Ep. 38: French Open 2025 | Women's Finals Preview and Men's Semi-Final Preview

Alvin Owusu (00:01.86)
And welcome to another late night edition of the best three podcast. I'm Alvin, that's Tory. It feels like we're doing this US Open talk because we keep getting ourselves into these late night tussles, but you know, life, it is what it is. It is what it is.

Torrey Hawkins (00:08.225)
What up, what up?

Torrey Hawkins (00:16.757)
It is what it is. When the matches were like they were today and the inspiration hits, you just gotta get on online and on the air and talk about it. I mean, it was some phenomenal tennis today. mean, probably the best tennis I've seen Eega or Arena Play to date. And the beautiful thing about it was it was on clay, so you saw more of it, right? And you saw more

Alvin Owusu (00:31.336)
Fantastic tennis.

Torrey Hawkins (00:46.893)
There was more, way more push and pull for me. I thought Iga looked as good as she's looked. And I know that's hard to say for a former Grand Slam champ that's won this tournament, but Arena's level is so high right now. And for Iga to go from where she was to what she played like this whole tournament and how she played today. Third set score, notwithstanding, the match was pretty good quality.

Alvin Owusu (01:10.281)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:14.75)
So you could even take that a step back, right? So we just, we're talking about Irina Savalinka beating Iga in three sets in the semifinals of today's French Open matchup, but you can take it even a step back to her quarterfinal match with, I guess it was in Svitolina. No, added in Svitolina and then all the way back to second set of her match against Rebacchina in the round of 16. Like Rebacchina kind of hit her in the mouth as well.

Torrey Hawkins (01:38.401)
Yup. Yup.

She did. She did.

Alvin Owusu (01:42.404)
And that's kind of been the, that's kind of been the tale with Eagle lately. Like she's doing fine against players she should beat. And then when she comes against like the higher end players, she's been struggling to find, you know, her most effective, her most effective form. And I think that happened against her back and she gets hit in the mouth early and then finds the right balance of patience and aggression. And then, and then was able to turn it around in three against her back and I played two great sets of tennis against Fidelina. And then, you know, again,

took it, got hit in the mouth on the first set against, against Arenas this morning, but was able to kind of weather the storm. It wasn't a full set. It was about half a set. And she got herself back into a, into a neutral place. And we actually got to a point where both women today were playing good tennis at the same time. And we were kind of commenting during the match. It's like both the match was on the rails. Like they were, they were playing insane levels of tennis.

Torrey Hawkins (02:15.617)
Are we in it? Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (02:32.224)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (02:39.718)
where there was nowhere to hide on the court, like the margins were so thin, we're having the number one player in the world, her, if she takes seven miles an hour for first serve, it's getting ripped back to her, like a first serve. Irina Sabalinka's first serve was getting put opposite corner, one strike. It was amazing, I was so fulfilled by the tennis I was watching. Yeah, I was giddy, I could not wait to.

Torrey Hawkins (02:58.326)
Yup, yup.

Alvin Owusu (03:08.052)
to get on and talk about it afterwards.

Torrey Hawkins (03:10.912)
was excited to see not only the tennis, I was very impressed to see Eega.

bring that old, frustrated...

part of Arena back out. Arena's been playing some pretty good tennis. And you forget that she can be disturbed. She can be bothered. Right? And never, never was able to control that part of her. But you had to play good enough to get to that part of her. Few have done it recently. And it looked today like it was a bit of a

Alvin Owusu (03:32.136)
Yeah, fantastic tennis.

Alvin Owusu (03:39.764)
She used to be number two.

Alvin Owusu (03:49.81)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (03:58.307)
You kind of saw her get back to that sore spot of arena where she's not fully in control. Her power cannot do all of it. And I was really excited to see Ega, who I thought had mentally kind of lost a step or two in recent months, not be able to play as good a tennis for her own self, to be able to bring not only her game, bring her confidence, but also Alvin, you're talking about the...

I wish there was a stat on from Swing Vision or whatever. Speed of ball is one thing. Speed in between shots is what needs to be tracked because Alvin, there were times when your eye struggled to keep up with the pounding of the ball. The girls were taking the ball so early on both sides. Excuse me, the women were taking the ball so early on both sides. It was hard to track. And mind you,

Alvin Owusu (04:43.654)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (04:53.192)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (04:54.761)
because they're both taking it early and they're both hitting the ball a little flatter? I dare say it was faster than men's tennis for a good portion of it because of the style of play that was being used. Alvin, was some big time tennis.

Alvin Owusu (05:07.38)
Yeah, there was an interesting step that was shown between the first and second set. I might get the numbers slightly off, but the direction is there. Ega was somewhere pushing 4,000 RPMs on her forehand in the first set, and it dropped down. She brought it down to 32, 3,000 RPMs in the second set. She started driving through the court more. And so they're like, it's like, oh, Ega, heavy forehand, and now she's recognizing that she's just gotta go through it.

Torrey Hawkins (05:29.46)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (05:36.644)
that heavy and get to get it done in this kind of scenario. I think, you know, back to your point about what Ega brought out of arena and what that, like, you it's like if your ball tolerance is 10, right, but you can't get me past ball five, you're never gonna see my breaking point exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (05:44.186)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (05:55.019)
where I fall off. I'm 12 balls tough. If we only have seven ball rallies, you never find out I break down the ball for a team. And Eega pushed her to ball 15 today.

Alvin Owusu (06:01.179)
I look like a Hall of Famer.

Exactly, and that within her ball 15 is that kind of mental state where she gets a little, she starts to yell a little bit, Irina does, and seems a little frustrated, but the thing that I thought was amazing about it, and the thing that Irina has been presenting, not only in this tournament, but in probably the last nine months, like, and she said as much, she's like, I don't really care about the rankings. She always talks about, this point in my career, all I wanna do is play my best tennis and enjoy the competition. And she seems like, in today's match,

Torrey Hawkins (06:29.672)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (06:35.407)
she seemed to just enjoy having, like honestly enjoy having Iga being that good right now. Like, I'm glad you're back. I've been beaten these other, exactly. In the same way, Carlos talks about Sinner that same way. Like, I need him. I'm glad he's back, because I need this. And, Arena just seemed to be, like, in the moment, happy that she was in the moment. And then I think that's what was able to kind of help her, you know, keep.

Torrey Hawkins (06:38.728)
Right. The battle. Right. Right. I needed this. Right. I needed

Torrey Hawkins (07:00.041)
100%.

Alvin Owusu (07:03.015)
keep on the rails throughout the rest of the match.

Torrey Hawkins (07:04.746)
Yeah. You need a great player to push another great player to that level of tennis. No offense to the rest of us mortals, but we're just not good enough to push that top player. That top player gets comfortable. And the top player has the ability, dare I say the luxury, of deciding, do I hurt you or do I allow you to hurt yourself? Because you and I both know you're going to hurt yourself here pretty soon.

Alvin Owusu (07:28.539)
Right. Which is like what Carlos is doing a lot of the time, right? Like in the last few matches, he's just like, I don't really have to push it that hard.

Torrey Hawkins (07:37.47)
Right. And I'll pick and choose my times when I do. John Mackerel once said that one of the biggest things that he regretted was that Bjorn Borg retired early. They were just starting to really get that rivalry going. Obviously Borg may be the elder statesman of the two and Borg had six Frenchs and five Wimbys. The five Wimbys were consecutive. I think the Frenchs were three and three. But the point being clearly Borg was pretty good on McClelland himself.

