Ep. 40: Carlos Alcaraz - Back To Back French Open Champion

Alvin Owusu (00:02.652)
to the best of three podcasts.

diashawk (00:06.83)
and the best final I have seen in a long time.

Alvin Owusu (00:09.586)
A long time, we might be talking, I don't wanna be hyperbolic here because this is, okay, it's level set, it's 9.30 p.m., right? It's 9.30 p.m. this match, men's final, Carlos Ocaraz defeats Yannick Center. Five sets, match breaker, 10-2 in the match tiebreaker, which does not tell the story now even a little bit. I really, was happy that we put some time between us and this review.

diashawk (00:13.486)
Woohoo!

Yeah.

diashawk (00:28.236)
born.

diashawk (00:39.841)
Yeah, you let it kind of let it marinate a little bit.

Alvin Owusu (00:40.262)
but I don't know that I'm any better. Like I'm I'm unwell, I'm different, I'm changed, I've seen things, but first and foremost, I'm Alvin, that's Tory. Tory, how are you doing right now?

diashawk (00:58.795)
I am better now, Alvin. I have to tell you.

There's been about five French opens that have completely blown me away. And I'm going back to when I was a kid, the 83 French is singed in my memory when Yankees came through and just blew the brakes off of everybody and an epic run to the final. And I don't think the French had won it since like Renee Lacoste, you know, like back in the day. There's a few others. This one is up there.

Alvin Owusu (01:15.121)
Yannick Noah.

diashawk (01:32.139)
This one might've just notched in at like three through five, putting out some classic matches and.

Alvin Owusu (01:37.714)
3-5 of French Open finals, not even like...

diashawk (01:41.823)
And going with the Guga era, which were some phenomenal French Open finals. I'm going there with, I mean, this is past the Chang, Lindell final. I this is past the, I'm to this one today. Wow. There has not been better ball striking, better countering, better.

back to back push pull, know, momentum swings. Alvin, you heard right here. I thought it was over at five, three and the fifth. In the fifth, I mean, only then up until then you didn't know. I mean, it was too gay.

Alvin Owusu (02:19.026)
and the fifth.

Alvin Owusu (02:25.19)
Like Carlos up a break 5-3. Yannick would have been serving. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

diashawk (02:29.644)
I thought it was a just a done deal.

And then Yannick stormed back. Albuquerque right here. He was lucky to hold at 5'6 down. That was an absolute... I got no fingernails left, Alvin. I I was completely... I bit off all my nails at that point. I'm like, this is tight. This is dicey. And then he ran away with the next seven, eight points of the breaker. I'm like, I think he thought maybe like me, was a seven point breaker, not a match tie break.

because he was, I mean, he he steamrolled. I don't know where to start. I'm all over the place right now. I'm just gonna say, you want to go step by step? Cause that's the only way to describe it.

Alvin Owusu (03:05.946)
Let's, okay, let's, let's go.

Alvin Owusu (03:12.592)
I mean, yeah, I'm tennis drunk right now. Like I'm drunk on tennis right now. I watched every ball of that match from coin toss to Carlos on the carpet at the end. was, I lived that match. It was, definitely did. was a full on moment. Like, I mean, I'll kind of give it the, I got the midday cleared.

diashawk (03:17.824)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

diashawk (03:30.72)
Yeah, yeah, you probably aged.

Alvin Owusu (03:41.394)
The kids watched the first set with me and then they

diashawk (03:41.878)
Yeah.

Yeah. Eileen even watched the match for me, Alvin, and she was mad at me for calling her out the other day. I'll shout out to Eileen. She was right next to me and it was an enjoyable experience, I have to say. Let me say, if I may, let me go back a step because I want to make a comment from the other day post-Sabalinka golf. And I feel like in some of the comments after I've had a day to reflect on it,

Alvin Owusu (03:51.18)
hahahahah

Alvin Owusu (04:02.023)
Yeah, go back a step.

diashawk (04:15.008)
I to make sure I make one point very clear. I agree that it was an ugly final in the sense that the errors were high. It wasn't as quality of tennis as I may have liked to have seen, especially in the second set. But make no mistake, it was ugly because Coco Golf returned the darn ball so strong that

Alvin Owusu (04:17.206)
Mmm, okay.

diashawk (04:40.722)
And I want to make sure that I make that point very clear that it wasn't Coco's fault more importantly it was Coco's doing that made it ugly and I want to make sure full credit goes to Coco for countering the way she did. Did I think that Arena had some chances in the first? I do. Do I think that it was as clean as the Ega Swiatek Semi? No. Do I feel that that had a hundred percent to do with Coco Golf? I 100 % do.

And I just want to make sure I make that point clear because I was not the Sviatnatec Sabalinka match mirrored a lot of this match today is why I want to make the segue. But the countering of Coco was the difference maker in that match and make no mistake as much as I love watching him and I'm a big fan of Rena Sabalinka. I'm just as big a fan of Coco golf. It was Coco who countered and made it uncomfortable for Arena.

And while she made some uncharacteristic errors, fair, she had help. And that help was in the form of one Coco golf making that point in today's match coming back in today's match. The tennis was high level and say for about four or five games after the medical with the eye with the clan, the eye situation when literally had his eye off the ball. That was the only time where the match got a little dicey.

Alvin Owusu (06:02.128)
Yeah, that was ill-timed. That sucked.

Torrey Hawkins (06:12.939)
I just felt like it needed to be set. This was five hours of tennis of high, high quality. And somebody forgot to tell Yannick that he doesn't play well after three and a half hours. And somebody forgot to tell Carlos that he was down two sets to none. He never comes back after being down two sets to none. So go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (06:28.499)
Right, so I wanna make sure that I clear that, because I I realized, I guess yesterday that I misquoted the actual time. It wasn't 3.30, it was 3.50, 3.50, so let's call it a four hour. He had never won a match that had gone past four hours. I'll go to that point in the match, and then we can go back to the beginning, because at the four hour mark, Yannick was serving five all.

Torrey Hawkins (06:40.991)
Yeah. Right.

Alvin Owusu (06:57.563)
in the fourth set.

Torrey Hawkins (06:59.691)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (07:00.625)
Right? So, and his legs started to get to him a little bit.

Torrey Hawkins (07:06.173)
They did. Carlos was gut checking him. He made more drop shots. He did more deep, you know, deep rip to dropper. what he, I don't think he connected on a great drop shot combo in the first two sets out of it.

Alvin Owusu (07:18.875)
Not until, not until like fourth, fourth, fifth, yeah, until he, did he actually get loose.

Torrey Hawkins (07:23.243)
Right. It was, was, it was, it was, I don't think he did much in the third and he literally had to play knockdown, drag out tennis in the third and the fourth, I think he realized Yannick was just a steps, was just a little gassed and he hit, I don't know, nine, that I counted, droppers and beautiful droppers at that. Just to gut check him, I don't think Yannick touched the first two or three when he finally hit a dropper. had a horrible dropper too in early middle, middle way through the second was horrible.

But to your point, I felt that this match was largely in control by Yannick Center and Carlos played a phenomenal third set. mean, I'm stating the obvious, I mean, when I say phenomenal, mean, Alvin, he reached back and grabbed momentum. mean, he literally snatched victory from a jaws of defeat there. I mean, it was going down. It was going down strong. mean...

Alvin Owusu (08:01.396)
Well, sure, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (08:19.539)
So we're gonna, I guess everyone has made the point, everyone will make the point. Carlos serving three, five, love 40, right? And you kinda walk through that point, in the fourth set, you kinda walk through that point and you go.

Torrey Hawkins (08:27.23)
Mm. Mm.

Alvin Owusu (08:36.691)
That was actually just a good service exhibition at that point. He got himself out of it, right? Once we got to four, five, or should say five, four, and Yannick is serving for the set, I think that's when the match turned into something spectacular. Yeah, because Yannick didn't have a match point. After that, he wasn't looking at one. Carlos, I think, broke him after 40, 15.

Torrey Hawkins (08:43.914)
Sure. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (08:56.263)
Yep. Yep.

Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (09:04.827)
nine out of 10 points won there and then just kind of took it on into the tiebreaker. But let's go back to the beginning of the match. Match starts, first point was, they were both on it. They were both on it, yeah. Ready to go.

Torrey Hawkins (09:17.466)
Epic. Game was what? 10, 12 minutes, give or take? Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (09:21.043)
Exactly, 12 minute first game, Carlos had three break point chances in that game. And so when Carlos has three break point chances in a game, first game, at that point I go, okay, he's here. He's locked in. Again, multiple break point chances in the next game that he served. then he held. Yeah, they had that there, and then he finally got the break to go up through two, and then Yannick.

boomerang break right back three all. And I don't intend to, I honestly started taking notes during this match and then after the first set I was like, I just gotta stop. I got nothing, yeah this.

