Ep. 49: Wimbledon Finals Preview

Torrey (00:00.047)
I'm gonna let you wax poetic on your boy Taylor Fritz because I like to hear this.

Alvin Owusu (00:11.313)
another edition of the best of three podcasts and I feel like you guys are getting a lot of these additions because It's week two of a grand slam. We're serving these we're serving these pods hot and fresh. tori How are you sir?

Torrey (00:21.228)
Yeah. Alvin, I got to tell you, my belly's full. My mind is full. I just wolfed down some Chick-fil-A and exactly. And Alvin, I will say to you that I saw some pretty good tennis today. I want you to kick it off, but wow. I mean, it's all I can say. You kick it off. I'll.

Alvin Owusu (00:31.017)
This podcast brought to you by Chick-fil-A. did the same thing.

Torrey (00:51.094)
I'll bet second.

Alvin Owusu (00:53.289)
All good, you I think because this is, we just finished the men's semi-finals today. So the women's finals are tomorrow morning, 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. So let's start there in case, you know, because the internet. Yeah, let's start there, let's start there. So we've got Amanda Anasubova versus Iga Ciatec. Final of Wimbledon. Pretty, that's a pretty tasty matchup. One, two, shocked.

Torrey (01:07.707)
It'll happen first. Yeah.

Torrey (01:19.479)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:22.271)
they never played before. That is, they have never played on the WTA tour before. They played in juniors, I think, once or something like that, or a few times in juniors, but never played on the pro tour, which is kind of interesting because, well, it makes sense, right? Amanda hit her, kind of hit her peak and then went away. And then, part, yeah, took a beat and then kind of played a sporadic.

Torrey (01:24.129)
Torrey (01:42.155)
Right. Took a year, 18 months off or so. Right during the time of Ciotec's ascent. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:50.085)
Exactly, then played a sporadic schedule last year and then has been kind of full time this year. So this their first meeting and you know, kind of looking back at before we get into the actual T's and C's of what we think about this particular matchup. Ega, I asked you this question going into that semi-final with Belinda and I asked you like, is it just me or what I can't really spot what Belinda does well and I will.

Props to Andy Roddick, he actually gave a pretty good explanation of his perspective on what she does well. And I took that, which is like she really owns the middle of the court, backhand's quite strong, she can dictate off that side. I think we need to redefine what dictate on the backhand means. She manages the court well.

Torrey (02:29.591)
Sure.

Torrey (02:37.525)
I'd like to say she manages the court well and she manages and I think she certainly does a great job of countering when possible. And I think that's as copious of superlative as I can give her at this stage in her health and her game, perhaps a few years ago, maybe she was a tad faster father time, mother time waits for no one. So that's unfortunate. And at the same time in the wave of the new game, we're seeing a four time grand slam champ in

in a Naomi Osaka who's not as sharp and as fast as she once was, right? So there's no shade on anyone. I'm 53, Alvin, I'm not even close to what I used to be, you know, and I haven't given birth to a child. So I say it to say she is so, so compass of a player. Olympic gold medals, we can't speak enough superlatives in her toward her direction. However, going against that matchup,

Alvin Owusu (03:19.549)
Right.

Torrey (03:36.296)
against Fionnetech, just feel like she was under gunned and period. And I don't want to say anything more or bad against it. I don't want to be little. Belinda at the same time, she made, you know, it looked as if Fionnetech pretty much had her way with what she wanted to do. And it was a really good matchup for Ega, wasn't it? It was, she hit the kind of ball that Ega really liked to hit. She didn't hurt enough. And nor does Ega give you a lot of

Alvin Owusu (03:40.21)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (03:55.849)
Right.

Torrey (04:03.308)
you get to give you a lot of good opportunities to get in rhythm either. Right. And I feel like Belinda is the kind of player that needs to, you know, take your, take your big cross back line once, take your back cross once just to kind of keep you at bay to say, let me, let me wait a second. You don't have wait a second with, with Eka period. And so that's, know, and then you're operating with a little bit of a lesser serve and that feeds into her unreal mutant ability of returns. I mean, that's just already it's your, your.

Alvin Owusu (04:20.35)
There's no wait a second with Iga. No, no, she's not operating that way.

Torrey (04:33.097)
You're down all three, you don't even realize what hit you.

Alvin Owusu (04:35.22)
Right, and so we're taking kind of two things, right, that are becoming super, super salient right now in women's tennis. The second serve return, second serve meets second serve return, right, that particular matchup. And then, oh yeah, we'll come to that a little bit later in the Ferret's Alcaraz match. But then the other one, you know, to borrow from another great Roger Federer, the best movers are the best players.