Alvin Owusu (07:48.573)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (08:06.747)
And the point being, and right after Mac was starting to get a foothold in the tour, Ford was gone. And I remember.

Alvin Owusu (08:13.383)
Right. He still talks about it to this day, with a somber tone about it. Like he truly missed him, like wished that he had never left.

Torrey Hawkins (08:18.537)
100%.

He missed him and it hurt his game. hurt tennis to some degree, but hurt John speaks of it like it hurt him personally. I don't know how good I could have gotten had I had Borg there to push me. Now I see that in full context. Clearly I'm no, not even worthy to lace up Johnny Maxx old school sneaks. The point I'm getting at is you need a rival that good.

Push you to what you can actually do what we're seeing today with Iga and arena was Iga pushed arena to a new level They both push each other and that third set let's face it. It was just a little bit of a ton of momentum I actually think arena Found a new level on her backhand that she has never used as much She pulled a couple of my favorite shots out of the inside out backhand. She hit some back hands back behind

Alvin Owusu (09:13.811)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (09:16.745)
Ega to her forehand. She took the backhand on the rise off of Ega's backhand on the rise. Which was a few times she was pulling the, do you remember the girl, what was her name? Nicole Vyda Sova. Do you remember her back in the, Nicole had the, she had the on the rise where she would take it open stance and get the other knee down on the ground. Nicole was about five, 11, six feet tall. So to get a knee on the ground was pretty tough for tall girl. And she got got to the top.

Alvin Owusu (09:17.095)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (09:29.267)
I remember her name, but I don't remember her game.

Alvin Owusu (09:40.989)
Yeah, that's impressive.

Torrey Hawkins (09:44.864)
the world top five more pretty quickly. Unfortunately tennis missed Nicole way too early and then she retired you all too early. But my point being you're talking about arena getting down like that on some balls that Eagles bringing back down the middle of court and then after a while it seemed like arena got comfortable with having no time and started redirecting that ball off the back. We know arena will run around at the forehand. We know that. She started doing the damage with her backhand. I to me that was

Wow, I was like, you know what? This is high quality tennis. Both sides are getting tested.

Alvin Owusu (10:16.403)
Well, you know, I started noticing that, and I don't know if you see this the same way, but like, in some of those situations, Ega found it easier to not necessarily attack Irina's forehand, but because she's a bigger girl and it's a pretty big swing, like, she could rush her on that side. Not necessarily, yeah, more time. So, but like, it found that, exactly, and a few of those where you'd see her try to like,

Torrey Hawkins (10:36.444)
That's right, that's right. Bigger swing, more time. Take that ball back at it. There's no recoil time, you know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (10:46.291)
pick it up, you up and she's late. But on the backhand, she's able to just kinda like drop, take it, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like I mean with the pace that they were, like that's the beautiful thing. even with the pace that they were hitting the ball and the margins being so thin, you could see the cat and mouse game, the little bit of strategy adjustments that they were both making within each set and within the match. was, I loved it, I loved it. I loved it so much. You know what I,

Torrey Hawkins (10:52.872)
That's right. Stop, and roll. No doubt.

Torrey Hawkins (11:04.731)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (11:14.236)
Very good tennis. Very, good. What?

Alvin Owusu (11:15.667)
You know what I didn't love? The dumpster fire that was Coco Goff versus my girl Madison. Holy moly, that was the worst tennis match I've seen in quite some time. No, no, no, I don't need it. Coco versus Bussau, mean, Lois ran out of gas and Coco was on it from ball one. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (11:24.378)
Torrey Hawkins (11:31.099)
You talking about Boisson or you talking about Massey Keats? Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (11:42.587)
Yeah, Cocoa play good tennis. I was very impressed with Cocoa. But let me say this one thing about the Boisson match.

Alvin Owusu (11:45.137)
I was surprised that she was able to dictate with the forehand the way she did.

Torrey Hawkins (11:52.296)
Lois, Louise, however you want to say her, my girl, my French is terrible. First of I had a phenomenal tournament. And as you and I talked about, the best 361 I've ever seen, ever. And she won't be 361 for long. think, thank you. I got, well, ACL or something like that happened. And right, I heard the same thing. Clearly, right, on our way back and doing our thing and hints the wild card from the French and a great move for them.

Alvin Owusu (12:04.435)
Well, apparently she had hit like 120, 130 and then got hurt back. Yeah, I had an ACL replacement, yeah, and then so she was on her way, but.

Torrey Hawkins (12:22.043)
The girl's gonna be bad. She's gonna be top 30 if not higher very, very soon. for sure. For sure. Here's why I also think so. She took down too many good names for now she believes. I don't wanna give her too much press time in that situation. I just know she believes. Let me tell you people don't understand about her and I'll see these two things and move on. Her serve is world class for a girl of her size. Her serve is phenomenal. Not good, phenomenal. For her size, the

Alvin Owusu (12:25.255)
You think so? You think she's that good?

Alvin Owusu (12:44.583)
Fair. Fair.

Torrey Hawkins (12:51.431)
her kick gets Alvin and the height. Oh my god her legs her leg drive and her jump her action on the kick that ball six feet plus off the bounce. I mean she has a phenomenal kick serve. The other part about it is I feel like her inside out point is absolutely ridiculous. Unfortunately and I want to say we back to Coco. Coco's backhand might be world-class on every side.

Alvin Owusu (12:52.699)
or it's coming out of that leg drive. Like she is, she is explosive.

Alvin Owusu (13:12.339)
Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (13:19.139)
Alvin, she had an open stance lob today that came down like a rainbow with about four feet to spare in the back of the baseline. And I'm like, to be world class at a shot, you have to have every shot off that side. You have to pass, you have to be able to have a drive, you have to have the step up. She hit, hitch kicked back hands, Alvin, on top of the baseline that were about shoulder high that she was just maneuvering back deep.

She hit down the lines, she hit center shots back to the deuce, she hit open stance line, open stance cross, Al with her backhand is all day. Number one, and what does Lois like to do? Hit inside outs. So it never gave, the rock paper scissors was 100 % null and void, dead on arrival. That was unfortunate. But I wanna go back to your point with Madison.

Alvin Owusu (14:00.978)
Inside out, forward to the back end. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (14:13.773)
Madison started off that match playing exactly like I thought. Big serve to the body, big four into the corner, went back behind her. And I thought Madison had, that's what I'm trying to say. She started off the match like it was textbook. I'm trying to figure out where it went off the rails. And I don't buy this so much that Coco changed tack so much as I saw, and I'm curious what you saw.

Alvin Owusu (14:23.251)
She was also a 401, 40, 15, at one point, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (14:41.311)
I saw just a few different hesitations coming from Madison and not, what did you see? Tell me.

Alvin Owusu (14:45.437)
Okay, okay, so this is what I saw. So going into that match, I think we were in consensus that it really was going to be dictated by one, how well we assumed Madison was going to serve well, one. And then, that's what she does. Her game is built around her having such an impactful first serve. And then also how well would Coco serve? If Coco's first serve percentage was somewhere below

Torrey Hawkins (14:59.747)
Right. Needed to.

Alvin Owusu (15:16.07)
65, 63%, she was gonna be in trouble, right? And so we got that part. Cocoa did not serve well. Like she double faulted on set point, the thing almost hit the bottom, like hit the ground before it hit the net. But what happened was Madison did not serve well.

