this is his first, like, he is now a top player entering the top 10, like, carrying the French flag, playing in front of these.

Torrey Hakwins (56:20.251)
that was gonna be a tough

Yep. There he does.

Torrey Hakwins (56:45.691)
Right?

Alvin Owusu (56:46.342)
From this French fan the French fans as as this person and I'm like, he's a good-looking kid He's got he's got as the kids say he has the aura and she's like he's he's like right the very next point like hits a drop volley and then looks at the crowd like Like gives it to him like what's up? What's up? And they're going nuts and it was like He didn't win the match. It's just one point. It was like yeah. Yeah. Well, that's fine It's part of the experience. You gotta you gotta just let that happen. It's it's it's a long

Torrey Hakwins (56:48.528)
Right?

Torrey Hakwins (57:03.567)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (57:07.993)
Hahaha!

Torrey Hakwins (57:12.667)
for Aaron. That's exactly right. But he needs a bunch of those to fill the shoes. And I gotta say, I was so happy for Arthur. So been a fan for a long time. Happy to see him make his mark today. Again, how many was it? Is it always a solid player? Good, good player. Good Spaniard. As I texted you earlier, I'm not gonna say, I can't celebrate too long. He's now, you know, he's now in the thick of it. He's now

Alvin Owusu (57:17.651)
Yeah!

Torrey Hakwins (57:41.56)
And am I picking into, know, he's proven that he has, you know, the chops to be where he's at. Now the tough sledding starts, you know, he's made it to base camp, you know what I mean, on K2. So now here we go.

Alvin Owusu (57:53.608)
And so he's got one Andre Rublev in the next round. Rublev, I think he dropped one set in the opening round against Adam Walton and then got through today pretty clean. Sorry, he beat Walton in the second round straight sets but got lost one set in the first round against a qualifier. So it goes in day one. I told you before this tournament that I didn't think it was gonna be up and to the right for Archiviste.

Torrey Hakwins (58:04.42)
Yep. Fairly Kirstral, let's be honest.

Torrey Hakwins (58:11.066)
Thank you,

Alvin Owusu (58:22.674)
And I told you my opinion was if he were to meet Andre Rublev that this is where it gets a little ugly for him. Because I don't think, I'm not, I'm not. I'm saying we are here now. We are here now. And I'm not gonna say that I'm going to double down on that. I don't feel like I need to. I'm just saying we are here now. And this is where it starts to get a little serious, right? The third round on the men's side is we are.

Torrey Hakwins (58:29.732)
Yeah. Are you changing it too? No. We are here.

Torrey Hakwins (58:40.826)
Hahaha

Alvin Owusu (58:51.402)
We're openin' up our legs a little bit here. We're in stride. I'm really excited about Fonseca versus Draper. That is a match of our tennis fan future. That type of matchup will end up being a semi-final matchup of a Grand Slam at some point. The next five years, these guys will be with us. And Fonseca is just like, bringin' the hammer.

Like obviously he beats, who did he beat in the first round? He took out a seed in the first round, he beat her cats. And then Pierre, I forget his middle initials, H, Hugo, Huber, yeah. Tough match, two tiebreakers, but Fonseca did the thing I like to see players do, which is play with conviction in tiebreakers. Like we often coach that, you you wanna be solid in the breaker, but being solid can mean a lot of things.

Torrey Hakwins (59:26.81)
human, yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (59:32.428)
Q, Q, so whatever. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (59:42.275)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (59:50.758)
at this level, we need to make first serves, we need to make returns, but we also need to be solid with our game style, solid with our game plan.

Torrey Hakwins (59:57.903)
Check the stats out when he was 68 or something like that percent on the first serve. Brother made a bunch of serves, went in deep, hit the fore like there was no tomorrow. Absolutely moves and tags the ball back. He has no slouch, but his forehand run around is absolutely lethal. I was happy that he followed up that Hurcats win with a solid win today. That was what I was most impressed with. The brother is still young, man. He's 18. He hadn't had a lot of time on.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:00.974)
Ayyy, that- that'll-

Alvin Owusu (01:00:10.91)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:16.413)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (01:00:25.581)
This leads me to my third and I didn't tell you about this one. I know it and I just gotta throw one last video on you. Shout out to Andy Roddick for making a comment about Sam Quarry's very, very, I gotta say it because I was shocked to hear Sam say it a player of his level talking about, relate Alvin, did you hear what he said Alvin?