Torrey (04:48.46)
Right, which is huge in the tour in general, right?

Alvin Owusu (05:02.16)
And when you get to this level where they can all hit the ball, like when you start to get to the last eight of a grand slam, it's almost those things, especially on the women's side, will separate players pretty quickly. And so when I looked at that matchup, I was like, I mean, we're we're boxing at long distance here. And I know this this sounds like something that doesn't apply to tennis, but I'm like, he's just going to run circles around her. Like they operate at completely different speeds. How does that matter in tennis? It's like, well, Belinda doesn't hit a big enough ball to keep Ega from.

Torrey (05:25.611)
They do.

Alvin Owusu (05:30.736)
moving at the pace she wants to move at. Right.

Torrey (05:30.943)
from attacking her, correct. Or nor did she possess a serve big enough or accurate enough to keep her at bay enough to not do it. So what do you get? More of the same.

Alvin Owusu (05:41.938)
And that's, yeah, so that kind of, the way it played out, I was like, yeah, I feel like that's what it's gonna look like nine times, nine and half times out of 10. I couldn't imagine anything actually different happening unless Ego just played horribly. yeah, in two days.

Torrey (05:56.275)
Right. Or Belinda found a new serve. You know what I mean? Maybe Roddick should help her give her old Roddick serve motion. That might be next on the list, but that's about all I could say.

Alvin Owusu (06:07.701)
Yeah, and so with that, we moved past that match, Eega moving forward. I mean, the star of the day was the Anasumova-Sabalinka match, right? that was fun. That was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. That was a really, really fun match because...

Torrey (06:17.652)
Mm.

Torrey (06:25.341)
Okay. Why didn't you think it was going to be? I felt going into that, that you didn't necessarily, I'm not putting it out there on you. I don't call you out like that. I don't, I don't feel like you thought it was going to be a straightforward of a, of a power, you know, was that expression unstoppable force and versus the immovable object. I didn't think you saw it like that. I think I saw that I've missed many previous, missed many calls.

Alvin Owusu (06:33.629)
No no no, please please, please do.

Torrey (06:54.695)
I just thought the way that Sabalinka likes to crush to the backhand was going to hit right into Amanda's strength. And I saw her do that again against Coco in the French. Same thing. And Coco just routines that backhand either direction. If anything, I felt like Amanda actually has a bigger forehand than Coco, right? And so when she came back to the forehand, she got hurt over there too. I only said to say, getting back to my point,

Alvin Owusu (07:19.253)
Yeah, yeah

Torrey (07:24.42)
I felt even we were going over this, I forget we were on wax or not. You were like, yeah, but that was she beat her before, but that was before she was you. She was arena. And I didn't disagree with you. I thought I thought that arena would win in three. I did not think that Amanda would hold on to finish her off. I will go ahead. I say that to say I didn't. OK, go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (07:42.709)
So that's the part right there. Amanda has, it's a couple things, right? So Amanda has brought on a new physio into her camp. And this is kind of a big deal. She's in April, right? So the Amanda that we saw at the Australian Open, right? And then the one that we saw, like she won, it was a Doha, and then had a tricky one, had a little bit of a rough string after that, but.

Torrey (08:00.36)
Right.

Torrey (08:05.614)
I so. I remember that, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (08:11.738)
She's a different player now because she's actually able to practice more. Like she was in a kind of in a rhythm where she was all, you know, I can post the link to the article that I read, but she was in a space where she could practice for an hour and that was about it. Cause it just hurt. She, her body was not like in, in shape to practice longer than that. So, and now she's up to the point where she can practice for three hours a day, which allows her to be stronger to the back towards the back end of these tournaments. Right. And so I think that's.

Torrey (08:15.9)
OK.

Torrey (08:22.825)
well.

Yeah. Right. To do more. Yeah.

Torrey (08:35.882)
Sure. And to your point, later in these tough matches, right?

Alvin Owusu (08:40.66)
She hit a third wind in that match. she had come second side. was like, man, she looks dead. Like she looks dead tired. And then got it back together and then was able to actually surge in the third before she got a little nervous and then was able to close it out. So my original reason for not thinking about this match not like being as competitive as it ended up being is one that I've seen Sabalenka dictate so much over the last 18 months.

Torrey (08:43.177)
100%.

Torrey (08:55.273)
Sure, sure.