Torrey Hawkins (15:17.456)
Sure. Sure. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (15:25.807)
Yep,

Alvin Owusu (15:34.086)
And for her to not serve well, Cocoa also returns quite well. So she's getting a look at a lot of second serves and never really felt under pressure there on Madison's service games. One thing that Lindsey Davenport was calling the match, one thing that she mentioned, and obviously she has very intimate knowledge about Madison Key's game, being her former coach and whatnot. She said when Matt, right, so case in point, she said when Madison gets nervous, her steps become big as opposed to small. And she said that, I was like,

Torrey Hawkins (15:51.461)
100%. Sure. And play it a lot like her.

Alvin Owusu (16:03.719)
That's what it is. Madison looks like she's stuck in the mud back there. and one thing that I, one reason I kind of, you know, thought about was Coco golf. I mean, people talk about her athleticism, right? Her defense is world-class. She is the best defender on the women's tour and it's not even close. And what that does to you, if you're someone who's playing aggressive tennis from the middle of the court.

Torrey Hawkins (16:25.477)
100%. 100%. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (16:33.647)
Yup. Yup. You second guess better yet. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (16:33.723)
It makes you think, like I gotta go bigger. Exactly, you second guess. So instead of like those little steps, little steps being sure about it, you might stop, look, hold, wait, over hit, try to be too good, and then you get a lot of, then you start seeing that unforced error count start to come up. And Madison, I noticed that, and then Madison said as much in the post match, like, know, Coco's speed puts so much pressure on you, like, cause you think she's gonna get every single ball back, and she does.

Torrey Hawkins (16:47.759)
Yup. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (17:03.151)
and then you try to go for too much when really, Cocoa's gonna force Madison to do something Madison's not very comfortable with, which is just like, you just gotta go heavy to safer targets like over and over and over and over and over. It'll take four shots, not two. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (17:03.684)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (17:16.367)
Right. Right. And use the ball out of the strike zone. Almost play more up the gut and make her as opposed to pulling the ball wide. Once the ball goes wide, you're in Coco's game. You know what mean? With all that still being said, and I hear you on all that, neither one of is certain. I think it was ugly for me because of all the lead changes, the momentum changes, and neither of them looked like for about a set that either of them were fully in control of their game.

Alvin Owusu (17:28.06)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (17:32.199)
And it was ugly. It was just ugly.

Torrey Hawkins (17:44.204)
I tell you a lot Alvin about a player needs to have better identity. They need to stick with the guns they have and go with that play. It looked to me after that, what was the first? There wasn't a breaker in the first. I felt like Madison started to coast a little bit and try to protect the win a little bit. I know her serve wasn't as good, but it was good enough. And it's not like Coco's got such a huge serve that she was just gonna absolutely hold every time. It looked to me.

Alvin Owusu (17:55.207)
Yeah, so, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (18:13.317)
Like Madison tried to kind of weather some storms. And I think the longer the rally got, the more Coco found her form and found the feel of the ball. And in my opinion, the taller, stronger, bigger hitting ground shoulder player needs to take first strike. Al, you can't take first strike on ball eight of a rally. just, the rallies, we're 100 % in this thing now. know, whatever leverage you might've had, right, whatever, we're both locked in right now. You're like, I'm.

Alvin Owusu (18:33.277)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:37.468)
Notched in.

Torrey Hawkins (18:42.926)
Imagine the old guy in the first jaws, when he had his seat strapped in, he was literally ratcheting himself into the seat. And that was bolted into the boat like, buddy, me and you, shark, we're going to have a tussle. We are eight balls into a point on the clay. There's no first strike. That was gone. that was, to me, it wasn't even so much her not hitting her bigger serves like she was early in the first.

Alvin Owusu (18:47.965)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (19:11.46)
It was, she wasn't doing it early enough. Going back behind her with enough, with enough firmness, enough irregularity to keep her off balance. she went behind her, Alvin, she went in front of her, she came forward. Madison looked like Madison for about the first four or five games of that first set. Madison looked like she was protecting or trying to get Coco to break down for the next four or five games of the second set. I didn't think she played too bad to finish off the match.

to finish up the tiebreak, I just didn't feel like in the second she kept her foot on the gas. That's what it looked like to me. Now, I also will say, Coco, the longer the rally went, kept getting more like Coco. And realize, I'm not saying she didn't hit the ball bigger or deeper, but I will say that it seemed like she sensed that Madison wasn't going to take the racket out of her hand. And once that didn't happen, there's no more advantage.

Alvin Owusu (20:05.523)
Yeah, should she Coco surprised me in that, you know, we there's obviously lots of talk about, you know, the dexterity she has on the on the forehand wing. But from the first ball, it was like they're banging cross court forehand to forehand. I was like, oh, maybe maybe it's that maybe it's that Coco actually does better with pace than without the pace. Right. So less time to kind of like, you know, it's very just sit it there and rip, sit it there and rip as opposed to like

Torrey Hawkins (20:26.85)
Hey, percent.

Torrey Hawkins (20:33.366)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (20:35.325)
she's not dictating, she's reacting and reacting, she's fine. But yeah, that's the, that's, that, second set reminded me of like how hard it is to know what you need to do and then just repeat it over and over and over. Yeah, and that's what it takes to, that's what it takes for Madison and any big hitter to take down Cocoa Golf. You just gotta, you just gotta do the thing over and over and over and it's gonna take a while and.

Torrey Hawkins (20:37.888)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (20:52.438)
Right, over and over again.

Alvin Owusu (21:04.541)
Coco gets herself in these matches where they, know, the commentators are like, she won. She didn't play her best tennis. like we talked about before, you're like, this is the best version of Coco golf. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (21:13.41)
That is her best tennis, 100%. At least the version we're seeing now. you know, Alvin, I'm old enough to remember when, you know, in late 90s, you know, when Serena first came on board with the beads and, you know, and Puma, you know what I mean? And there was a time when she was just very, very good at defense. I mean, she was just out defending these girls. They couldn't go through her, right?

Venus in particular did a great job of that. obviously Venus is taller than most people realize and covers the court like an absolute gazelle. But I also feel like Alvin and it's funny, I have to mention this because I feel like as black players, you both, you and I both have probably received this compliment from time to time with our athleticism, right? And there is a certain genius that comes from being both an athlete and being a strategist.

that the athleticism gets the credit more than the mind and the understanding and the reads. I will give Sco one of the best compliments I can give him. He was one of the best readers I'd ever seen. He just knew where you were going. And his footwork, Sco, we've had Jermaine and Sco both on the podcast. Jermaine was one of the best athletes. His brother, Jackie, probably the best athlete I coached and a few others I've seen.

Alvin Owusu (22:24.691)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:39.809)
Shout out to my main man, Henry Darko and Jonathan Ibignolvia out there if you're listening. Best athletes, phenomenal athletes. mean, Henry should be playing Premier League soccer somewhere. Had he gone soccer instead of tennis, right? I know a fellow Ghanaian like yourself, but phenomenal athletes. But sometimes we don't give the reads, the mental, the strategy, the understanding of how well they know what.

Alvin Owusu (22:51.656)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (23:09.003)
to give you in that moment, it just so happens their speed gives him the ability to make that play happen. And I think it tends to overshadow what they know to do when they get there. And I think that's the point that I I have a problem with the kind of left-handed compliment of the athleticism. It doesn't give enough credit to what they're doing with the ball. Coco hit buggies, Coco hit loops, she hit rips. Coco moves very well.