Alvin Owusu (01:00:28.232)
You said there were two, now we got a third one. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:38.822)
Aw, we don't need to give that space, that's nuts. Okay, go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:51.242)
Yeah, so the quote was like, the Fonseca match against Hurcats. Yeah, so the first round, Fonseca's playing Hurcats. It was a scene, it was a scene, right? They put it out, I think on court seven, outside court, kind of twilightish. was getting, you know, starting to get a little, not dark, but like late afternoon. The court's packed, right? It's packed. They show shots outside and like, there's a line that would fill another.

Torrey Hakwins (01:00:55.289)
I lost all respect for Sam Query. Let me just say that right there.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:21.126)
small court to get in. then like the Philippe Chachere kind of sits above that court seven and people are at the top of Philippe Chachere watching the match from up top. Like it was a full on scene. Fantastic, it was a first round match. First round match. And Sam Query said he equated it to the Beatles coming to the United States.

Torrey Hakwins (01:01:36.984)
First round match.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:46.654)
Which is-

Torrey Hakwins (01:01:46.926)
Just let that linger for a second. Not only is it tone deaf for the Beatles, this is a first round match. And shout out to Andy Roddick for calling it out like it was. First round match, if I may quote him, court step.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:49.224)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure...

Alvin Owusu (01:02:01.812)
Funstake has never won a, well he's won one tournament in his life. Like.

Torrey Hakwins (01:02:05.568)
and has not won a grand slam match, I'm not mistaken, up to this point in time, and this is his first. You want a round first?

Alvin Owusu (01:02:09.322)
Australia, Australia, he won one, beat, yeah, he beat Ruble in first round in Australia. That was his coming out party, big one, but we're talking about one match, one match.

Torrey Hakwins (01:02:14.858)
That was coming out party. And I get all the time. One match and this is a first round of the fresh. He's not walking in as the defending champ. He or having beat the defending champ. I only say it to say I hate players that give the new player a free pass all the way through. I remember being upset. Upset when LeBron James had a shoe named after him and he hadn't even played one minute of NBA basketball. Now.

History will go back and say LeBron James is gonna be phenomenal. Well, that's fair. And when he's phenomenal, I'll buy a pair of shoes that bear his name. But at that point in time, he was a high school standout. And I say it to say, there's no shame on anyone having to prove who they are. And I thought the brother got court step, they didn't give him a practice court, right? And her catch was the low seat. So in my opinion, I think they did right.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:49.642)
Mmm. Mmm.

Torrey Hakwins (01:03:10.271)
If they're, to me, they're at least being consistent, the French, they're not giving the women the night match. They're not giving, for the sake of stadium court.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:16.746)
I'm gonna go out here on a very thin, low hanging limb. I believe Fonseca Draper's gonna be the night match in two days time. I think that's what's gonna, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (01:03:27.597)
You think so? Just, is it a correction? Is it a correction or they just seeing the upside?

Alvin Owusu (01:03:33.39)
because they can. I'm looking at the men's matchups. I mean, who else are going to put out there? Maybe Lajka and Sinner, but no. think it's...

Torrey Hakwins (01:03:43.093)
And is it because Aruna and Nava did not produce or is it because...

Alvin Owusu (01:03:45.894)
No, well, okay, so Runa, Runa and Nava got that match because because Shelton got the walk over. He was supposed to be the match again for some reason. I don't know. They have the thing for Shelton. No, I think I feel like that's the that's the best men's match unless you want to try to get Carlos out there. But Carlos doesn't really like playing at night, so he's going to probably like put his hand. I don't want do it. But I think that one, both being both being your will know he's not European. I don't get Draper.