Torrey Hawkins (09:51.741)
Yep, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (09:58.878)
And then the tennis got through it. You just, yeah, just watch it and enjoy it. I agree with you. You know what it really showed me, Alvin, and I think as we step back from it, right, you know, the, you know, what's the old expression? The sum was greater than the parts. You know what mean? This match was better than any stat can give you. There's the stats, there's the tactics, right?

Alvin Owusu (10:16.028)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (10:20.1)
Right. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (10:26.098)
And then there was just the magic of two players gutting it out, never wanting to concede. That's what I saw in this match that the clay brings out of two very worthy, let's face it, champions. they're both grandstand champions and they're both in there. One or two in the world for a reason. I saw a Carlos Alcaraz that for all intents and purposes should have lost this match. The way that he had stubbed his toe in the second, really had lost the ability.

as all you mentioned the break points but Yannick didn't give an inch. I Yannick was not playing bad tennis. Then he went through a span of maybe four or five games. Alvin he shanked probably four or five forehands. He missed some balls uncharacteristically poorly. He went down pretty bad in the second and then even still Alvin came back to get it to make it close in the second set. Right? So I say that to

Alvin Owusu (11:20.786)
It was down 3-0, came back, swung it all the way back.

Torrey Hawkins (11:24.561)
I say, I want to say God back to once back to four all of them. So I say it to say, you don't do that down a set, you and you play horrible. And finally, will yourself back to a guy who's not giving you anything. Right. There was a weird stat that was something kind of it went something like this in the middle of first set, maybe middle of second set, where it was like, I want to say it was weird.

Alvin Owusu (11:26.31)
Yeah, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (11:51.241)
Yannick was serving somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 % give or take, but his first serve points one was lower than his third percentage. And then on the flip side, want to say Carlos had like, I don't know, he claimed it was low, but it was actually like 57%, like almost six percent. But his first points, his first serve points one were really high. It was like, it was almost an altar.

It was a flip of what the other one was. He wasn't making enough of it and he had a bunch of loose points. Carlos Alcaraz has the ability to counter Yannick Schott like nobody else in the world.

Alvin Owusu (12:21.936)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (12:32.722)
So let's get into that part right there because I think you can throw all the stats out and I think there's gonna be like, yeah, the natural inclination is like, okay, well what does Yannick Center need to do to overcome Carlos Zacheros? I think that's dumb. That match could have been a coin toss, right? That thing was on the rails until literally until we got to the tiebreaker in the, right, yeah. So I don't think there's anything macro to take away from like,

Torrey Hawkins (12:38.062)
Right. Because they went both ways. Let's face it.

Torrey Hawkins (12:50.375)
Yeah. my god. Literally many different times. You know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (13:02.372)
either player has to make a change. mean, you could say Carlos needs to do a little better job of being ready for it from the start. Maybe be a little more efficient. Right, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (13:10.984)
But but didn't that kind of have a place he's a riverboat a bit I mean to have him come in locked in he's not yet and to be honest That's what I love about him. He can be a little loose. You know he is a little he's he's a he's a he's kind of a big kid He's out there freewheeling and feeling it out. He's talking about he said he was pissed off. He was emotions talk to his box. You know I never

Alvin Owusu (13:21.777)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (13:31.154)
But never negative, but never negative. He was never, he never gave off the feeling of like, I don't have it today, I can't win this match, even when he was down, two sets to none, down or break, right? He always seemed like he was there, but yeah, mean, just his match against Musetti, loses the first set, right? Did he lose the first set against Ben as well? Or did he beat Ben in his straights? Yeah, maybe he won the breaker. I don't really remember, it doesn't matter. But you even go back to last year.

Torrey Hawkins (13:39.88)
Right.

Two sets.

Torrey Hawkins (13:50.982)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (13:54.725)
I think so. Break or I'll fuck.

Torrey Hawkins (13:59.579)
Yeah, I'll look it up.

Alvin Owusu (14:01.063)
Like got down two sets to one against Zverev in the final. This happens to him. Hell, even Novak tagged him 6-0 in the first set of the One World and Vinyl two years ago. But he even said as much in one of his press conferences, someone was do you worry about giving up sets to players that you should maybe be in hand? He's like, no, I don't care. I don't care, it's fine. Not a worry. Yannick is the machine. And Carlos is like, I'll meet you there. I'll get there how I get there.

Torrey Hawkins (14:08.186)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (14:21.498)
Right, right, right.

Alvin Owusu (14:30.451)
and then we can take care of it. you won the first other burger. all right. Oh, they're close enough.

Torrey Hawkins (14:32.473)
He won first set in the breaker against against Ben 10-8 by the way and then he lost the third 6-4 that's what it was so

Alvin Owusu (14:40.229)
Okay, so the things that, from a tactical standpoint, this is actually from a tactical standpoint, the one thing I can discern when I watch these two play is that everything that Yannick can do to other players, no one can do it back to him, per se. Carlos makes him, Carlos uniquely, yeah, therefore, Carlos is uniquely positioned.

Torrey Hawkins (14:43.718)
It was close.

Torrey Hawkins (14:51.654)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (15:00.463)
Right. Day four.

Alvin Owusu (15:06.211)
or skilled enough to make Yannick uncomfortable. He can do things. He can hit the ball hard enough and vary the level of ball height. Like that's the, yes, sometimes with both. Yeah. So like that's the, that's like the, know, Yannick likes to go big, dominate the middle of the court and just lean on people. He's like a frigging boa constrictor, right? But Carlos,

Torrey Hawkins (15:10.086)
All

Torrey Hawkins (15:17.618)
All height and width. he, right.

Torrey Hawkins (15:33.04)
Yep. Yep. Right.

Alvin Owusu (15:36.113)
has him hitting these hitch kick backhands and it's like he doesn't have to hit them against anyone else.

Torrey Hawkins (15:39.227)
Yeah!

Torrey Hawkins (15:42.982)
He hit it. He did hit a few against Novak because Novak tried the same kind of deal. But on the hitch kick, what Carlos finally did in the fourth, he well, a little bit of the third, he took him deep wide on the hitch kick, knowing that his momentum was, as I'm leaning into the camera, was leaning so far forward that he was now behind going backwards for the forehand. And I thought that was a tactic I hadn't seen before. I also thought that he went so far wide on the serve.

Alvin Owusu (15:44.664)
Okay, Novak's not a real person, but...

Alvin Owusu (15:58.3)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (16:03.953)
Yeah, yeah

Torrey Hawkins (16:12.358)
too wide, I thought that that hurt his first serve percentage, because he knew that was his honey hole over there. But that wasn't the case in the first two. had that serve, Yannick had that serve down, like, okay, buddy, I practiced that one, I'm good. But he started going back behind him in the rallies off the good cross, he went back wide cross, one rally, he went back wide on three times, Alvin, went back wide on three times, it broke his ankles, in that forehand corner with that little hard angle, that little buggy hard angle he hits. And I'm gonna tell you, it's as if, and we mentioned this the other day,

Alvin Owusu (16:35.825)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (16:43.238)
Tennis is the better for this matchup because each player is going to continue to push the other player up a notch. They countered each other's tactics Alvin no fewer than five times in that match. Either one of them taking the play. Yannick came to net more in this match and I've seen him come forward ever. Carlos who's usually coming forward came in quite a bit but the dropper wasn't working early so that was one of his go-to plays. It did in fact come back around and worked in a lot in late in the third and obviously a lot in the fourth.

Alvin Owusu (16:45.391)
god, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (17:12.996)
But even then, felt like I knew at some point Yannick's legs would go. I just felt like at some point he's gonna get gassed and he's just gonna miss more serves and Carlos is gonna start hitting balls. Carlos started pulling the backhand deuce inside in, as you call it, the skinny cross up the line. And guess what? Yannick countered with the inside out backhand, one of my favorite returns on the deuce, the Andy Murray special. He took that ball wide on Carlos.

Alvin Owusu (17:22.515)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (17:41.828)
The one ball Carlos wasn't expecting was the going wide to his forehand off the deuce court return on his kick. So these guys continue to match each other so well. It was so much a, a matchup thing that I mean, I think we'll be talking about this match or watching, you know, I'm to say watching the, the, the meat of this, getting tidbits from this match for a long time. And this was perhaps the greatest display of, of ball striking of tactics.

Alvin Owusu (17:46.183)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (18:11.621)
Continuing to be matched up against one another and five hours tennis out of it. mean it was some pretty stellar Pretty stellar back and forth. Don't you you words fail to fully to fully put this into terms of how great and epic it was It was a true instant classic and I hate instant classics. I feel we get too much credit too early We're not giving too much credit to early on this one. This was a classic

Alvin Owusu (18:17.171)
Bro. Bro.