Alvin Owusu (23:13.18)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (23:27.621)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (23:37.558)
to the forehand side, her step up may not be as big as most. Her dictating play off that taking time early, but heck neither is Eaga. Eaga doesn't have a huge step up forehand, not if you compare it to Arena or even Jessica Pagula. I think Podosa has a bigger forehand on the step up as far as that's concerned, but man that backhand is all day Alvin. mean she has, and rarely does a player have both, right? Rarely does a player have a phenomenal backhand and a unreal forehand.

Alvin Owusu (23:40.403)
That's the-

Alvin Owusu (23:58.013)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (24:03.857)
It's hard to be perfect.

Torrey Hawkins (24:07.221)
You don't, just, that's what you do. You know what I mean? You look at some of the greats, they had a phenomenal this and that. The other was just kind of average, you know? I remember the great Pete Sampras, man, running for him was unreal. For it served was ridiculous. Backhand, you know what I mean? So it is what it is. I'm, two.

Alvin Owusu (24:20.743)
Yeah. Well, let me ask you this then. So we found ourselves, the women's final is in two days on Saturday. We've got number one versus number two. Yeah, we have Irina Sabalinka versus Coco Golf. They recently matched up in Madrid. Irina got the best of her, got a little nasty towards the end. Not nasty, competitive towards the end of that match. But what do you see, not necessarily a prediction.

But I like to ask the question in this way. I think we can definitely assume that arena is the favorite going into this one, but what if Cocoa were to pull it out, what went right for Cocoa?

Torrey Hawkins (25:03.708)
would extend the point. To me the battle is going to come down to the litmus test is six balls six seven balls. If Coco can extend the point the match is in Coco's favor. This is a classic big pace versus big speed matchup. Arena is going to have the obviously the bigger serve the bigger forehand I mean there's not a bigger serving point in the game and Coco's got the best backhand best wheels in the game.

And it's on Clay. To me, the Clay makes the X Factor because it gives that ball just a tiny fraction of a second of time for Coco to both get there and to return or counter strike. I like the term counter punish. If Coco can get the rally past six to seven balls, she gets into it, she gets her legs under her and Arena starts to go for a bit more. It also means the first strike

of the rally itself has not happened and now you as the bigger player tend to over hit right if Coco cannot get the depth cannot counterstrike what Ega did very well today I thought was return the ball so darn deep and body Arena had no time to counter. She had no time to first strike and unfortunately at whatever point she hit the ball so big and so fast that Arena started having to basically rip the ball back and found you know Ega in a

tough court position because of the attack she made on the return that it opened up the other wing. Most people would have to back up and go high. Arena stood in there and redirected the ball open court. If Arena can basically get first strike within the first two or three shots, dictate, impose her will and come forward. Most points will be decided when I say six balls, six of her balls, a 10 ball or less rally. If the rally goes past 10 balls total, I'm saying six for each of them, that

rally lends itself more to Coco. And that's that's to me what you're going to see. That's where the battle of the foot speed and ball speed will come down to.

Alvin Owusu (27:09.363)
I think we're in the same camp. You're using it by, you're looking at it from a standpoint of rally length. if we get past, there is a Mendoza line at 10 balls and if we get past that, it starts to move towards Coco's favor. If we're on this side, it's in Irina's favor. I look at it from a, you know, it's a very similar thing about Ega when she played Madison at the Australian Open.

Torrey Hawkins (27:16.563)
Sure.

It's a Mendoza. Good work. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (27:34.256)
If we're at the hour and a half mark of this match, and this match isn't over, Coco's chances get like, they just exponentially better. Yeah, because there's gonna be a certain, like I assume Marina's gonna come out balls on fire, right? I assume she will. And then I assume at some point, Coco is going to withstand the, you know, the barrage and then.

Torrey Hawkins (27:37.181)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (27:42.398)
exponentially better.

Torrey Hawkins (27:50.494)
100%. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (27:57.084)
The barrage. Yep, yep.

Alvin Owusu (27:59.624)
start to make more and more balls, catch up to those balls, make more balls, and then now it's a matter of time until they can, like, gets it back to neutral. Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (28:02.911)
100%, 100%. Right, what's the arena second barrage, right? What's her second step up? What's her redirect and follow-up play? You're not gonna out drop shot Coco. You're not going to loop her to death. You're not gonna attack the backhand, right? And so now you're in this really weird space where you have to serve lights out, right? Or you have to give her such a high, meaty,

forehand above the darn shoulder blade that Coco can't do anything with it and Coco's pretty fast. an N5.9 she's not exactly Jazz and Paolini out there. So this is gonna be good matchup and I think to your point that's what you're gonna see that ball speed and foot speed and on clay I gotta tell you I lean a little bit toward the Coco golf camp on this one just because of the clay.

Alvin Owusu (28:39.057)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (28:51.539)
I'm also oddly leaning that way too because of a little bit of time between this last match and this one, but the match in reference being the US Open final from two years ago, right? But that's what happened in that final. Arena came out guns blazing, Coco caught up, held off the Calvary for long enough to get Arena into a position, the same position Madison was in, but it'll be like, I don't know where to go now.

Torrey Hawkins (29:08.754)
Right. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (29:20.989)
Right. Right. Right. And almost got a little punch drunk, didn't she? Almost got a little punch drunk. She kept going for so much. You know, don't not go for it, but by going for it, you know, and you're not putting it away yet, you know you're risking a little bit much. The courts were just a tad bit slower. They resurfaced them every year now. And that's slowness of court. If this were Wimbledon, I could think, and they're both playing this well right now, the style of play, the grasp, the skid.

Alvin Owusu (29:21.011)
I'm doing the thing, she's getting the ball back, I don't know where to go. And then...

Alvin Owusu (29:32.188)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (29:38.674)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (29:48.734)
I give this match to Arena all day, maybe in straights to be honest with you, maybe not even close with what it is. And that's no shame on Coco as far as her game. that's just how Arena's ball penetrates the court and the surface would reward her. But unfortunately, the opposite right now where I feel like the clay rewards Coco. And I'm not gonna give you Guadalupe Lamon any predictions. I'm not Christopher, I'm not Copperfield. But I'm gonna tell you, I think it'll be a very good match.

Alvin Owusu (30:09.831)
Yeah, I'll stay away from that as well.

Torrey Hawkins (30:17.178)
I also think, I want to say this for those at home, they are both playing phenomenal tennis and they are a year maybe more better than when people saw them a year or two ago when Cocoa won US Open. They are playing phenomenal tennis right now. And I got to tell you, to your point earlier, Ega has helped Arena, the matches, the few matches, Madison and that whole win that she had indirectly, indirectly has affected Cocoa.

And Cory Goff is playing some really good tennis. She's playing some complete tennis right now, Alvin. And as a coach, you always hope that your player plays a complete game. Her droppers are there, her speed's there, she's volleyed some shots, she's playing good, she's playing roles, she's attacking. She served well today, Alvin. I mean, I thought she served, I thought it's about as well as I've ever served her.

Alvin Owusu (31:05.619)
She served well today. She served very poorly against Madison, but she served well today.

Torrey Hawkins (31:11.483)
No, no doubt. that I put on Madison for not taking advantage of, but make no mistake. thought she was speaking of serving well, I have to say, it's one shout out. Ega Ciantek served the best I've seen her serve today. Serve was deep, had bite, was moving around. Her returns could not have been stronger. was, people don't realize how good that match was. know, wow. Woo, some good tennis man.