Torrey Hakwins (01:03:51.841)
Right, right, right.

Torrey Hakwins (01:04:05.163)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:14.462)
Yeah, Draper makes sense. He's a good night draw. I he'll be good night draw. And Fonseca's a hot ticket, so I think now's the time. Right, yeah. Fernley and Nori aren't gonna be the night matchup, right.

Torrey Hakwins (01:04:16.877)
Yeah, I agree. I don't disagree. Yeah. I mean, you're not gonna put two Americans on the night match. Let's be honest. I mean, and you're French. mean, come on. For only a nori, nori, you're gonna put Tiaf on quarter. So I mean, I I totally get what you're saying. So.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:32.466)
Yeah, I think that's just kind of like that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Tiafla Korda. Huh. Huh. Huh.

Torrey Hakwins (01:04:42.028)
Tough one for all the stands. Tough one. We mentioned this few days ago on the podcast. just, Tiafoe, sentimentally, I hope Tiafoe pulls it out for all that he's given the tennis. Sebastian, to me, needs to continue to push deep in these tournaments. You know what happens? He's coming up against a fellow countryman. I'm going to go out on limb and say, think Corder takes this one. I'm going to, but I'll be very, very happy if.

Tiafoe wins. My only concern is either one of these guys to get through. And I was just looking at the draw when they should they that person will come up against Runa, Alice and no, I'm looking at

Alvin Owusu (01:05:20.53)
Look, they got it. No, no, other direction, other direction. No, it's Mahitovich in Altmeyer. That's who gets the winner of quarter in Tiafoe. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (01:05:30.698)
You sure? I'm looking ahead at the round of 16. So, because that was Halas, Runa and Masetti and Navona. So my point is, they will play against, in my opinion, can they go the next two rounds, whoever beats him? And in that case, I think that's why I'm edging it. It's not about who I want to win. It's who do I think will have enough in the tank to go two more rounds and give us a good solid match against a Runa or whoever else.

and be a threat. And for whatever reason, I'm thinking that Sebi might be a little bit more healthy, a little more in the tank right now. Although I really hope that the Francis can bring it. We don't know how many more matches like this that Francis has in my opinion. And you'd love to see him finish it, some things on his terms. I don't think he has the same body and you know, I don't see him at 38 like Gale, you know what I mean? And playing this thing just for kicks and giggles, you know what I mean?

Alvin Owusu (01:06:24.916)
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (01:06:29.979)
and hitting jumping 360 overheads when he's 37. Just saying.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:33.298)
Right, know, kind of wrapping up here, last match I wanted to talk about, which is like, it's a sad one because it would be an entertaining match. Tommy Paul versus Karen Hatchanoff would normally be a match that they'd be looking forward to watch. Like those guys will go, you know, beat the brains out of the ball for a couple hours and it'd be fun tennis as a fan to watch, but both players coming off of five set matches, Tommy's having some issues with, think it was his knee or his quad, something's going on there.

Torrey Hakwins (01:06:43.531)
Ciao, ciao, ciao,

Torrey Hakwins (01:06:50.954)
Yup.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:02.73)
Was able to come back from two sets of love Wins his wins his match against fuzovic is a fun one to watch somehow gets himself through it, but he's not right and Hatching off, know also had a five setter So I think both players are gonna come in a little worse a little worse off So you start to see like this is how this is how draws bust open like this is this is how it happens It's exactly why I feel like you know, we don't we don't need more five set tennis. I'm good with what we've got

Torrey Hakwins (01:07:22.655)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:32.714)
It's a different thing to tackle. Just like playing tennis.

Torrey Hakwins (01:07:36.927)
Would it be different if we played three out of five from the corners on? Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:40.658)
like quarter, semis, finals. At that point, you're talking about, I know they used to do it at some point, but now we're talking about two different tournaments. Winning a best out of five set match and winning a Grand Slam requires a different, a certain je ne sais quoi, right? But it's not a je ne sais quoi, I very much so will say. There is a way to manage a five set match. Novak's the king of it, right? That is part of

Torrey Hakwins (01:08:04.981)
There. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:10.61)
winning a Grand Slam. You have to manage two weeks. You have to manage long matches. And it is a unique set of circumstances for a very unique circumstance. A Grand Slam is a unique circumstance. It is not like Cincinnati. It is not like Rome. It is different. And so it needs to be handled differently. So if we're gonna do that, then let's just, right, exactly. So if we're gonna do it, then let's just do it.