Torrey (09:03.355)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (09:10.896)
and only one time have I seen someone punch back with the same amount of force and put her on her back foot. A couple times, MK, right, on hardcore, but then also you look back to the French Open when these two met, and the French Open I think was the quarterfinals, maybe quarterfinals, but that's on clay, so it's a little bit different, and once we get on clay, a little slower surface, Sabalinka's footwork and her movement give her the advantage there, right? So thinking about

Torrey (09:18.183)
And her initials

Torrey (09:37.769)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (09:40.5)
There's two things that stood out, one the forehand. It stood up lot better than I thought it was going to. Amanda's forehand, Amanda's forehand, yeah. And then, yeah, and that is a function of her footwork and her fitness being so much better than it was three months ago, right? So that's important too.

Torrey (09:46.459)
as you're talking about. Yeah. Much bigger than people give her credit for.

Torrey (09:54.631)
I agree. Yep. Sure, sure. She can always hit it, but couldn't always hit it that clean, that long, and that big in on the move. And I'm with you on that. I'm with you, 100%. Especially against Irina Sabalenka, world number one, for sure. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (10:05.769)
the best movers are the best players, right? If you wanna produce a good shot, you need to be in position to do so repeatedly. Exactly. And then the serve, her first serve, she served fantastic, and when she makes first serves, she goes big. And then where do you wanna check down to, like as a returner, like you're a big first server, I'm block back to the back end, sorry, points over, right? And then also if you can get it, if you're like, okay, I pushed the forehand a little bit, okay, now she's hitting that forehand with conviction.

Torrey (10:25.66)
Yep. Right.

Torrey (10:33.522)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (10:34.994)
she's turned into, like, she might be on grass a tougher first strike player than Arena is and I hadn't considered that as a possibility. And so once that started to play out, I was like, okay, well some of the things that I thought would be a problem for Amanda, once we get outside the single sidelines, right, those are the points that Arena was winning, right, but we weren't seeing that many of them.

Torrey (10:46.01)
Right, right. I was just pulling up the stats here. Go, keep going, sorry.

Torrey (11:03.708)
That many, right? Right, keep it between linear. Yep, yep, yep.

Alvin Owusu (11:04.082)
Amanda was able to keep it, kind of keep it lateral. mean, keep it linear, keep it between the lines. Yeah, and really step in. I mean, I don't think we talk enough. I know people talk about it a lot. But her backhand should be in the louv. That thing is gorgeous. Open stance, step up.

Torrey (11:19.741)
What?

Inside out inside in

Alvin Owusu (11:25.876)
We talked about this a couple of weeks back. said like, know, one of the reasons you can't dictate with the backhand, can't hit a buggy whip and you can't hit it off the court, like angle off the court. I saw her hit one, open stance, heavy angle off the court. was like, jeez.

Torrey (11:38.432)
on that passing shot where she kind of got jammed and went inside out with it. She did a return like that too. I told you months ago, Alvin, I was mentioning this and only because I had seen it, it may have been Doha that I was watching, but I remember her back in juniors. Alvin, her backhand was just all day. And I remember her doing a backhand one time. I watched her do a point. She literally within a set hit about every type of backhand that was possible to hit. Angle, rip, swinging volley, inside out rip. I mean, all of them.

Alvin Owusu (11:44.042)
it's...

Alvin Owusu (12:05.341)
all of them.

Torrey (12:06.856)
And when you get that, you know, your world class, she hit a backhand. I call it the sweep where you take a backhand almost somewhat. It's like an aggressive closed stance where you're taking a big step across with the right foot and you're just rocking this ball through the court on the other corner, hitting the dead corner. Like you're just daring somebody. You're going all in. It's like, you're putting your chips all in and you're standing up on the table. She hit that ball probably seven times that.

Alvin, that ball lands a foot or so from the baseline, hit it close to 100 miles an hour. There is nothing you can do if that ball lands. She hit that ball seven or eight times, Alvin, off that backhand corner. And I don't think Arena had seen that level of pace off the backhand. She's seen Madison's forehand and Madison's got a bigger forehand than Arena does. She's seen Cocoa, I'm gonna say counter that ball and literally add pace to a pace ball, which is another mutant ability.

Alvin Owusu (12:46.012)
It's...

Torrey (13:02.033)
but she hasn't seen anybody with her height, her power, bring that ball back bigger than she can hit off the backhand wing. And I felt like that was a match where, not gonna say she possesses all of the superlatives of arena, but on grass and on that matchup, I felt like that was a very, very tough matchup for arena.

in that sense because she developed so many points and constructs so many points with the back ball to the back end first. And that's just a non-starter for a girl like Amanda who has that backhand. So I wanted to bring out one point too. It wasn't something that was, it wasn't huge, but it was something that I thought of was kind of, it was kind of interesting. The stats bore out 68 % on the first serve. Now she won obviously 68 % of her first serve points as well, which shows you the serves was there.