Alvin Owusu (31:24.755)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:33.353)
I would highly encourage anyone who is listening to this and has not seen that, did not get a chance to watch that match, like find it, go back and watch it. It was a fantastic tennis match, a fantastic tennis match. So yeah, let's bounce over to the men's side. We've got two semi-finals starting here in about nine hours. Carlos is gonna open up against Musetti and then Novak is gonna play against Jannik.

Torrey Hawkins (31:45.265)
No question.

Alvin Owusu (32:02.44)
Carlos is, he looks about dialed in right now. He made poor Tommy who, I don't know how Tommy was there, but Tommy was there. He made him look like he was not there. So I think Carlos is in his bag right now. Musetti, hey, hey, look at that, look at that, look at that, that, look at that floor just, look at that floor just coming on up.

Torrey Hawkins (32:06.928)
very much so.

Torrey Hawkins (32:12.57)
Yeah. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (32:22.396)
Hey, by's not, hey.

Alvin Owusu (32:28.638)
Just coming up, if he wins tomorrow, he's the top four in the world after this tournament. So I think he's guaranteed maybe five, but I'm very happy with Lorenzo Masetti. I feel confident that he is now a mainstay in the top 10.

Torrey Hawkins (32:28.694)
my god.

Torrey Hawkins (32:46.045)
I feel he is the Italian and now and 10 years later version of Titsipas. He is, Alvin, Titsipas is three in the world. Don't act like I'm giving him a left-handed compliment. Come on now. Yeah, I'm not saying now. I'm talking about from 10 years ago when he, well, eight years ago, however long it's been, when he first got on the tour and was blazing through, dare I say not as good on certain parts and obviously not as big and not as tall, the serve and backhand.

Alvin Owusu (32:53.489)
What?

Alvin Owusu (32:59.291)
okay, okay, okay, okay, From that standpoint...

Alvin Owusu (33:07.912)
With how long ago?

Torrey Hawkins (33:16.24)
but he's as solid and I am coming around to Lorenzo being that good. Top four is gonna be really hard for me, the purest in me to get my head around this player is four in the world because Alvin, I don't see him having gained big enough to be that solid. When I think of a perennial top three in the world, you know, I think of old school. When I think of three in the world, I think of Yannick Noah. When I think of three in the world, think of Jose Luis Clark.

Alvin Owusu (33:26.291)
Why?

Torrey Hawkins (33:44.796)
When I think of three in the world, I think of players that were getting to semis every Grand Slam. I don't know if Lorenzo can get to semis of US and semis of Wimby and semis of these. I just don't. And forgive me for... I understand all that. I got it. But you said four in the world.

Alvin Owusu (33:52.03)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (33:57.717)
We just have to, I think we have to take in consideration his age and there's, let me, let me throw something. Well, it's, it's, it's, it's, we've moved past the big three and now we're talking about the era of those two, the new two. But it's, it's, it's those two and then everybody else, right?

Torrey Hawkins (34:08.22)
It's the numerical possibility. I understand that.

Torrey Hawkins (34:15.312)
I know it.

Torrey Hawkins (34:19.258)
Yeah. It was hard for me to put Tiafoe Fritz, who I like, in that space. And I don't mean anything against Lorenzo. Hats off to team Italy for winning the mix. I gotta give a shout out to Taylor and Evan for the final of the mix, by the way. Let's come back to them in a second.

Alvin Owusu (34:36.756)
We haven't talked about, well hold on, no. We haven't talked about properly about Christian Harrison and Evan King and what they've been doing this year. We were gonna talk about it in an episode a couple months ago and we never got to it, but my guys, shouts to you two. I like the way that they've been able to put it together out of nowhere. guess Dallas was the first one where they hit the scene and I think they won that title and then kinda kept rolling.

Torrey Hawkins (34:47.163)
Right. Right.

No, no, no, no.

Torrey Hawkins (35:00.027)
Right.

Okay.

Alvin Owusu (35:06.572)
But now Evan King has turned himself into a, know, mixed... Exactly, exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (35:06.907)
Yeah.

turn themselves into a regular Rajiv Ram doing his thing, man. I could not be more happy. My buddy Mark Bay, shout out to you, Mark. What's up, baby? Worked with Evan for a long time back in the day and out of Chicago area. Love Evan, known him since he was a kid, playing the juniors. Ossie Taylor, local Taylor, doing your thing, girlfriend. Taylor at times seemed like the better doubles player on the court. I mean, as as she is, right? So.

Alvin Owusu (35:31.784)
Yeah, yeah, she is.

Torrey Hawkins (35:36.153)
Let's just say that, but I said also, didn't she win the French last year? Didn't she win the French or was it Olympics? What was her?

Alvin Owusu (35:42.837)
I think she won Olympics. I know she finaled, what did she final? She finaled, she's just bringing all Chicago with her. They finaled mixed doubles, her and Donald Young did at US Open last year. Brought Donald off of the pickleball court. Yeah, but there's a lot of good tennis out there. A lot of good tennis out there.

Torrey Hawkins (35:55.99)
Right. Out of retirement. Yeah, I'll think of all court. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (36:04.312)
Another lefty, of course. Well, to my point, and I just wanted to say, it was so good to see a little bit of diversity out there on the court. And I say that with a big nod, nod, wink, wink. It was good to see the braids. It was good to see the lefty swag. It was just good to see us being represented. was good to see a quality mixed match. Sarah Rodney was no slouch in singles back in the day.

Alvin Owusu (36:27.134)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (36:31.188)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (36:33.452)
And Bavasori was obviously a good player, but Sarah was a very good player from back in the day. And you know what I saw Alvin and it brought a little bit of a tear to my eye was to see Jasmine Paolini right up in there watching her fellow countrymen, cheering them on until the deal. I have no doubt that team Italy will be in full attendance watching Mousseti tomorrow because I just feel like, well obviously in center, but centers of course, but I mean, but just.

Alvin Owusu (36:55.975)
and center.

Torrey Hawkins (37:01.691)
cheering on their country and they're having a moment right now. I have to say it was great to see the United States can get kind of big sometimes and we get behind people. We're behind Taylor, know, and Donald Young and obviously Alicia Parks and Coco, right? Cause they're from ATL. We're not necessarily behind the West Coast crew. You know what mean? We're not from there. don't get down per se, but we really should. And I feel like some of our pros and even don't even.

Alvin Owusu (37:03.55)
They are.

Alvin Owusu (37:22.216)
Right, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (37:30.49)
We got two training centers, one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast. I feel like that whole thing, that divide is a problem. Italy, buddy, if you're half Italian, you're Italian. know what I mean?

Alvin Owusu (37:32.732)
Right, yeah, pretty far away. Pretty far away.

Alvin Owusu (37:43.477)
I mean, yeah, Center's barely Italian. He's damn near Swiss. He's way up there. I did see a cool thing yesterday though. Center, because of the rain and everything, the way it worked out, a lot of those players, so Center and, I even forgot who he played yesterday. doesn't really matter. Bublik, Mira, and Boisson, they were all on Philippe Chatrier together. So apparently Boisson and,

Torrey Hawkins (38:03.396)
public.

Torrey Hawkins (38:11.364)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (38:13.396)
center were hitting down the line. They're four on a court, right? This is like, we're at Augusta with trying to get a warmup court. But the cool thing was like, they're hitting and that's what made all the rounds. But apparently they used to, they were both at Piati together coming up, so they knew each other. And so when the outside courts were unusable and they all wanted to get some time before the matches, he reached out and like, hey, I see you're on the, you got the court, I jump in with you?