Alvin Owusu (18:25.062)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:36.729)
Yeah, but this one deserves it. Yeah, I almost feel like, I was almost thinking maybe we should just wait until tomorrow morning because I honestly don't have a ton of really descriptive words. think the best way to view this match is to kind of think about it through the lens of where does this match actually sit in the pantheon of great matches. I will be full disclosure, so I do not work.

Torrey Hawkins (18:41.476)
period with the T.

Torrey Hawkins (19:00.069)
in the great matches.

Alvin Owusu (19:06.535)
We are not media people, right? We are tennis practitioners, we are tennis fans, right? We do this, this, purists, we are purists, yeah. And this podcast is a great place to just speak on the things that we feel about tennis. And I will say, as a fan, I came up as a Fed guy. I was a Pete guy and then a Fed guy and I, when Fed retired, I was like, you know what? I had lived and died.

Torrey Hawkins (19:09.219)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (19:14.67)
Tennis purists, tennis enthusiasts.

Torrey Hawkins (19:28.302)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (19:35.196)
many a lives watching Fed in finals, like cardiac arrest. I didn't enjoy it towards the back end. And when he finally retired, I was like, okay, I'm not gonna fan anymore. Like I'm done, it's not good for me. I found myself like watching tennis more freely. And then here comes Carlos Alcaraz and I'm like, what is this thing? And I caught him in Rio 2019.

Torrey Hawkins (19:37.058)
Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (19:50.176)
Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (20:05.063)
I think it was first time I saw him and I was like, this kid is, this is different. So full disclosure, I am a Carlos Alcaraz fan. You hear it in the way that I talk about him. It's a real thing, I will disclosure statement, right? But this match felt like full vindication for that nonsense 2019 Wimbledon Djokovic over Fed when Fed had double match point. Like now I feel.

Torrey Hawkins (20:19.368)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (20:29.473)
Wow Wow Wow

Alvin Owusu (20:31.365)
Me as a tennis fan, I feel like I've been made whole now. Yes, yes. The heavens stole one from me then and they gave me one back today.

Torrey Hawkins (20:43.787)
Wow, that's big that's deep I I Have been in a big three slump, you know It feels like this is confessional it you know at some you know, whatever You know a a meeting or whatever, you know, hi, you know, my name is Tory I Tory, know and I am suffering from the big three loss, you know what I mean and I have

Alvin Owusu (20:45.531)
Yeah, yeah, that's how I feel.

Alvin Owusu (21:06.45)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (21:10.104)
due to my age and what have you, I remember early, early days, the Arthur Ashe days. I remember the early Mack and Borg days. I remember Veylon, they're coming on the scene and stealing everybody's thunder. Really kind of bringing in this weird level of consistent on the rise, quite frankly, boring tennis. Loved it when Pete came on the scene, because we finally had a big server back in the mix. Loved it when Becker.

stormed his two back to back 18 and 19 or 17, 18, however old he was, back to back Wimby's. was like, it was exciting. Agassi, denim shorts, checkerboard, know, highlighter. mean, highlighter, a biker shorts underneath. I mean, I, I, I, I spanned the gamut, but that's when Pete and Andre brought the rivalry home to me. At that point, I finally understood and you looked forward to, and quite frankly,

Alvin Owusu (22:00.841)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:07.543)
They hung tennis up to this level of greatness and the guys that pushed them, who were also pretty darn good, made the path there seem arduous. It just so happened at the same time, one Chicago Bulls was going through the same exact ascendancy through the basketball, finally dispatching the Lakers and the Celtics and the Detroit Pistons and such. And so we're in this mode where sports is starting to get

Alvin Owusu (22:14.152)
The rafters, the kafelnikovs, that, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:25.491)
yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:37.217)
very, very good and deep. It was no small feat for the Bulls to get past the Cavs, you know, with Mark Price and my main man Larry Nair, Ron Harper, Who were just little solid teams, right? Nor was it that easy, you know, for, you know, how many chances did

Alvin Owusu (22:47.56)
Larry Nance, Craig Elo, Brad Doherty, Yeah, pre-bull.

Torrey Hawkins (23:05.411)
how many finals did the in the semis did the Lakers play play the jazz, you know what mean? And some epic six and seven series, you know, with with Carl Malone and Stockton. So I say it to say it was starting to get really good out of it. And I felt like the rivalry started to define sports a little bit because they kept pushing each other. Teams were trading to get players that could get them through the playoffs against that team. Tennis was.

happening with that, but at a tennis, at a one-on-one level, players were getting a skill or two or a coach or a team to match that player on that surface. And you didn't, you weren't good enough until you had that level and all that to say. Then of course, oh three happens and fed knocks off Pete, the reigning grass court champion and becomes the grass court icon himself. And I think it was an 02, I he won it in 04.

Alvin Owusu (24:00.799)
That might have been that hell that might have been he won it in a four or three or

Torrey Hawkins (24:03.906)
I think was 02. I think he won it in 03, but I know in 04 he put tennis on lockdown. I got to look it up. But one of those years, I remember I was working with Behali at the time and I asked Behali a random question. Shout out to Brian if you're watching this. You remember this conversation? I asked him this random question. Who surprised you or who impressed you? And he says to me, and Brian's probably got the best backhand that I've ever seen on the other side of my net. Obviously it was NCAA finalist.

And at that point he was on his way to being top 50 in the world. And he says, there's this guy, there's this guy from Swiss, this guy's federal. This guy is going to be great. He hits the ball as clean as anybody, but he doesn't slice the back and he rips over everything. He just hits the ball cleaner and bigger than anybody I've ever seen. And the way he moves, he's on grass. He says, it was ridiculous. He's like, the guy's like a ballerina on the court. And I'm like, huh.

Roger Federer you say. Federer, I'm messing his name up. goes, He's like, yeah. He says, watch out for this guy. Everybody's talking about him. He's impressing the other pros. You just watch this guy like, whoa, he's on a different level. He says it to me in 02 album. This is before he's done anything. I want to say the next year he beat Pete or maybe that year he beat Pete, whatever it was.

Alvin Owusu (25:06.109)
Yeah

Alvin Owusu (25:24.404)
So he beat Pete in 01, loses in the first round in 02, and then wins it 03 for the first time, five times in a row, yeah. He did, yeah, he did, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (25:27.938)
0-1, was that a line? There you go. 0-3, there it is, there it is. And I think it won, June with me, if I'm not mistaken, back in 98 or 97, something like that, right? So I did some research on the guy. So now I'm watching, looking for this guy. Sure enough, now with the world, now knows who Roger is. But this is going back, and it might have been 0-1 when Brian said this to me. Long story. So I'm now going to see that rivalry now being replaced. And of course, the doll spent, it took.

Let's be honest, Alvin, it took about six, seven years for the Nadal-Fed rivalry to really catch up. It was almost a certain, you knew Nadal had them on clay, but Fed was good everywhere else, right? Until about 07, 08, then of course Novak. I'm saying all this to tell you, this has been 30 years in the making that we have had some phenomenal rivalries. And in the last four or five years, because of the Big Three, we have missed.

some other rivalries because they've been so dominant there hasn't been any hasn't been isn't team and many of the only two guys that have been better one well obviously you've got to keep in mind you know rovinka and murray you can't this i'm not mentioning those guys are those guys are phenomenal

Alvin Owusu (26:39.86)
I think the question you're asking is like, any, like, Team Medi were the only two players born in the 90s to win a Grand Slam? Let's put it that way. Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (26:52.545)
So they're 90s, a whole decade, right? The whole decade. So my point being, right, you're putting Murray and Rarenka in late 80s, right?

Alvin Owusu (26:54.556)
the whole decade of people born in the 1990s.

Alvin Owusu (27:01.3)
They're born in their 80s, babies, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (27:04.577)
Hence my point. So you're talking about a whole decade demolished. So now we're in the 2000s, right? And that's no slight to the guys in 90s. These guys are good players. It's just that's how good, that's how good those guys were. And now, as you say, you're tennis drunk. We were all a little tennis drunk from that whole 20 years. And now these two have come in and shown us, by the way.

Alvin Owusu (27:11.668)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (27:33.152)
If you haven't watched tennis in a while, you might want to tune in next time. We got a new brand of tennis going on that you might just, if you're a true tennis fan, you might just want to tune in. I, Alvin, a, I'm excited for what I'm seeing going forward because this is like the latest installment. So we can go back.

Alvin Owusu (27:36.242)
Yeah, it's-

Alvin Owusu (27:44.978)
No, no, no, go back. Nadi?