Alvin Owusu (13:40.254)
Yeah, please do.

Torrey (13:54.535)
And the man was right there at 63. Neither them served phenomenally well. I think there was two aces for Amanda and six for Arena. Five double faults for Amanda, probably two or three of them happened late in the late and third when she got a case of the hip, which is very understandable. First time semi and also playing the world number one. Arena had four double faults, right? So she wasn't exactly, you know, wasn't, and 68%. So that's a little low for a couple of girls that, a couple of women, forgive me, that hit the ball pretty big off both wings.

Alvin Owusu (14:05.054)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (14:23.207)
But I said to say, this is what was interesting. And this is where the return comes in. She only won 42 % of her second serve points. Now look at those two combined. I'm only serving 68 % only. That's not bad. But in a semi, that may not be good enough. And then I'm only winning 42 % of the second serve. now you look, and here is, the other hand of that, 60%, which is five below, Arena's on the serve.

Alvin Owusu (14:41.298)
Right. Well, that's what we talked about, right? Like that's, that's.

Torrey (14:52.315)
but won 57 % of her second serve points. So when Arena jumped on that return, but went to the backhand to your point, non-starter, mean, absolute non-starter. She was gonna, tagged that ball and returned fire and was back in it often was better off after she had returned fire off that return. So those are two things that I thought made the difference in that match and from what I saw.

Alvin Owusu (15:11.112)
Yeah, well that's.

Alvin Owusu (15:15.412)
Yeah, and then obviously you see that at the end of the match too. Like she was almost better off returning for the match than she was serving for the match, right? Yeah. One thing that you mentioned that I wanted to bring up is you mentioned, you know, Amanda in juniors, and that's when I was actually first introduced to her. So when I was working in tennis kind of in that space when she, this was like probably 2016, 2017, something like that. And I wasn't watching a lot of women's tennis. Like quite honestly, I was not like.

Torrey (15:21.767)
then serve it, 100%, 100%.

Torrey (15:31.032)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (15:44.037)
as involved in that side from a fan standpoint. I was working in tennis but not necessarily paying attention as much to the women's side as I do these days. But one of my coworkers, Ashley, shout out Ashley Spicer. We need to get Spicer on the pod sometime. You've met Spicer, we had dinner together in Tulsa I believe one year. Anyways, she was like, you need to check out this girl Amanda Anna Simova. You're gonna like her game.

and I ended up catching her at Eddie Hur. Like again, know, make, go watch some high level international junior tennis and you will, you are bound to see the future. I saw Taylor Fritz at that tournament. I saw Anna Samova. I saw Alex Zverev at that tournament. All these guys, yeah, it's a good thing. Francis at that tournament. But I remember watching her and I was like, her head just doesn't move when she hits back hits. Like it is the most technically sound,

Torrey (16:29.689)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (16:39.45)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (16:43.632)
Think of beauty. Like loose hips, full shoulder rotation, put a cup of coffee on her head and not a drips coming out. it is, it's, I mean I hit a pretty decent backhand so when I see one I'm like that's, that's special. That is special.

Torrey (16:49.317)
Full, 180. I mean, right? Yeah.

Torrey (17:01.446)
where you almost looks effortless and you're getting about 110 % of it out. You're putting in 50 to 60 or so it looks, right? And the timing and the connection, that kinetic chain is just firing across all cylinders. Remember the old school basketball game where when the player was starting to get hot, the NBA jam was starting, the flames would come on.

Alvin Owusu (17:25.545)
NBA Jam. Yeah.

Torrey (17:29.827)
going on the on the basketball. I mean, when they're on fire. That's what it looks like when she's bringing that racket through. You're like, no, here we go. I mean, it's. Yep. I mean, how it's a lovely.

Alvin Owusu (17:37.812)
And she used to play with the old blue Babylon too, just juiced. Just juiced. But yeah, was a really, really interesting match. I learned a lot about Amanda and Asimov. I think the world learned a lot.

Torrey (17:53.049)
Yeah. I think Amanda learned a lot about Amanda in that match. Let's be honest. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (17:57.045)
And she's cool, man. She's cool. Like she doesn't play. Like she's not getting caught up in the nonsense. She had a little back and forth with Mira Andreva earlier in the spring. There was an incident, they were playing, think it might have been in Doha, might have been like semi-finals, quarterfinals of that tournament. Maybe the tournament after, but she cut her finger, I think, in the second set or third set or something like that. Era had a blister.