Torrey Hawkins (38:16.94)
Right. Old school, that's right. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (38:30.074)
Okay. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (38:41.945)
I'm jumping with you.

Alvin Owusu (38:42.984)
And it's like, that's the cool thing about tennis. Like we're all, like it doesn't matter what level you get to. We're, we all had to play in 12th at some point and we were all four in a court, sometimes six on a court at some point. and you're not that, you're never that far away from it. Never that far away from it.

Torrey Hawkins (38:45.305)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (38:51.267)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (38:54.649)
No doubt.

No, no, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not. And more importantly, you, isn't it cool how he's reaching out to her? You know what I'm saying? That's a neat thing about the game. It is still tennis. We have to warm up. You know what mean? Don't really care who it is. If I have my choice, but, and when I don't, hey, love to hit in with you, let me know. And that's what it is. So no, I agree with you. And that takes it back to the juniors, doesn't it? It takes it back.

Alvin Owusu (39:07.709)
Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (39:19.464)
Let me get an alley.

Alvin Owusu (39:25.414)
It does. It does.

Torrey Hawkins (39:27.193)
to where it's pure, you know what mean? Just a couple kids out there trying, not a couple of multimillionaires, know, trying to get a warmup in, you know what I mean? So it was a good day.

Alvin Owusu (39:35.173)
Right.

So yeah, so I'm excited about the kind of go back to the Musetti Alcara's match like you got to think at some point Musetti is gonna get one of these like he hasn't beaten Alcara's in quite some time. I don't think it's gonna be necessarily tomorrow three out of five. That's a lot of space. It's a lot of time to fill.

Torrey Hawkins (39:53.537)
Right. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of space and a whole lot of center that's going to only get more warm and his footwork and his timing is only getting cleaner. No offense to Masetti, but I feel like he might get outgunned. You asked the same question about Coco and Arena. And we were saying very, in my opinion, pretty, pretty clearly.

if the match goes past a certain point, right? You mentioned time, I mentioned length of rally. I don't necessarily see a scenario. I'm like Dr. Strange, know, when he goes through all the scenarios of humanity, to see there's one option, you know what mean? There's one option in which he can win this match and that's if center plays horrible. Sorry, sorry, If Carlos plays horrible. That's the only way I see this match going down because

Alvin Owusu (40:24.413)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (40:31.697)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (40:41.247)
Carlos, no, Carlos, Carlos, Mercedes playing Carlos, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (40:49.88)
let's face it, it will take that. And that's no slouch on, know, on same sense playing great tennis right now, playing probably the best in his life. He just is playing the best player in the world right now, arguably, and that's what's in contest is who is, but between Carlos and Yanuk, it's just gonna be a, he's just not, he's a level, in my opinion, he's a level below that very, very, very high level.

Alvin Owusu (40:58.389)
It's just, it's levels. There's levels.

Alvin Owusu (41:17.141)
Agreed agreed and like when we start thinking about like like you mentioned like the scenario like what would have to have happened if Musetti were to beat Carlos like obviously Carlos would have to play horribly right and for a long time for a long time for a long time that's why that's why I always caveat it with like this is not a two out of three set match this is a three out of five set match so like generally we're gonna we're gonna find some level of norm at some point in that uh in those five sets and

Torrey Hawkins (41:28.374)
Right. Four one. Thank you. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (41:44.269)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (41:45.989)
If that's the case, I don't see that working out well for Lorenzo. also, Carlos has a prototype of player that he will struggle with, and that is not Lorenzo Musetti. You're gonna have to go through him. And Lorenzo ain't going through anybody. He's gonna back up and do stuff, and no one's better at backing up and doing stuff than Carlos Alcaraz. Right. Yeah, he's like, let's back up, let's make this fun.

Torrey Hawkins (41:58.133)
Not Lorenzo. Yep.

Right.

Torrey Hawkins (42:08.567)
call us up for rest. He prefers to back up and do stuff, you know what mean? right, I mean, and I feel like that's, and if anything, I feel like he's in a lot of ways, Tommy Paul actually plays better coming forward, and that was almost, I know Tommy was hampered, but it almost seemed like it was even easier for him in that regard. Like he preferred the guy to come forward, you know what mean? So, and what won he?

Alvin Owusu (42:26.217)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (42:36.991)
wants to play heavy ball tennis on the clay. mean, it's just, it's gonna be a tough situation.

Alvin Owusu (42:38.579)
Right. mean, Lorenzo's one of, he's one of the best three, four, four, probably four. Obviously he's in the finals. I think we have the four best clay court players on the men's side in the semifinals. So I would say, yeah, know, Novak, Novak is not ranked in the top four because he don't play that. Like that's not where he is right now, but exactly. He's got four, I believe. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (42:49.339)
for sure. For sure. For sure.

Torrey Hawkins (43:00.929)
How many Frenchs has he won? Has he won four? Come on. So you can't, I think it's four. You can't, anytime a guy's won one, let alone four, you gotta put him up there at the top. We gotta talk for just two brief minutes. What's going on with my main man, Sasha Sverev? I have never been more disappointed in the collapse of.

Alvin Owusu (43:09.533)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (43:20.787)
Well...

Alvin Owusu (43:26.003)
You're disappointed, but you're not surprised.

Torrey Hawkins (43:28.349)
I'm not surprised and I'm disappointed. just was hoping that this one point and that was a point late in that fourth where I thought he got good and pissed off and he was just going to run the tables on him out of pure spite and anger. And he did about two or three games and then still doing obviously no like certain about the end. I was more pissed that he wasn't more pissed and just decided to just throw caution to the wind. If I see one more

Alvin Owusu (43:52.223)
Pink pi-

Torrey Hawkins (43:57.396)
rolled backhand where he leans over and gets it back and play like he's gonna wait him out. I just felt like he tactically played him so terrible. You know what I mean? Tactically. Just he...

Alvin Owusu (44:02.611)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (44:08.393)
He did what he does and that is good enough on average over time to be what he is but not enough to be any better. That's what it comes down to. And like when you're talking about how someone makes a career, he's probably got the right formula. He can do this for another 10 years. Yeah, why not? But he's not gonna win any Grand Slams, not like this, not like this.

Torrey Hawkins (44:11.594)
What he does. Yeah. And it's never been enough. Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (44:22.102)
That's it.

Torrey Hawkins (44:31.222)
No, he can 100%.

Alvin Owusu (44:38.239)
You know, I've heard lots of pundits say like, you know, he's just scared to change or whatever version is, you know, of their, what they're seeing, their opinions. But I feel like, you talked about good and pissed. Like there is nothing quick action about Sasha Zverev. everything is methodical. He doesn't have a fast twitch in his body. So like what you need.

Torrey Hawkins (45:00.736)
Bye, Chris.

Alvin Owusu (45:05.769)
what one needs to do to do things that are dynamic on a tennis court is a little bit of chaos. And he's just, he's not like that. He's just not like that. He's like, we're just gonna hit cross court backhands for 20 balls until, well, until,

Torrey Hawkins (45:11.571)
Yeah. buddy. Buddy.