Alvin Owusu (27:51.793)
Not even a true tennis fan. When Carlos Ocaarez wins the US Open in 2022, forget he beats Center in the, I him in the quarters, he beats Sitzipass in the round of 16, beats Center in the quarters, I think I've got that year right, and then beats Francis and then wins the tournament, right? Like that match against Center, five hours, 15 minutes, sliding around, they're both just.

getting after it and people are not in tennis fans are like, yo, who's this Alcaraz guy? He's like not even, he's bringing, he's one of those rare entities that brings people to tennis. He brings people to tennis. Like at some point today I had to put my phone away. Like I'm like, I can't keep taking text messages. I am like, I'm in this match. I can't talk to you people. I'm busy right now because Carlos Alcaraz gets people off the streets paying attention to tennis.

Torrey Hawkins (28:26.311)
Right. Yep. Right. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (28:42.456)
Right,

Alvin Owusu (28:50.418)
The fact that he has a foil. Like I remember when Fed and Nadal kind of like when they both faded and Novak was the one like standing around by himself like he's just gonna, he's gonna rack up. He's gonna rack up Grand Slams. There's no one to stop him. And it almost didn't seem right. It's like no, no one should go unopposed.

Torrey Hawkins (29:03.478)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (29:16.806)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. mean, had the open run in the beginning. Nadal thwarted him, got in there, and then Djokovic got in there, and then all three, and then Fed out, Nadal fades, Djokovic standing by himself, and it's like, you can't, the.

Torrey Hawkins (29:26.493)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (29:38.551)
that you thought for the foreseeable next five years, it was just going to get 35 of them. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (29:40.647)
Right, like tennis karma doesn't work that way. Like there needs to be balance in our universe. I mean, bringing it back to Carlos, even Carlos said like, I'm not gonna keep beating him. I'm gonna have to get better. I'm gonna have to make improvements, because he will too. like, I mean, that's five in a row right now, but like we were almost at, I mean, we were right there. We were right there. Yeah, Houdini, Carlos Houdini Alcares.

Torrey Hawkins (30:04.831)
Several different times. Yeah, 100%. Thank me. This is, and this will be kind of an off the wall question.

Alvin Owusu (30:14.46)
Yeah, we're at an off the wall space. got nothing but I'm hungover now. I'm tennis hungover.

Torrey Hawkins (30:16.947)
Yep, yep. What other match made you feel like this in recent memory?

Alvin Owusu (30:25.217)
recent memory.

Torrey Hawkins (30:27.264)
Because I'm having trouble thinking of one of the big three ten years

Alvin Owusu (30:29.538)
no, I'll say recently, thankfully this year's Women's Australian Open Final, Madison versus Arena was, I cried at end of that one. That one moved me. Exciting, was fantastic, that was a perfect final. It was a perfect final. Prior to that.

Torrey Hawkins (30:42.416)
Okay. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (30:56.776)
Final?

Torrey Hawkins (30:58.845)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (30:59.284)
I 2017 Roger against the doll Australian Open.

Torrey Hawkins (31:06.302)
Right, did did that when he came back and beat him in the fifth? yeah that was that. I have in recent memory I said that was the last one that I could think of.

Alvin Owusu (31:08.316)
Yep. I also cried in that one.

Alvin Owusu (31:15.124)
2019 2019 Wimbledon when when fed was up 40 15 match double match point against Novak that one that one was cool

Torrey Hawkins (31:24.178)
Yeah, that hurt though. That one, that one I'm still, I that's what got scarms on that one on me. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (31:28.532)
Yeah, that was a tough one. That was a tough one. But yeah, they're spotty. All three of those matches I think included, oh, 20, there was an Australian Open where the doll came back from down, I think two sets of love to beat Medi. That might have been 2019 Australian Open. Maybe 2020, I don't remember which one that was. So there's a few, right? But.

Torrey Hawkins (31:50.351)
Okay.

I think the reason I asked the question and you'll see where I'm going with this. It's pretty cool that a match this recent pushes some of your favorite old school five set knockdown drag outs out of the way to make room for it. I can remember some great matches and great games and great great game sevens and basketballs and great

game sevens and world series, you know, and so on and so on. And you're like, man, I was there when such and such and such happened and what have you. And to watch this match really unfold and quite frankly, with all of the cardiac moments that it had, you know, the dips, the first set, the whole eye situation, he went south for a little bit, on as someone said, walk about for about four or five games and all of that. When you, just when you thought,

Alvin Owusu (32:47.09)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (32:53.309)
You knew who had momentum. It flipped, right? Just when you thought center was going to take this match in straights, you were in for a rude awakening. Just when you thought Alcaraz had him down, center came back to the best team as he's played in the whole tournament. I mean, it was, and it kept going and at seven Oh, I was a little worried like, Oh, this has happened before.

Alvin Owusu (33:09.48)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (33:16.712)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm like, like, I'm like, match, match, match breakers are so long. They're so long.

Torrey Hawkins (33:23.389)
I'm like, wait, is this a 10 point? Oh, and then he wins the next one. I'm like, oh God. And then I'm like, no. I can't take anymore. You know what mean? And so I was thankful that he's, he, my heart was thankful that he finished it out. It was 10,

Alvin Owusu (33:38.261)
I mean, was, when I watch matches like this, or when I think about what I want as a sports fan, actually, let me give you another comparison. 2016 NBA Finals, game seven, Cavs versus Warriors. The LeBron chase down block, the Kyrie step back three, that one felt like this one. But the quality wasn't as good. I think the thing that's gonna go down in history with this match is that the quality,

Torrey Hawkins (33:48.881)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (33:55.868)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (34:07.924)
It had a little bit of a shaky start, once we got, like just that both players were facing so many break points early, neither one was serving well.

Torrey Hawkins (34:08.184)
Right.

Thank you.

Torrey Hawkins (34:19.549)
Yeah, but they're both returning well. And what I would say is, mind you, missed a few firsts and misspired on the points here. But Alvin, first game, that first point was solid. The first game took 12 minutes. Neither person was given an inch. And while they weren't, it's first game, Alvin. Most times, know, in slams of old, you know, that's an ace, a service winner.

Alvin Owusu (34:24.466)
Right, I guess that's the nuanced part of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (34:33.95)
First point, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (34:47.164)
you know, a couple of step ups and before you know it, it's routine. You're changing ends before the commercial break, you know what I mean? And they're trying to show stats and show last year's highlights, you know what I mean? This one, you were glued, you didn't, if you didn't have everything ready to go by the first point, you had to just settle in. You missed that. You might have to get a, I had to go get my beer at the end of the first. When that darn eye thing, I finally got to get something to I was like, oh, this is my chance.

Alvin Owusu (35:15.156)
I missed lunch today. I didn't eat lunch today. It didn't happen

Torrey Hawkins (35:16.997)
You know, my God, it was that back and forth and that contested for that long. And so I hear you on it wasn't as sharp per se, but it wasn't for lack of effort and lack of tug of war on the other side. It was simply that the other person wasn't converting as much. And then of course, that delay, it hurt Al Kharas. You know, obviously probably.

Alvin Owusu (35:41.608)
Yeah, same.

Torrey Hawkins (35:42.877)
And who knows, some may have been decided to lose that 4-5 game. That may have been why I had to take it. all that to say, it was pretty good quality all the way through. have not seen, save for those three four games in a second, was, and the last game of the first, there was not many bad points. Let me see, many, oh God, that's what, I would say, I would say third through.

Alvin Owusu (36:01.759)
That fourth, fifth set, like I don't, the quality was insane.

Torrey Hawkins (36:10.14)
fifth. mean for me just you knew Al Kharaz was going to come back at some point and I have to be two sets down he had to come back in the third. But that third set Alvin was it was contested man. mean you there was still a chance for Yannick to win that third. I mean in a breaker that was a that was a very very tough match. And it even at that point he finally won that and then he didn't fade. He didn't fade in the fourth. I mean he

Alvin Owusu (36:37.16)
He didn't, well, he faded, mean, just at the, like, it was the beginning of the fifth. The beginning of the fifth.

Torrey Hawkins (36:45.53)
Right. I was going say, the fourth, he gassed him up with the droppers. And I thought early in the fifth, he finally showed a little bit of physical deterioration. You know what I mean?

Alvin Owusu (36:48.99)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (36:55.782)
Yeah, and it was at the it was at the point where

Alvin Owusu (37:02.824)
First game, gas coming off the fourth set, so first game of the fifth set, lull in the match, quick break. That was the kind of kicker and that let Carlos get up. Or was it the second game that he broke him? I don't remember. Whatever, Carlos got up that early break. And that was enough to just keep himself in the lead.