Torrey (18:01.602)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:26.004)
And it was at a time in the match where I think Andrea was like in a groove. So she goes to take a medical timeout. It might've been in during a game, but she gets her finger worked on. She comes back out. She's like, I'm sorry, whatever. And then in the post, she ends up winning the match and the post batch interview, Mira is, she, you she's a little upset. She mentions, oh, and then she takes a break in the middle of the thing and yada, yada, yada. And then the, I think that night or the next day, Amanda takes a picture of her finger, like on Instagram.

Torrey (18:36.578)
Yeah.

Torrey (18:48.568)
Yeah.

Torrey (18:55.961)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:55.988)
like showing how bad it was, but it's like, it's the middle finger, so she just takes it like this. I was like, that's, that's icy. That's icy. I respect that. I respect that freehold township, Pennsylvania stand up. But, know, yeah. And you know, it's, it's, you know, kind of moving forward on that. We talked about this at the end of last year in our maybe 2025 preview about the

Torrey (19:03.576)
Wanted to show you my finger. Absolutely, absolutely. Making sure you saw the right finger.

Alvin Owusu (19:26.26)
of the American women and what they're, where they are right now, how they're, I was, I think we were both on the same side, like they're doing a lot of positive things right now with the amount that we have in the top 50, the amount that we have in the top 20. We didn't, I mean this was in January when we had this conversation. We've gone back to back to back American women in Grand Slam finals. We've had four since JPEG and the US Open finals, right?

Torrey (19:37.956)
100%.

Torrey (19:47.011)
Yep.

Torrey (19:51.138)
Yeah, yeah. 100 % 100 %

Alvin Owusu (19:55.56)
with the last two going to Madison and then Cocoa this year. And now Amanda's in the final. Four different women, four straight grand slam finals for the states.

Torrey (20:00.76)
Yeah. Yeah. That's huge. Huge, huge, huge. And each of them took a different path to get there. Right. Each of them has, I think there's a lot to be said for that. I really hope, you know, and I know a lot of the players and player development, a lot of the coaches and player development, I really hope they take a look at that and just continue to, to really push the different ways one can get there. I don't think there's a one size fits all. I never have.

Each player can do it a different way and keep pushing all the ways, right? If there's four different ways, push all four ways. know I mean? Make and get, me four to eight in that, in that, through that particular tunnel every year, if you can, and just keep those pipelines full. Please don't, let's not forget how these players arrived where they are and keep making that part happen. Cause that's just more water in the hose.

And when you start getting that, there's just going to be more pressure, more players come behind it. They're going to keep seeing a different version of them out there as well. And I just feel like sometimes I think you have these players up there to help mentor the next group and it just keeps going. I just look forward to that. I hope that the men can do the same thing. The men have done a great job doing the wrong, maybe not in the grand slam final per se, but perhaps, but they are around, they're relevant. You're one of your favorite expressions. They're in the conversation.

Alvin Owusu (21:13.554)
Maybe the finals, yeah, but they're around. They're there.

Torrey (21:21.365)
And I think that's a huge thing. We were not in that conversation. And quite frankly, since the likes of Andy Roddick and Bozendot 3, you know, we have not had a lot of men that are battling for semis and finals in slams. And, you know, the great John Isner and others, even Quarry and others who played some great tennis, they weren't necessarily, you know, quarter semis, finals, you know.

Alvin Owusu (21:21.521)
Absolutely.

Torrey (21:50.499)
or favorite to reach, right? Those levels in the big tournaments. And I feel like that's something that I'm really happy to see these guys, even Fritz, even though he had a bit of a bust all day with Carlos, he still, I felt like certainly earned his seed and looked good on the grass album. God, he looked good. We'll save room for that, fair enough, fair enough. I know you got words, but just again, to your point, was great. It was great to see.

Alvin Owusu (22:09.325)
no, we're saving the Fritz talk for later. I got words for Taylor Fritz.