Torrey Hawkins (45:25.087)
That was a bad experience back when he was 10. There must have been a coach that was, that had a shot collar on the juniors or something back in Germany slash Russia that was, if you miss before ball 20, I mean, there's, there's some deep seated PS, PSD, know, PTSD on some players that missed before ball 20. You know what I mean? I mean, you know what I'm saying? I mean, for all the rest of us mortals who missed by ball 10, I mean, he won't miss a ball. He will not miss a ball, you know.

Alvin Owusu (45:31.433)
Hahahaha

Alvin Owusu (45:44.765)
a nice problem to have

Torrey Hawkins (45:54.481)
Unfortunately, he won't go for one either. And I feel like in the matchup, mean, Novak's pretty conservative himself with a lot of his aggressive shots. He plays about as aggressively cautious as I've seen. His on the rise is calculated. His step up is behind you or to the open court and he follows it up. He doesn't take a lot of risks per se. His risks are, you know, he's taking a time risk and will follow it up. He's taking a drop shot.

and we'll follow it in and try to pass you. He's taking, he's serving volleys because you're rolling returns. He's not serving volleys because he wants to play aggressive. He's serving volleys because you're rolling returns. And that's what he's supposed to do. So I say it to say he's no, he's no Yannick Noah, know, serving volleys on clay. He's just smart about his decisions. But when you make Novak look like he's the, you know, like he's the one being the aggressor.

Alvin Owusu (46:42.773)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (46:53.055)
To me, that's, and he's, mind you, Novak's not short or not powerful, but to me, if I am, he's gotta be, what, nine years younger, give or take, and at least a few inches taller, maybe 10? Right.

Alvin Owusu (47:03.797)
Oh, by a good bit, by a good bit. Yeah, sees Novak's 38, Sasha's gotta be 27, 28, 28, yeah. Yeah, it's 10 years.

Torrey Hawkins (47:10.485)
27, 28. To my point, let's just say, let's say an even 10, right? He's 10 years younger. He's an inch or two taller, arguably as good of a serve, I would say. Can't say he didn't have a good backhand. I mean, so I just got one the best backhands on the men's tour. But what is he doing with it? Doesn't have a bad forehand. Not big by any means, but no facts for it. It's huge. And I just feel like when I say good and pissed, Alvin.

Good piss from a standpoint to realize I've done everything that I've done and it didn't work. I keep doing this. At least I'm going to do this. Heck, I'm losing anyway.

Alvin Owusu (47:47.414)
Right, right. You know, one of the most interesting stats, there's two related to the serve, but after Sasha broke Novak in the first service game of the match, right? Novak went on to hold 17 times in a row after that. Right, one. Two, Novak hit more drop shots than he hit second serves in the match.

Torrey Hawkins (47:59.989)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (48:04.533)
Yeah, I saw that.

Torrey Hawkins (48:11.285)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (48:12.373)
And he hit 30, he hit 32 or 36 drop shots, but he didn't hit 30 second serves. He served amazing. He broke him. He broke him. It was like your tennis number two in the world, whatever you are, three in the world, is just not good enough. Whatever you do is not good enough. that is a, forget the result of the match, I feel like there's going to be some.

Torrey Hawkins (48:25.193)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:40.955)
Irreparable damage done to Sausage Sverev like in his ability to recover from this

Torrey Hawkins (48:44.904)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (48:48.82)
recover from that. Yeah. I remember watching that. is a related, but obviously clearly a tangent. There was a old school all-star game when the late great Kobe Bryant put the clamps on LeBron James in a match. You probably remember the game I'm talking about. And LeBron not only shut him down and then outscored him toward the end of the game, but you could tell he was almost talking about it.

Alvin Owusu (49:01.909)
Sure. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (49:15.836)
If we played for real, I'd shut you down right now. You could almost tell the banter that was going back and forth between them. And then he did it. And then he did it. And I remember it being one of those games where Kobe was basically saying, you'll be the best player one day in this league. But right now, I'm still the best player in this league. And you're not as good as me. And I felt that was that moment the other day with Novak playing Sasha. I'm still the best player.

between the two of us. You'll be good. And you might win one if luck and happenstance happen to fall upon you at one point. Right. However, don't ever forget the day you played Novak Djokovic. And I feel like that's what we saw in that match the other day was Novak is playing for and really kind of playing

Alvin Owusu (49:54.611)
Australia case in point, you know played a set pulled out. Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (50:14.301)
for his own legacy and like, don't ever think that you beat me. You you won the match. You'll never beat me. And I feel like that's what happened. And I'll be honest, Alvin, I don't have a really way of refuting this point.

Alvin Owusu (50:29.269)
So draw me forward then, tomorrow's match, then the next two days. He's got center. Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (50:35.955)
He's playing himself 3.0. That's the problem. It'll be better if he played Carlos playing as well as he's playing MIT with the style. I feel Yanuk is Novak 3.0. I really do. I think he's just a bigger, he's a better, faster, more efficient version. That's what I see.

Alvin Owusu (50:46.364)
Yeah, so-

Alvin Owusu (50:56.353)
So I question, so I think on its face, when you look at them play tennis, look at them hit balls, you are looking at a souped up version of Novak, Making the court look real small, right? Strong off both wings, sliding into everything, doing all the stuff. Center has a bigger serve, right? Earlier, sooner, like he's younger, much younger obviously, but he's doing these Novak things at the age of 23, not.

Torrey Hawkins (51:03.859)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (51:25.589)
30, right, can dictate with the forehand, hit the piss out of the ball from anywhere, right? So the way they go about great returns, the way they go about doing it is different, but I have yet to see, and you can remind me if I'm wrong and I'm sure someone in the comments section will, I have yet to see Yannick Center win a match against one of the,

Torrey Hawkins (51:34.407)
Great returns, great commission. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (51:54.199)
good, good players where he really had to think his way through it. He's just beating up on everyone except Carlos Zoccaras. I feel like Novak is gonna present him with some challenges, especially on clay where we got all the time in the world where I think it's a little bit slower. He's gonna present Yannick with a set of problems that Yannick has not yet had to solve in real time, especially in a Grand Slam match.

Torrey Hawkins (52:10.748)
I'm so-

Torrey Hawkins (52:22.992)
I-I-I agree with you.

and then I'm gonna put in that three-letter word. But I feel like he, Yannick, is going to stretch the court out and make the court be a little bit wider, a little bit tougher to cover. There was a couple of big points where Sasha was moving the ball around pretty good. Novak doing his old classic splits, can opener slice, open stance backhand, but this time he's pushing off the court with his racket. He's not.

Alvin Owusu (52:48.905)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (52:55.63)
springing back up. He's getting to the next ball making it and unfortunately Sasha was missing it. He wasn't necessarily, again 38 years old Alvin, I mean I completely empathize. But I feel like in that same matchup once Yannick starts to see that he cannot get in and out of the corners like he used to, that it becomes physical, I'm not so sure that after a grueling first and second set

that he will not understand to just clamp down and do it again. You mentioned that about Madison, what she need to do against Coco. Yannick will do it over and over again. He will do it and put it on repeat over and over again. And that's what I don't like about this matchup. If there were somebody who was streaky, Novak gets the edge. Somebody who had a big serve, Novak has the edge. He has one of the best returns of all time. Somebody who likes to play a little trickery.

Alvin Owusu (53:37.738)
Yeah, the-

Torrey Hawkins (53:53.807)
I give the edge to Novak. You give me a player that that just needs momentum or needs pace or needs give me something they there might be a possible shink in the arm. I'd say give it to him. He has none. He doesn't mind pace and he breaks he creates his own. He moves phenomenally. He won't break down. He doesn't make early mistakes. He manages to serve quite well. He is what Novak is just younger better.