Torrey Hawkins (37:25.135)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (37:31.526)
on the scoreboard in the lead with a little bit of room to relax a little bit and play a little freely because similar to his match against Musetti in the first set, Carlos spent a lot of time serving second in this match, which you're playing against someone who's serving so well, it puts a lot of pressure on you to hold serve all the time. And Carlos is not a big server, right? He doesn't crank up the aces or anything. I think they were kind of neck and neck on aces there.

Torrey Hawkins (37:47.215)
Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (37:51.764)
To do it all the time, right?

Alvin Owusu (38:01.461)
but that's for someone who doesn't always dial in, dial in, plays a little bit more, a little looser. That's tough, that's tough. So I thought in the beginning of this match, it'd have been nice for him to get one of those early breaks, give himself a little bit of space, but then as soon as he got it, right, exactly, that would have been nice, that would have been nice. But yeah, getting that early break in the fifth, it was like, I remember Andy Roddick once saying like,

Torrey Hawkins (38:06.586)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (38:11.064)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (38:16.311)
Right. The first game to your earlier point would have been nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (38:29.392)
men on the ATP tour expect to hold roughly 80 % of the time, right? That's four out of five-ish service games. And so I was thinking, all right, he got that break early, he's not just gonna walk this out. Like he's not gonna, he's not Pete, right? He's not like, I'm taking my break and you're done kind of situation. I'm like, this is gonna get nasty somewhere.

Torrey Hawkins (38:45.272)
Right. Right. He doesn't possess the serve accuracy or MPH to, or game style, let's be honest, you know, to, to go for that. He's not a gunslinger like that, but he's just gonna go flat down the T twice. Kecks the kecks the, I don't know whatever that service is, not to chalk, but whatever that white is of the, of the French open lines.

Alvin Owusu (38:55.539)
right.

Torrey Hawkins (39:14.479)
He's not going to catch that twice in a row back to back and be staring down the barrel of 30 love, you know, after two serves. That's just not how his game is built. And it's not, and he's not that level of server. Neither was Nadal, neither was, it was Djokovic, you know, to be honest with you, you know, only Pete was. Roger could dial up an ace when he needed one. But again, that's the big server mentality. And it's also why they don't play long plays because there's so much better. I, you know, I attest to that game style. So.

Alvin Owusu (39:36.628)
Exactly, exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (39:42.838)
I think what was so impressive to me was the countering of each other's counter, you know, that you kept seeing and you went lying at your own peril, you know what mean? At your own risk because you may have gotten the ball back behind you. You may have gotten the ball, you may have got it completely ricocheted back cross court, but yet if you didn't go lying, you were screwed. You know what I mean? So it was one of those, was, you didn't know who had the tactical advantage most of the time. It was just.

God, I've been just some good tennis man. And I wanted to just make that point that this was, it was probably the best X's and O's we've seen. Both players had to come forward. Both players had to go forward. Both players, you can't say so-and-so didn't play well. They both played well. You know what I mean? You can't say if so-and-so was dinged up, they were both healthy. You can't say, you know, it was that one situation, nothing. It was evenly called. It was evenly played.

Alvin Owusu (40:31.444)
That was very well.

Torrey Hawkins (40:42.157)
The conditions were pretty good. Maybe breezy, lot breezy yesterday, don't get me wrong. But it was almost ideal. Roof was open. You can't, there was nothing but the tennis to the side. And the only thing I'm envious of is those people that are the front row seat, you know, to be able to watch it there. And there's many a match, where many a match, many a basketball game, many a football game that I am happy to watch it from the comfort of my home, you know. Right.

Alvin Owusu (40:46.172)
Yeah

Alvin Owusu (40:55.868)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (41:07.38)
Absolutely, it's the best vantage point.

Torrey Hawkins (41:10.745)
And that max there, I would have been like, you know what? That seat there was worth every cent paid. Because you got front row at, you know, shout out to Spike, fellow, you being courtside, they were in for a treat today. And whoever was lucky enough to be courtside today saw an absolute classic. And you're the luckier to have been there. Oh my God.

Alvin Owusu (41:22.215)
Hehehehe

Alvin Owusu (41:35.145)
Well, they were a part of it. Like they made it. made, they made, everyone was a part of it. And like that was the part that I was envious of. Like to be there is not necessarily, it's not more comfortable, right? My couch is more comfortable. The ability to walk to the bathroom whenever I want to and grab a snack. Yeah, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that. But to be a part of...

Torrey Hawkins (41:40.696)
Woo.

Right.

Torrey Hawkins (41:49.804)
Right. That's right. I told you about my five hour match. Your butt's feeling it. Your stomach's feeling it. I mean, you're like, man, can I get a cold beer up in here and a sandwich.

Alvin Owusu (42:05.99)
Yeah, but to be a part of it, like everyone there is forever intertwined and that match will live in their memories for as long as they may watch tennis. Yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome for tennis. It was awesome for us. You think about Grand Slam finals past the Australian Open final was a bit of a...

Torrey Hawkins (42:12.782)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (42:16.302)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (42:30.388)
on the mid side, Vera versus Center. The US Open final was even worse. Vera versus Fritz. Hell, even the Wimbledon final, like Carlos beat Novak in straights, right? French Open final last year was, right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (42:44.611)
It didn't get exciting to the third. It kind of, you know, it went, was it straight? Yeah. But Novak was up a bit in the third, right? And then, and then Carlos Stormback and, and, beat him was maybe a break in the third maybe, but no, you're right. And you could tell Novak was a little dinged up. Like that, that match, you're absolutely right. And Alvin, I got to say, when these kinds of matches happen, it re,

Alvin Owusu (42:49.32)
It was in straights, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (42:57.704)
think it was record and third.

Alvin Owusu (43:01.758)
Sure, yeah, I wouldn't like.

Torrey Hawkins (43:11.001)
vitalizes your passion. The possibility of what's possible could just exponentially grows. And then I feel like the rest of the tour is left to kind of fill in the gaps in between. The match was such an outlier on quality per ball, per game, per set, obviously, in the final that the rest of the league

The rest of the ATP tour needs to, well, A, they will, because they're all tennis fans like we are. They're gonna be like, dude, you gotta be kidding me. You gotta be kidding me. Did you see that? And everybody's gonna come out. I'm excited for Wimbledon because everybody's gonna come out banging. They're gonna be like, dude, we gotta step up. We gotta step up. You know what

Alvin Owusu (43:49.46)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (43:58.165)
You know what, don't think the way that the other players talk about Carlos and specifically how they talk about about center right now, they don't feel like they're in the same stratosphere. They don't feel like they actually are playing the same sport that these two are playing. think it's, Zverev is a little like, he has enough like irrational confidence to say he feels like he belongs there, but then like the results will show that he does not.

Torrey Hawkins (44:17.28)
Yeah, it might be right there.

Alvin Owusu (44:28.164)
And everyone else thinks he does not as either. Novak does, but I mean, we saw what happened two days ago. Novak brought it and he got no sets. So I think maybe it's one of the younger ones who are just, they don't know any better. And I'm looking at the Arthur Fies and I'm looking at the Men's Six if he gets his fitness, once he gets his fitness together, he will, I know he will, he's young. The Yalfonsecas, like those guys.

Torrey Hawkins (44:34.192)
He's Yep. Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (44:53.879)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think we are six months to 18 months from having a complete changing of the guard? Like in other words, do you know, and this is completely hypothetical and a bit of a tangent. Six months from now, right?

Alvin Owusu (44:57.886)
who are like, I wanna be in one of those matches with one of these guys.

Alvin Owusu (45:14.771)
Yeah, let's go there.

Yeah, end of the year.

Torrey Hawkins (45:18.741)
These two need to go on the tear they're going on to, right? And they could, let's just face it. They could be one and two in the final for the next four slams. Let's just, I'm going to, I'm going to postulate that because I think that's a very real possibility. They're on a rocket ship of tennis right now. They're just taking the level to another level. And what I meant by the other guys getting, getting, having film, film the gap is just that their level is going to have to raise to even stay in the same level of play. These guys got better today by pushing.

the boundaries of what's possible. So with that said, the free through eight have got work to do, which means the nine through 16 have got double the work to do just to not get blitzkrieg by these guys from what they've been through what they've seen now. So I'll go back to my six months from now, six months from now, maybe sooner. Let's just say for speculation, Novak retires. Let's just say,

six months from now.