Torrey (22:18.153)
quick word on the preview for that match. What are you, what do you think you'll see? And I'm talking about Amanda and Ega, you know, we, we said this in the Sabalinka and Nisamova match. I said,

Arena's forehand to Amanda's backhand is going to cancel each other out. Right. I knew that going in. just knowing tennis the way I do, knowing their games way I do. I said, I thought I was going to come down to Amanda's forehand and arena's backhand or a second serve. you know, who can hold the second serve points and who can, and who can hold and make more first serves at bore out. I don't know if I was, you know, I'm not, I'm certainly not, you know, any profit. I was just looking at, at, at,

tendencies and what I know from from women's tennis. I know the two of those games pretty well. It bore out kind of like I thought just with a little bit of a different ending obviously with Amanda winning out in three versus Arena. I look into this match. I think we both pretty much nailed the bench and in this Yontic match. In this one here, I think Amanda's serve is bigger than Iga may realize. And I think that again, if she goes that inside into the backhand,

she better that skinny cross wider than the sideline or she too could find herself running out of time by pulling that skinny cross and getting it redirected back in the corner where she can't handle it. And as she short hops it like she's prone to do by hugging the baseline so close, Amanda will go behind her, go in front of her and come forward. And she's very adept at the net. And that to me is a bit of a weird one because you now get hurt.

playing your game. In other words, if she hits her serve, we know Egan's gonna take it early and she pulls it inside in, which she does very, very well. But she's gonna do that to her backhand, which we know that's Amanda's secret sauce. So I say that to say if Amanda can get to that ball in that corner, nail that ball completely cross court like the hypotenuse, completely diagonal, what will then happen to Egan in court position terms? I think she's gonna be heard out of it. Now.

Alvin Owusu (24:09.717)
Mm-hmm, to the back end, right.

Alvin Owusu (24:29.052)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey (24:29.601)
The flip side, this match to me will go on break a lot if I had to guess. This will be constantly on break. It's going to be a matter of who holds. It's going to have to, I haven't seen Ega go inside out a ton with that backhand because she takes it so early. And I also think that the forehand of Amanda is much better than you think it is. So there's not really a weak wing, perhaps drop shots, perhaps some short balls. But even then that's not Ega's specialty. She's not a drop shot queen.

Alvin Owusu (24:53.524)
That's how you get something yeah, gotta shit that's not her bag. Yeah

Torrey (24:58.656)
This match could be very, very tricky for Ega because again, what she does and does very well, matches up well to those few things, especially on that backhand side for Amanda. I'm calling Amanda in three, not so much for the upset and the championship, but more for, I'm not sure Ega's seen that matchup as often and she may just force herself a bit too much in that situation because of that. What do you say?

Alvin Owusu (25:24.628)
So, this is why I like us being here, because we look at the same thing from different aspects. You've got the crown for the micro and the tactics, right? I go macro, which allows me, I can step into that space, but it allows me to go macro and kind of fill the big picture stuff.

Torrey (25:32.373)
Yup, yup.

Torrey (25:38.677)
No, I'm all day micro and rock, paper, scissors. That's how I see it.

Torrey (25:52.641)
All right, big picture, what am I missing?

Alvin Owusu (25:53.575)
Amanda did mention that she felt like she wouldn't really have many nerves kind of coming in this match because although she's never been to a Grand Slam final, she's been in enough big matches, right? And I feel like, I do feel like Amanda is going to show up. She's a pretty calm customer. Yes, she gets a little squirrely towards the tight situations, but everyone does. There's a difference though between a big semi-final, like in a Grand Slam.

and a final of the Grand Slam. Ain't nobody else around. Like, nobody else is around. When you're watching on TV, the stadium is packed. It's full. It's great. Ain't nobody else there. It's the weirdest thing. Like, in the beginning of the tournament, there are...

Torrey (26:27.828)
Yeah,

Torrey (26:33.844)
the stadium but the rest of the complex is why is completely empty for sure for sure yeah Roddick Roddick told me that one year I want to see was all for the in the in open score it got to the semis and we were there and I'm walking to the locker room and I'm like where is everybody and he's he made that comment to me and he's like no one's here it's finals no one's here yeah

Alvin Owusu (26:53.876)
He and he said it like yeah, think he mentioned this pocket one of the thoughts cast this week But like I've seen it firsthand, uh, I'll show you know, but I was there like kind of back in around 2014 2015 whatever it was like quarterfinals. It's like you're walking around. It's like it's like there's nobody here It's like because there's no one here all the match all the matches are happening in there like everything that you see and experience and the Right, like yeah, there's there's match one. There's the next one on the next one. Those are all the matches for the day

Torrey (27:08.245)
Right? Because there's no one here. Right. The match in some cases, not matches, the match. Right.