Torrey Hakwins (01:08:18.165)
your body, your ups and downs, your...

Thank you.

Torrey Hakwins (01:08:30.815)
Yep. Yep. And then pay like roll. Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:37.546)
We're going, I'm saying let's just do best out of five. We'll take it for what it is from first round to the end. Whatever. Generally the best players end up playing in the final anyways. I don't care. It's not gonna be the reason why Carlos Alcares doesn't make it the final of this tournament, right? So yeah, that's where I sit with it.

Torrey Hakwins (01:08:57.621)
hear you as much as the purest in me does not want to agree with you. I hear you ongoing two out of three across the board for the quality of tennis, for the fan, for the tennis player who has to play the full schedule. The purest in me that respects, loves the history of the game, the three out of five, wants the women to play three out of five for the same effect because these things don't happen that often. would...

Alvin Owusu (01:09:23.38)
You know who doesn't want to play three out of five? The women. They're all like, no, no, we're good. We're good. We don't need that. Nobody, because no one needs that.

Torrey Hakwins (01:09:31.189)
whole of them.

Torrey Hakwins (01:09:34.89)
my point and it is what it is but that's also why you can't sit there in your you know you can't sit there in your very posh bunker and say but we want equal money and we want equal billing and we want equal this and that and I know I'm opening up an old can of worms beer because I said it because to me say we'll play three out of five is that what it is? We'll play three out of five because to me it now you take a major

Alvin Owusu (01:09:37.929)
It is what it is.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:50.826)
yeah, yeah, I didn't say it, you said it.

Torrey Hakwins (01:10:04.084)
content slash volume thing argument off the table and This has been an argument to me from the end time we won't go into it tonight But I do think at least at least put it out there. Don't say no, we don't want to do it and we don't have to do

Alvin Owusu (01:10:11.177)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:18.402)
Let me not say that all the women say that. And I don't think that's even, that's not even the question, that's not really the question. I've heard a few of them say, like, no, we don't want to play three out of five. And like, nobody should be playing three out of five. And it's like, I tend to side with that perspective more so than everyone should play three out of five. I think at a certain point, like, when you start talking about the quality of the tennis being played as a fan, like, I'm good with a best out of three set match. I'm not unhappy about it. They give it to me all the time, it's fine.

Torrey Hakwins (01:10:22.186)
know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying.

Torrey Hakwins (01:10:47.946)
There were times Alvin when I saw Saffin beat Sampras in a pretty routine straight set affair, the final one of US Open. I can't remember if it was 2000 or whatever it was. Alvin, I remember feeling robbed that the match didn't go but three sets. And I was almost pissed at Pete for not being able to do his thing and not being able to at least make the match more competitive. I'm gonna tell you in the very fiber of the grand slam.

is three out of five because you know something may happen. I remember a time at the French, this very tournament several years back, one Morat Safin was up a few sets, if I'm not mistaken a set or two, to Thomas Johansen who came back and won the darn tournament. He tried and pulled everything he could out of his trick bag because he's going to go against a better, taller, stronger, you know, Morat Safin. I'm just telling you Alvin.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:19.519)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:35.913)
Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (01:11:43.591)
The history has been made through this. It's like golf being a three day tournament with the cut. You gotta make the cut, that's what it is. let's just play paint holes. No!

Alvin Owusu (01:11:49.63)
Right, no, I can appreciate both sides of it. I'm also a purist. I'll just say that that's why I posed the question to you earlier. If one of the two had to happen, which would you prefer? I prefer we just leave it the way it is and just.