Torrey Hawkins (46:21.706)
Varif calls it a day. Doesn't feel like game is going to I'll put it out there. It may be a year, six months, but I'm just saying he's clearly going to be a non entity of the finals. If these two go and I'm going to give him two years, but let's just say six months now he's out of the top five. Let's just say, right. Let's just say, and again, no shade on Musetti, but let's just say he with

Alvin Owusu (46:23.405)
okay. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (46:32.923)
Non-threat to winter major. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:41.405)
That's highly possible, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (46:51.446)
withdraws from another or does it make another semi? You've got a vacuum. Who feels Taylor Fritz has still not been back 100 % since Miami? He was the other one that's there. Caspar Roode is great on clay. It's now officially clay court season is over. You see him get that. Holger has shown that he has flashes of brilliance, but not really much else. You've got Ben can be.

Alvin Owusu (47:10.439)
Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (47:21.003)
can be been, which is both great on a given day and still has yet to truly assert himself as a top four player, although I think he's going to continue to get better. I'm not so sure he's got number three in the world. Game consistency on all surfaces and right and the full on and I can counter the best. His best is phenomenal. His countering the best is very average. So who are the next?

Alvin Owusu (47:36.369)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (47:50.304)
three through six ish three through seven if you will that you see there's my there's my long-winded six month

Alvin Owusu (47:55.197)
and you're.

I wanna make sure that I'm answering the question you're actually getting at. You're not asking who is gonna be ranked three through, yeah. That is, yeah, that's.

Torrey Hawkins (48:05.142)
100 % because because numerically possible is was your whole was your whole diatribe on on Lorenzo and I had no problem Lorenzo being Mathematically four in the six in the world. I have a problem with his career Situation mind you to same as I got you, but I mean who can threaten to beat one of these two guys that's

Alvin Owusu (48:28.69)
Yeah, I, yeah, I get you, I get you. So I'll even take out the six months in a row. Let's just say it's pre-Australian Open and we're talking about looking at our 2026. Like, are we excited to see? Who's coming? Who has a chance? And I'll start to draw, you know, I love to do a prototype, a profile here. What, there are two things, probably three things that a player would need to contend.

Torrey Hawkins (48:35.573)
Yay.

Alvin Owusu (48:57.554)
with these guys.

there's a certain amount of power that needs to, that you need, you need to be able to hit the ball. Like you need to be able to hit that skinny cross court backhand down the line for a winner from outside the double saddle. That's, that is a, yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a thing. Two, gotta be able to move. And Federer once said it best, the best movers are the best tennis players, right? That is, that was, if you didn't believe it when he said it, look at what we watched today, right? Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (49:11.028)
Right. Routinely.

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (49:31.004)
That's a great, I'll let you hear me.

Alvin Owusu (49:31.22)
Okay. Right. Don't make me raise my voice. And the third one is a little bit of it's it's that's the real je ne sais quoi. It's the, don't play by these rules. These tennis rules don't matter to me. I'm going to do whatever I want. And like, you could see the thing that Carlos does that Yannick doesn't get a chance to see against anyone else is that he'll just try whatever. It's like we're hitting the word across court rally.

Torrey Hawkins (49:34.9)
Well...

Torrey Hawkins (49:42.484)
potential.

Torrey Hawkins (49:56.35)
Bye.

Alvin Owusu (50:00.468)
I'm in position to hit another cross-grip ball. I'm not going to. I'm going down line. Because we're not staying here. We're doing this now.

Torrey Hawkins (50:05.259)
Right. You're you're you don't limit what I do. I limit what I do, what I want.

Alvin Owusu (50:09.627)
Right, yes, I do what I want. I do what want, yeah. And so I think when you look at those three things, like a little bit of pop, a lot of pop, a lot of movement, a healthy dose of crazy, right? I think you start to look at everyone, no one above the age of 22, do I consider? No, no, no, no, no. I am, it is,

Torrey Hawkins (50:24.477)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (50:30.204)
Mmm. Wow. Woo! That's a big statement and I don't agree with you either.

Alvin Owusu (50:35.899)
It's early days, but I think it's, I think it's, I'm looking dead at Fonseca. Like he's got the three things. Now, well, whether or not he gets there,

Torrey Hawkins (50:41.864)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (50:45.525)
Right. Still in his incubator a little bit, but you're absolutely right. Or someone like him. Like you say, Men's Six is not far off. He doesn't move well, but he serves bigger. To your point, it's going to be a morph of something.

Alvin Owusu (50:50.97)
Yeah, or someone like him,

Mnstik doesn't move as well, but his serve is bigger. His serve is bigger. He has a unique.

Alvin Owusu (51:07.079)
You gotta be able to hurt, you gotta be able to move, and you gotta be a little bit, a little bit crazy.

Torrey Hawkins (51:12.27)
I was going through the high performance coaching thing with Nick Saviano and shout out to Nick if you're watching, listening. We were talking about this and I thought I hit on something. I'm no genius, but it would just make common sense to me. We were talking about developing a player and he had pulled a handful of us aside and we were talking about development in general.

And he went on his, who he had worked with and developed and obviously he was a very accomplished coach. And he started talking about how the player that you're working with now will be a finished product in 10 years. And you need to look forward 10 years and form a game that will be relevant in 10. In other words, if you coach him like it is now.

And five years when that player's halfway through, that game's already been solved, dispatched, done, recycled. You need to have today's player with tomorrow's modifications slash weapons and upgrades, right? I had always looked at it that way. And so when I hear, and he was going to room, what would the next player have? What do you think? But by name, just kind of talking shop and it's very ethereal and very, you know, very amoebas, right?

And I said, the next top player, this is whatever I'm trying to think of it. It might've been 99 might've been around that time. 99 give or take. I said, the next top player is going to be one or two players. It's going to be Pete with the backhand or it's going to be Andre with the bigger serve. Right. It was just common sense to me. The player was going to be that clean off.

have a serve like Pete because that game was obviously very very you know very viable the guy just needed to have a backhand or Andre with a better serve you already had phenomenal turns hit the ball clean everywhere and could do anything else with the ball but the serve just wasn't as big so if I had Andre with a serve

Alvin Owusu (53:18.227)
Sure. It's like 510. Like, I mean, what do you expect from it?

Torrey Hawkins (53:21.875)
You see what saying? Right. He was going to need a little bigger, a little bigger, little better pop off the serve and do everything else as well as Andre did. We have ended up seeing, I didn't see the lefty, you know, the new improved Marcelo Rios, you know, and no one could have seen that because that player wasn't there at the time, right? And as good as most, and I was there when Marcelo came through, he wasn't there long enough.

Alvin Owusu (53:28.595)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (53:36.913)
Right, was, the nodal of things was, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (53:47.149)
maybe like more like a mooster maybe. No, nothing, no.

Torrey Hawkins (53:51.558)
Mooster with a better backhand. 100 % right. You get the idea. And even Mooster was a 20 or so player in the world that got to number one with a phenomenal clay court run that you almost thought he was a red herring. You didn't think that. That was a clay court specialist on steroids, quote unquote, on a run. You didn't necessarily see that that level was going to be phenomenal as it was between two slams later with Ruff in the Dall. That said,

I was coaching that style then. What you're talking about now to me, and I got to be honest as a coach Alvin, both of these guys return pretty well. They don't serve terrible, but you're going to have to have a big serve is the only thing I can think this player can have to add. This is the only thing both these two guys miss. But how many times is a big server?

Alvin Owusu (54:32.295)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (54:37.98)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (54:47.218)
How many times are they limited by that big serve because they can't get in rallies long enough to get that rally tough without it. They're going to almost grow late in life, get to be. And Pesci Paracard is like me when I was coming up. He will never be great at long rallies because for too long he's been able to pop the 140, no problem. I was serving a 130 back in the day. He's 140. He's obviously, he's a lot younger. I say it to say what makes him great is what hurts him long-term.

Alvin Owusu (54:51.464)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (55:08.531)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (55:17.264)
He's never had to grind, nor should he have to. He's 6'8".

Alvin Owusu (55:21.118)
So that's the, I think that's the, when you start looking at that specific thing, you start to look at center and you go, man, he's damn near perfect. He's damn near perfect except for the je ne sais quoi. Like the little sprinkle of, like when they got into the latter ends of that fourth set, beginning of the fifth set, you could see Carlos starting to smile, he looked light, he's like, you haven't been here before.

Torrey Hawkins (55:35.174)
Boom.

Torrey Hawkins (55:48.272)
Yep. Right. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (55:50.835)
Like when the chips are down, we're in this place. Because every time center wins a grand slam, he's just dog walking people, right? Like this, he's routineing chumps more or less. Sorry, they're not chumps. Let me shut up. I am no ATP player. Yeah, guys who are below the line of potentially contending with him and Carlos, yeah. So when you look at Carlos, could say,

Torrey Hawkins (55:57.633)
Right. Front runner.