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (27:23.112)
Like say for some junior matches out here, sometimes there's a wheelchair match. But all the action is happening in there, multiplied by a few on the very last two days of the tournament, right? And then there's this whole like the pomp and circumstance of a Wimbledon final over all the other Grand Slams. Like US Open finals is raucous. There's jets flying and bands playing. It's a show. The Wimbledon final is, yeah true, true. That's true, yeah.

Torrey (27:32.67)
Yup. Yup.

Torrey (27:38.496)
Sure, Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. Jets are fine anyway. It's my middle accordion.

Alvin Owusu (27:52.341)
Um, but the Wimbledon final, it, there's a lot of procedure that happens. There's a very long walk that happens. There's a lot, there are royalty there and they are presented. It's like a whole thing. And then like, you're like, Oh, well, Oh, now I got to play tennis match. It's very different than like, okay, you're on. Okay. I walked to the thing. How about there? man, he has been there before, not necessarily Wimbledon, but she's been in this as someone else made the comment. She's been in the stillness of a pre grand slam final moment.

Torrey (27:55.679)
Yeah, that's true.

Torrey (28:00.96)
Sure.

Torrey (28:06.037)
Yeah.

Torrey (28:12.893)
Yeah.

Torrey (28:19.202)
of that moment. Yeah. Sure. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (28:22.132)
And so even just like knowing it exists versus like having been through it versus not having been through it. Okay, let's assume she conquers that, right? Her, Ega's second serve, right? Ega's gonna have to serve well. She's gonna have to a lot of first serves, right? If not, yes. And you'd be like, you mentioned the same thing is gonna be said for Amanda, right? But I do think Amanda's gonna be able to be more aggressive on Ega's first serve than Ega's going to be able to be on Amanda's first serve.

Torrey (28:28.212)
Yep.

Torrey (28:39.017)
Big and well.

Torrey (28:50.033)
on Amanda's first. I agree with that.

Alvin Owusu (28:52.244)
The part about the backhand and the court positioning, I'm pissed that you stole that from me. You just said it before me. But we see things similarly. see things similarly. Ego wants to hug the baseline and dictate from in front of the baseline. She's okay taking that back, like not running around the forehand and hitting that backhand from the inside middle. But like you said, where is she gonna go with that? Like that's a hard ball to hit down the line, right? Like over into the deuce court corner.

Torrey (29:11.593)
Yeah. Yeah. Early. Yeah.

Torrey (29:19.805)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (29:22.1)
She wants to attack it back to the back end. And like you said, Amanda is going to hit that ball and now Ega standing three feet inside the baseline. Like when you're gonna pick that ball up with a forehand, like now you're done, right? So like that's gonna be the, think Ega, the thing that I've seen from her in the last few weeks is that she seems a little more content with almost playing clay court style Ega tennis on grass court. She's found the balance.

Torrey (29:46.842)
and

Alvin Owusu (29:49.204)
Kind of the same way Rafa did at some point, like he found the balance. Like I don't have to hit the forehand, mock 20 off the first ball because I'm on grass. The things that I do well, that I did well, my ball will be enough, a la Carla Sarkaraz. My ball will be enough. And she's, I think if she gets to that place and allows herself to almost settle in a little behind the baseline so that she can catch Amanda's ball in front of her.

Torrey (29:51.153)
I agree with that.

Torrey (30:00.594)
Right, my ball will be enough on the grass because it's grass. Sure. Yup, yup, yup. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (30:19.12)
Ega is a better mover than Irina, right? No, no, no. I'm looking at the comparison of the matchups. Ega is a better mover than Irina. I think she's better in the corners. I think she'll be able to... absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. But from a comparison standpoint, I think she'll be a little more comfortable while she can't hurt Amanda in the same way that Irina can. She can absorb Amanda's pace probably.

Torrey (30:21.062)
I agree with that. Then Amanda. Yep. Yep.

okay, between the two. for sure.

Yep. I would say Arenas is a better mover than Amanda. I mean, to be fair. Right? So.

Torrey (30:47.068)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (30:47.74)
in the corners better than Arena could. Now, what does that mean?

Torrey (30:49.758)
Right. I agree with that.

Alvin Owusu (30:58.772)
I still feel like this is egos to win. I still feel like that's the case. I, I, I feel like it's, Amanda's going to be forced to execute all match long. And there are some things that if you look at the comparison of the same file, there's some things that arena just did not get done. Like she was not, she was not tenacious in the face of like, not necessarily pressure, but like there were times where she

Torrey (31:02.75)
Okay. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (31:28.216)
was on the back foot when she shouldn't have been. And I think Ega's probably in those positions probably a little more.