Torrey Hakwins (01:12:04.969)
Yep. Here's my question back and we'll end on this. What else would you offer as a way to even up slash alternate the outcome of women's versus men's situation? What else would you do? Not matches is just a consequence of, in my opinion, ticket sales and volume of the ticket holder. I'm asking what else would you do?

Alvin Owusu (01:12:23.134)
What do mean, night matches?

Torrey Hakwins (01:12:33.991)
And you have to answer the question. Just think about it.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:36.458)
I don't have a, I don't, well, I don't have a, I don't feel like they're not equally as entertaining. Like the length of the match, like the length of a five set match is not necessarily something that I place a lot of value on. I want one of the best matches I've watched in the last few years was Joga Bersh versus Alcaraz, 2023 Cincinnati Open final. It was full. It was a full three set final. Each set was full of great tennis, completely emptied the tank.

That was a great match. That was a great match. It was just as good as well. The even it was better than last year's Wimbledon final.

Torrey Hakwins (01:13:15.784)
Was it better than the Fed Nadal five set? Was it better than the Nadal Djokovic five set US Open? Was it better than the, what was it, Wimby Fed Nadal? I mean, some of your classic matchups, Alvin, have been of the five set fashion.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:33.66)
Sure, most of them, think, to reference Andy's podcast, again, they did a, they put the question out to the fans, what were your favorite matches of all time? And the vast majority them came back being Grand Slam matches. Sure, that's fine, that's fine. But I've also seen some really good two out of three set matches. And I don't think anything's wrong with the, I don't need to change the women's game. I enjoy.

Torrey Hakwins (01:13:57.732)
I don't, I agree with you and I still hold my point.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:59.55)
I don't think that the prize money is a reflection of quantity of tennis I've seen all the time. It is people doing their job and entertaining me. And women's tennis is entertaining. the score format is, I'm not really too concerned about it. If I'm paying to go see something, yeah, I wanna be entertained and I wanna be entertained for the amount of time that seems to reflect the ticket price that I paid.

But that's not, that has nothing to do with the women's game. That has to do with how tickets are priced and how packages are sold. That's whole, that's not their problem. That's not my problem. That's another side. That's the entertainment side of the problem. Yeah.

Torrey Hakwins (01:14:41.655)
I don't, that's a whole nother talk show. That's the end time, and in your words, we'll put a pin in it right there.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:48.746)
We'll put a pin in right there. We will, so third round, third round will be, today's Thursday, so third round will be Friday, Saturday. Yeah, maybe we'll do Saturday, maybe we'll do Sunday. I don't know, we'll see, we'll feel it out.

Torrey Hakwins (01:15:04.091)
A lot of tennis for now and then all depends on how some things shake out. If there's lot of upsets, we may have to get back online.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:11.242)
I'm traveling a little bit this weekend, I'll bring a mobile kit with me. I'll be ready to pop off if I need to.

Torrey Hakwins (01:15:16.807)
Love to go through one of these matches online with you, Alvin, while it's happening and just kind of get some of the fans, some of the listeners takes on what they're seeing, what we're seeing. And I've always felt like watching a match live when you don't know the outcome and when anything can happen is very, very pivotal. Cause you start putting, it's like watching a movie for the first time. You know what I mean? You just don't know. You know what mean?

I would love to do that. I don't know if there's any, have been any requests. I know you manage the messages and the social media on this thing quite regularly. Curious to find out. saw you're a little Instagram where you were trying to get.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:59.262)
There has been some interest in us going live after one of these matches. Going live during, let's better hope it's a women's match because I don't wanna sit down and watch a full best out of five set match if I don't have to. I got something to do. I'm moving around. We started off talking about how your butt got sore watching a five set match in person.

Torrey Hakwins (01:16:06.907)
Got it after.

Yeah, people want to watch the 10. Right. Gets his last dig in on the three out of five.

Torrey Hakwins (01:16:27.142)
and I was courtside.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:27.548)
I'm moving around. I got things to do. I got stuff to get done. But cool. Yeah. Let's wrap it up there. I'm Alvin, that's Tory, best of three. We are out.

Torrey Hakwins (01:16:30.074)
Yeah.