Torrey Hawkins (56:06.064)
He makes them look like chumps. Unfortunately for them. For him, that's a lot of people.

Alvin Owusu (56:19.966)
Carlos is six foot tall, right? So he doesn't have that serve. Yannick does. Yannick has turned his serve into legit weapon. He double faulted zero double faults today in the final, two in the tournament. that's, what are we talking about? Like that's broken tennis. That's not real. I think center's biggest issue is Carlos is crazy.

Torrey Hawkins (56:26.117)
Yeah, six more. Yeah, one more, seven, six.

Torrey Hawkins (56:31.749)
Yeah. Wow.

Torrey Hawkins (56:37.393)
Right.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (56:47.378)
Like he does not subscribe to tennis the way that everyone else does, right? it's like they're, he is a, is a classically trained, highly tuned boxer, right? And then Carlos is a, no, we're gonna street fight. We're not doing what you wanna do. It's not gonna be pretty. We're gonna, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (56:49.873)
He doesn't surprise. Thank you. I agree with that.

Torrey Hawkins (57:00.685)
human, you know what mean?

Torrey Hawkins (57:09.393)
Right. Grab the sand, throw it your face. You know what mean? I got a shank in my ankle, in my ankle boot. You know what mean? 100%. Let's do this. Close contact. We ain't doing all these moves and stuff. No, no, Let me get you on the ground.

Alvin Owusu (57:21.652)
Right, and that's why I mentioned Fonseca. Fonseca, I mean, I think that's an obvious, it's probably the obvious choice right now, but like he is pseudo, he's center size with Carlos is a little bit of crazy. And I think that's the one that's like, that's the one that's gonna butt in. I think that's the one that's gonna like start to, and it's not six months, it's probably not even 18 months, but maybe.

Torrey Hawkins (57:47.951)
Right. It may be a year or two. He's got incubator. But to your point, it'll be a player like his profile. And I will tell you, am, and it's funny you mentioned that because I think you're exactly right. There are no players currently that offer the profile that can beat these two on their best day. There is only, there is only these two. I am waiting on the new Nadal, whoever he

Alvin Owusu (57:49.522)
Maybe US Open next year. It could be US Open next year. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (58:17.763)
maybe there has to be a wild card, a new lefty that is Nadal with a better serve. Because just like I didn't see Nadal coming, I don't want to leave out the Nadal of things. Both these players are right handed. And so what that does is...

Alvin Owusu (58:18.665)
The wild card.

Alvin Owusu (58:34.558)
Yeah, who is the best left- I guess Ben is left-handed, but-

Torrey Hawkins (58:38.545)
Ben and Jack are the two lefties that could do it, but I don't know if the two of them have, but Jack is a right-hander like Nadal, so his serves are always going be little bit limited. I mean a true Ibnisivic type of lefty that can bring it and still have a backhand and still have a forehand that can be all day. No shade on Jack who's doing great right now. Same with Ben. Ben pushed, Ben took a set off Carlos and played some good tennis. At some point, to your point, he wasn't threatened.

Alvin Owusu (58:39.944)
That is it. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (58:48.766)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I what you're saying.

Torrey Hawkins (59:08.42)
He was a good match and he won the third, which I thought was even more important and a long first, 10-8 in the breaker. So a seven point breaker, which is certainly not chicken treat. I just feel like I would love for it to be Ben. Ben's going to have to really craft his profile to be that level of elite. And Ben will enjoy a nice career regardless if he does or not. It's just if he's trying to push to the upper echelons of top four in the world tennis.

He's got to really do, he's got to go back and retool some things. If, if that's possible at this point in time and, and maybe, you know, he, will have to be on a certain surface, right? Like a Wimby, you know, where his serve could just, you know, there was an old guy in South Africa, a South African guy named Kevin Curran way back in the day who used to records at aces and Kevin Curran, I want to say one tournament, he had something stupid like 44 or 48 aces in the tournament.

So you're looking at, you know, let's face it, Alvin, for guy to get 10 aces in a match, 12 aces, that's a lot. 44. You know what mean? The only person who maybe broke that record was Dr. Evo. So my point is Ben's going to have to serve balls for five matches straight. that fresh, fresh legs and, and, you know, and be able to do the distance just to go to breakers against a guy like a Carlos or a Yorker. To be competitive.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:28.188)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:31.727)
And honestly, Alvin, only on the grass does he have a chance to go deep with those guys simply because they're not seeing his serve, right? So that's why I would give him the edge over a Jack Draper, even though Jack's English, I would give because of his height, his serve, and he could just take the racket out of your hand. But unfortunately, for the same reason, I don't see him ever beating them on clay. You know what I mean? And it was an achievement to take a set.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:58.398)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:00.622)
You know, as loose as Carlos can be, right? So I don't know if he'd won that set against, I guess, yeah. I don't, I really don't.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:01.811)
When you-

Alvin Owusu (01:01:06.492)
I think you mentioned, that's nice segue into what do we see in the next coming weeks as we transition from red clay. I feel like everyone, if you're watching this, if you're watching this on, you won't watch it on Sunday night. It'll be Monday at some point. But just think about the red clay that you just saw for the last six, seven weeks and boom, now it's green. Like we're freshly cut grass quartz.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:32.141)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:34.133)
As we segue into the grass court, the short grass court season, I'm now thinking of players like Jakub Mincek because he can, as you mentioned, you know, Ben, he can rapidly get through service games. And the thing that, that, that kind of got, that tripped him up here on, you know, on the clay is just, it's kind of his, you know, his conditioning. He's not, he's not ready to, he's not the best mover. He's not a bad mover. He's just.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:01.391)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure if he's been a I got to go back and look at this junior record and see if he's had been very proficient at the grass and had a huge result at Junior Wembee. My point, Alvin, it's going to be a play with that profile.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:03.314)
He's young and he's not there yet, but on grass, maybe, and obviously the grass is slower now than it used to be, but could threaten, maybe. It takes people a while to understand the grass, if you will.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:28.727)
It's going to be the medall with the bigger serve. It's going to be, it's going to be the Alcárez type who can bomb a down the tee and hit it out wide. There's always a player that's a weird matchup. You know, for Pete Sampras, it was a guy like Wayne Ferreira, right? For Andre, it was a guy like who always seemed to have to be able to get, you know,

Alvin Owusu (01:02:30.546)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:55.598)
Besides an older guy like a Kofelnikov and a younger guy like a who always seemed to just kind of outlast him and did some things he wasn't always used to. Who took him out a few times, Agsie out a few times and you know on some of these tough matches. The clay quarters always seemed to you know roll enough balls back and play. You know what I mean? Your Kostas, your know your Emilio Sanchez's you know what I mean?

Alvin Owusu (01:03:23.41)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:25.022)
obviously your know your Google's but Google's a little younger than Andre who who was who was my man that had the was that was money the my mate that clean one-hander little little man bun on the back won the french they're doing twice i know he won it once so i'm thinking of some of the guys like this that that were just

Alvin Owusu (01:03:44.462)
I can see him right now too. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:52.142)
hard matchups for some of these guys that they were better off the ground than you thought. They were better off, they were better off court game. Didn't serve huge, but were big, but could return. They could handle Andre's pace pretty well. Bannon is a perfect one I'm thinking of, Because now Bannon was always that, if now Bannon had a serve, now Bannon would have won a slam. You know what At that point in time, because his backhand was all day and he won the two players. I felt like Marty Fish

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:24.343)
or in the 2000s, early 2010s version. He was that guy with the good back, can't get returned, always in the mix because of what he could do. So I'm just looking at that kind of player going into Wimby. I don't know if we have that player right now outside of who we talked about. don't know if, I don't know if Macedi is gonna get that far without having a big serve. He's got nice game. don't know. We'll see.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:49.608)
Well, that's the weird thing there is the Mercedes issue and this is kind of the issue with a lot of these guys. He's not gonna have to work that hard to get there. It's gonna be center up top, Alcaraz down on bottom, he throw Jack in there. Who's ranked three in the world right now? Zverev, okay, so now you look at one of them defaults or you hope you land in the right quarter and boom, you too can be in the semifinals of a Grand Slam, right? There's just not enough.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:12.059)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:18.329)
Yeah. I think that the bigger servers to there's enough bigger servers to go the distance to push a guy like Moussa. That's my, that's my thinking. I think the clay hurts those same players on the profile as a result because the serve doesn't mean as much. see Impesci Paracard getting, I see Giovanni getting, getting good, going two rounds deeper. He got the second round in this tournament. I see fees going deeper. and he went to what round of 16, you know,

Alvin Owusu (01:05:19.026)
like thickness there.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:37.64)
Well, okay.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:45.95)
Well, if he recovers, might be out through Wimbledon. Don't forget that Musetti beat Mpeshi Paracard at Wimbledon last year. Which is just like...