Alvin Owusu (54:09.269)
You.

Torrey Hawkins (54:23.543)
and he's also on a little bit of a wrench tour. I'm not sure you like the term, and I love your term, profile. I don't know if this is a profile that Novak has ever liked to play against, which is himself. He doesn't do well with that stuff. He always counters the weapon. And that's what I see.

Alvin Owusu (54:37.718)
Mmm.

Alvin Owusu (54:43.68)
So you said two words that I want to kind of really focus on here.

I forgot the first one. The second one was it, right?

Novak Because he has all this time in the world right we have we're talking five sets best out of five sets And we assume it will even if it goes three. It's gonna be a long one right? Whatever it is that Novak is going to ask Yannick to do As soon as Yannick proves he could do it Novak will just ask him to do something else Because no that Novak has the and he did it against Sasha. He has the ability to damn near shape-shift He's got all

Torrey Hawkins (55:03.899)
Yeah, I bet.

Torrey Hawkins (55:19.556)
Agreed.

Torrey Hawkins (55:25.999)
I agree.

Alvin Owusu (55:27.156)
The game styles. All the game styles. And if one's not working.

Torrey Hawkins (55:30.791)
100%. What was the guy at the end of Mortal Kombat, or Street Fighter, what was the guy at the end, Blanco, whatever it was named, the kind of like, it was like a creature more than it was a fighter. You know I'm talking about? You're right, he's all the fighters in one.

Alvin Owusu (55:43.401)
Yes. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (55:47.764)
Yeah, and right when you think you're solving one, it's like don't get comfortable. He's gonna change into the other one. You're ripping this, you've taken a step back and you're ripping this return down. Okay, cool, I'm serving and volleying. Cool, you're feeling really good about getting into these cross-court rallies. All right, I'm gonna go drop shot second ball. It's like we're gonna go down the line. I'm gonna start playing everything down the line. I'm gonna start looping. I'm gonna start coming in. He's going to do everything and he can do everything.

Torrey Hawkins (56:13.156)
Yup. And he can. He's the avatar. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (56:16.979)
Yes, and he has the mental ability to like, I liken him to, I've used this comparison before to LeBron James, but this one is a little bit different in that as players age, like when they start like at 18, whatever it is, their sport, right, at the highest level, they're still working towards their physical peak, right? And they don't, they add a slower rate, right?

Torrey Hawkins (56:21.402)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (56:45.845)
mental ability is also ramping up as well. I believe a player's prime is when they hit that physical peak before they hit the mental peak and then as the physical piece starts to come down, the mental peak comes up and they cross. That is a player's prime. Generally it happens, yes, exactly. And that usually happens around 27, 28, 29, right? And I use that for basketball and for tennis, right?

Torrey Hawkins (56:49.06)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure.

Torrey Hawkins (57:00.59)
Yep. There's your over 2 window.

Torrey Hawkins (57:08.496)
Sure, not quite 30. Yep, similar.

Alvin Owusu (57:11.797)
The crazy thing that these that the LeBron James and the Novak Djokovic is in the Tom Brady's they've been able to do is reduce the reduce the decline of the athletic ability. But you have to remember the mental ability does not drop off. Right. So like. So when you look at Novak and in in LeBron, like, yes, of course, they're in their late 30s, early 40s. Of course, there's been physical

Torrey Hawkins (57:20.538)
to extend that.

Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (57:27.02)
Right? The acuity, if anything, it gets stronger to compensate for its sad drop off.

Alvin Owusu (57:41.333)
decline, but the mental advantage they have is so much greater than everyone else that you can barely tell and you can't really expose it. Now, no that could have a soft issue, a soft hair issue or something like that. That could definitely happen. Like you run around for three hours and you're late 30s like stretching and running, stretching and running. That's a problem. Right, exactly. And we've seen it. We've seen it. Yeah. Yeah. We don't recover. don't.

Torrey Hawkins (57:50.126)
Yep. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (57:58.544)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (58:03.76)
Especially on the clay. Wrong footed one time, you know.

Alvin Owusu (58:11.2)
There are some things that all the yoga in the world can't help you with, but that mental aspect, think that is, know, he's going to, this might end up being one of the most challenging Grand Slam matches that Yannick Senna has ever played.

Torrey Hawkins (58:14.266)
Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (58:23.625)
I am hoping this is the Sabalenka Sviatnik match of those two where it will help push Yannick to that next level for him. And you know, we've always said to be the man, have to beat the man. You've got to beat you. Yannick has got to beat Novak in this moment to truly ascend to the top. You made a comment few that I had a

podcast before about it's about him beating center at top of his game. Winning French at this point might be might be consolation. Beating center in route is the goal. Right? He's beaten Carlos before so he that one he knows I don't know if he's beaten. Right? So it's one of those things where he understands and now that not beating him again wouldn't be a nice cherry on top of number 25 but I think he knows.

Alvin Owusu (58:58.4)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (59:07.51)
That's the goal.

Alvin Owusu (59:12.48)
Be in Australia.

Torrey Hawkins (59:22.988)
that his antithesis is one Yannick center. And I feel like he knows that. think Yannick knows that. The only thing I will say is that it seems like Yannick was trained on his playbook. He was trained on the very same model built on the base of Novak. And I got to tell you, Alvin, selflessly as a tennis fan, I am looking to see how the true rock, paper, scissors, you know what I mean?

comes at each other with various things. And it's going to be fun to watch that match. This to me is going to be one of the best. As gifted of a draw as Novak has had, this match to me will be one of the best matches on paper that we've seen in a long time. Dare I say back to you know, to the Agassi's Ampers, you know what mean? Matches from back in the day because of what they both bring out in each other.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:17.045)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:22.306)
They just have that kind of hidden tiger crouching dragon type. I can match whatever it is you do. We were trained off the same sensei and buddy. I know all the moves you know. Now let's see who can do it better.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:34.89)
There-

They are, you know, the souped up version of one another, I agree. And Sinner has been trained on the Novak blueprint, I agree. But there's one thing that you told me years ago, is that America's champion will never come from a three car garage.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:58.83)
Right

Alvin Owusu (01:00:59.636)
Novak Djokovic grew up with bullet shells in his wall. They are not the same. They are not the same. They are not the same. But I agree with you in that I'm saying they are, it always comes out with Novak. It always comes out. And I'm not saying that it's gonna be enough. I'm just saying that's the difference. It means everything to Novak.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:03.864)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You think the grit's gonna come out?

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:20.684)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:27.85)
That's the only reason he's still wheeling his self out here at age 38. It means this, beating down these young whippersnappers. Exactly, exactly. Like Willy Wonka, come out here with a cane and then then know, smash point and then, yeah. But yeah, it's gonna be a fun one. It's gonna be a fun one. We had the.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:30.958)
I'm

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:49.105)
In the words of Yoda, much to learn.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:53.13)
Much to learn, exactly. Let's wrap it up there. All we have left to do is sit back and enjoy some good tennis this weekend. We will get back together again at some point. Maybe, maybe we'll just let this thing play out. We'll see, I don't know. But.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:56.909)
That's her. Enjoy.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:07.565)
Greatness doesn't need any introduction or any summary, and I'm hoping that we'll run into.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:12.518)
Yeah, exactly. Cool. All right, well, let's put a pin in it there. Best of three, we're out.