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:49.154)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:54.395)
I'm going to chalk that one up to youthfulness on Perrick on Giovanni's case. However, I only say it to say, and this is no shade on Lorenzo. It's just to say that it's clear on Clay, he's a hands down favorite. I could see him beating a 19 ish Giovanni. I don't know if Giovanni drops his bombs like he can. I see a player like a Shelton going deeper.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:59.835)
Sure, sure.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:22.874)
I see a men's hit going deeper. see a, any of the guys that have a bigger serve of note going a little deeper. It's the guys that kind of grind a little bit that to me are always suspect in the first week when the, when the grass is still fresh and the grass is still a little slick. And the second week, ironically, it's when it gets a little slower, they got to be able to do something more than serve. And I think that's where you start getting into the, now you're at base camp at Mount Everest. Can you

Can you grind? You know what I mean? You've got here off your weapons, but now can you grind when that ball comes back? And that's, always the Wimbledon's deal. You know what mean? You can get a little lucky early, but you gotta be good to make it past this point.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:50.248)
Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:02.354)
Yeah, as we start to get towards the end of this, I don't really have a lot left. I'm exhausted from watching tennis today. I am emotionally exhausted. It's been a long few weeks. We're gonna get back to some normalcy here in the upcoming weeks. I wanna say, first, like, man, how to finish up this in the beginning, we're making some progress on the YouTube side. So shout out to all of our day ones. We've crossed.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:10.133)
Emotionally exhausted probably is my

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:17.39)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:27.802)
Yes, sir.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:30.248)
We've crossed the old 200 subscribers threshold, which is, know, I feel like six months from now we're going to look back and laugh about that day we were pumped about 200 subs. but I feel like, I feel like that we, the people have found us. We are, we are reaching the people.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:36.032)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:42.084)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:48.212)
I would love to hear from each of the 200. I could care less about some of the numbers. I would love to hear from some of the 200. I would love to, you know, I feel like a lot of this is, as you often say, it's two guys at a bar talking tennis, deep tennis, I might add, but talking tennis. And I would love to have this bar stretch 200 plus around, you know, in the bar and throw some things out there.

Like our two champions today, it only gets better when you get tested and you get some other things thrown at you. And I would love to see, you and I have done that with each other in these, these ample episodes, you know, where afterwards, it'll be a day later, I'll be thinking about something and I'll be like, that dog Alvin, yeah, he, you know, and I find myself using the whole, you have to have a certain profile and I'm like, Alvin did, yeah. And, but that's,

Alvin Owusu (01:08:36.405)
Yeah

Alvin Owusu (01:08:43.925)
I got him

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:47.45)
But that's also what's good because I have, it's been proven in my mind that I didn't have anything better to counter or to displace. And therefore, I got to make my own. It's fit. It fit in a way I couldn't explain. It fit in a way better than I could explain. Therefore, I now, it's in my vernacular. So I say that to say, the 200 of you that are out there, shout out to you. Drop us a line.

Tell us what you're enjoying. us what you're, what you, you know, throw out something that you don't, that you may not agree with. Love to hear that too. Because that's how the iron sharpens the iron a little bit to me. And I look forward to expanding.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:29.205)
I will shout one out for our listeners. They have been quite active in the comments section, active debate amongst each other, which has been fantastic because tennis can be cool and it's hard to find, you might not know people in your neighborhood who talk tennis and you might only have some of your buddies that you talk to every once in a while, but this is like a group chat where we can all exchange some thoughts, exchange some ideas. We don't know each other, but.

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:36.542)
Awesome. Okay. Okay. That's awesome.

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:45.175)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:57.48)
It's fantastic. T.H., I bought my US Open tickets last week. I forgot to tell you about that. I did tell you, okay. Yeah, and I was talking to another tennis podcaster from Grounds Pass, and we're kind going back and forth in the comments, and it's wild. The US Open is wild in that you could pay, tickets are not cheap, right? I bought,

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:03.927)
Yeah, you told me you told me the one that came. yeah

Alvin Owusu (01:10:26.965)
tickets for the Thursday, first Thursday, day session, and then the following Friday, day and night session. So I'm in Louis all day on Thursday, come back again Louis on Friday, and then Arthur Ashe at night, Friday night. Friday night on Ashe, lower bowl, I had to sell the kidney for those tickets. But it's two matches. Like why am I paying double for two matches in worst seats?

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:39.704)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:43.064)
Nice yeah, always Yeah That's me that's and it's yeah

Alvin Owusu (01:10:56.905)
than I am for four matches in better seats. Like it's, I paid it, I did it, it's a vibe. It's a vibe, right? It's a vibe, I mean I'd much rather go to Charleston, I'll be honest with you. I'd much rather be at Charleston. But we're gonna be live in the spot. But I'd rather be at Charleston. Anyways, okay, so I think for us, this has been fun. Right, exactly, exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:13.942)
You

You're talking like the tennis consumer again. And I keep telling you, I will not make another five set jab, Alvin. And I had this.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:29.297)
Oh God, it's a talking about her talking about our freezing cold take Jesus. And right at that match finished, I was like, oh man, I'm gonna hear about this again. I know I'm gonna hear about this again. God, almost got out of here. Almost got out of here without it. Yeah, so I think for the next few weeks, so we got three weeks before women's starts, I think we deserve a little time off. We'll from some of our friends and then we'll...

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:38.007)
You knew I had one last.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:50.017)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:54.647)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:56.566)
we'll get ourselves back together and talk a little grass-court tennis and talk about some other things. We do talk about other things. If you guys wanna go back, listen to some of our earlier episodes, non Grand Slam or ATP WTA related. We talk about other stuff, tennis related. But right now, the tour has us.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:00.727)
I'll look.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:07.542)
Right. I get bored talking about protest. I hate to say it because it's so above us and it's so much, God, I want to say it in a weird but a nice way. It's so irrelevant to us in some ways too. It goes on without us and yet we're there watching it and being pulled along. And then a match, a tournament like this, but especially a match like this.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:32.681)
Fantastic tournament.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:34.251)
Thumbs in, it just draws us back in and puts us all together in the same ellipse. And I guess got to feel like, that's what I love about pro tennis is that every once in a while, a match moves you and it makes you really appreciate the game once again. And for that moment in time, we are all transfixed and moved and you're just like, wow, I just witnessed something special. You know what I mean? Shout out to those two players and obviously their teams and their camps for

Giving us a really good gift today And I'll be honest that's that's really what sports can do and I'm a huge fan of sport for that reason and look forward to seeing the next installment and Alvin this has been fun. I look forward to talking more regular Everyday tennis, you know, I look forward to getting back to talking about more of the X's and O's at a certain level those guys have Transcended some of the X's and O's

Alvin Owusu (01:13:29.289)
Yeah, we have no business breaking down their tennis all that much.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:32.631)
Oh my God, mean, it'll take me a week just to figure it out. Just to really understand where did it break down. You know what mean? You'll have to get down slow mo video and start looking at dissecting the court with a bunch of old school dark fish tools and split second digital frame by frame. That's the only way to really understand where a half a second was stolen or gained here and there. It was too high level for the human eye to catch up to. I mean, it was.

It was off the charts. So anyway, that said, it's been enjoyable. This term has been enjoyable. And hats off to the French for taking care of this. There was some really shady all night match this and women that. I get all that. There was some weird weather and all that. The roof should be closed. Okay, whatever. But man, did they not dial, did the players of the term not dial up something special? So the gauntlet's been dropped. Wimby, gotta come through strong now. You gotta come through pretty strong.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:03.295)
Yeah, but

Alvin Owusu (01:14:22.173)
Yeah, we got a good one.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:31.122)
And hats off for Warner TNT, whoever the parent company is to have taken the risk on that. And very, very good tennis. And you know what? Shout out to John McEnroe for calling a great match. I give him a lot of credit. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:43.283)
He did, I didn't hear a ton of him, which I think is the, that's probably the sign of calling a great match. He loved the tennis beat for itself.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:51.06)
He let the tennis speak for itself. He never took a side. He referenced himself when he needed to, because he is John McEnroe. At the same time, as he always does, he's always very, very humble in some things. And Alvin, I got to say, whether the guy, Brian Anderson, I guess the guy's name was, whatever, but John was a very good commentator.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:16.095)
Yeah, yeah, got no notes for that one. think we owe, we are due some rest. Everyone's due some rest. Bless you. Let's, as I would say, drop a pin in it there. I'm still Alvin, that's still Tory. Best of three, French Open, we're out.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:19.776)
Yep.