Torrey (31:32.688)
Some would say that was, some would say that would, that was due to direct, direct application of return force. But I hear your point. I think, I think the question I want to ask you is how is Amanda, sorry, how is Ega going to beat her another way? If you can help me understand that off of serving first strike, off of coming forward.

Alvin Owusu (31:41.97)
Yeah, maybe so. Maybe so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey (32:02.278)
What is she going to bring her in? Is she going to expose foot speed or full court coverage like Carlos did against Taylor? I'm not tipping to it. I'm just wanting to make my, will put it out there because I felt like that was a very strong tactic used against a big hitter who hit spots from the serve. And I felt like Carlos had said, but you know what? Here's what you can't do. And I'm going to magnify that weakness a lot. And I don't know.

Alvin Owusu (32:13.021)
Yep, yep, yep, we'll get there. We'll get there.

Torrey (32:32.153)
If Ega has that ability, at least I haven't seen it. And I've watched a lot of Ega's, I'll take matches. I've never seen her that many droppers or drop volleys or come forward. So that's kind of my thing is to say, if you could tell me how you know, and give me an example or two of what's happened. I would be like, I'd be right with you. I just haven't seen it.

Alvin Owusu (32:51.783)
The part that I, the thing that I mentioned about if Arena can get Amanda outside of the singles lines, right? I think Iga's natural ball does that better than Arena's ball actually does. I think, and then I also think that Amanda's, Amanda had a, Arena's ball almost was perfect for Amanda. Like she hits it hard, but Amanda is very calm at contact.

Torrey (33:15.707)
I

Alvin Owusu (33:22.343)
and that ball was kind of right in her pocket. I don't think Ega's ball is going to be as easy for Amanda to square up, particularly on the forehand side. She'll square up Carl Sarkaras' ball on the backhand side, right? Whatever. But on the forehand side, I think Ega can probably hurt her there more, and then once she figures it out, that's a good place to go. I think she will be a little more like a dog with a bone where,

Torrey (33:50.16)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (33:52.411)
where Arena was a little more stubborn about it.

Torrey (33:54.415)
Right. Stubborn and shocked by the outcome. I hear you. I think it'll be, it remains to be seen. I will choose. I will agree, disagree. I think Ega's ball is actually spinnier and that actually hurts her more. And I think the spinnier, the Ega arena hits it and it has shape and that shape bounces into the drive of Amanda's. Ega's ball is not as big. So in my opinion, that's actually going to hurt Ega because now

Alvin Owusu (34:14.973)
Yes.

Right. Right. We agree. Correct.

Torrey (34:24.54)
Amanda gets to actually step into the court and go through with the ball more. It may take her a game or two to handle to find that pace and that to find the recipe, find that right balance. But her ball did not land short against Irina Sabalinka. And her ball swept through the deep part of the court against one of the hardest hitters in the game. So you're telling me a person who is a little thinner, who hugs the court more, is going to have more of impact on the ball? She better get it wide. That's all I have to say.

If she does it, she'll be in for a very rude awakening that her ball will be tagged. And that's not so much from the standpoint that Amanda's ball is that big. She's not a huge striker like Madison. Madison, it's the one of the prettiest, cleanest balls I've ever seen in female form. We're talking about just how she happens to strike it so clean off of the incoming ball. And I'm telling you that Ega takes it earlier than almost any girl on tour, save for maybe Jasmine Paolini, you know what mean? So with that said.

Alvin Owusu (35:22.108)
Right.

Torrey (35:23.76)
Where are you gonna be? You're gonna be three feet inside the court upon landing. And so that's all I'm saying. And if that three feet of the court is where her ball's landing back, that's it.

Alvin Owusu (35:28.595)
So in your.

Alvin Owusu (35:33.009)
Right, in the, not the prediction that you gave, in the, said you think it's gonna go three sets and you think Amanda's gonna take it in three sets. In the set that she loses, what is going do? Eega going to do well then.

Torrey (35:46.415)
it'll be in the first set if anything and it'll just take it'll just take Amanda that long to kind of figure it out. If I'm rooting for Amanda and she plays very well I think that it will it will be a long tie break first and she'll figure it out and it'll be a fairly routine second a tough albeit but a fairly routine second just because I don't see I don't see safe for trying harder trying more things and hitting it bigger and earlier I just don't see

Alvin Owusu (36:14.758)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey (36:15.995)
I don't see how Eega, well, not herder or change is more to my point. And that's more why I'm saying what I'm saying. I hope that I'm very pleasant surprise. I hope I get on with you on the wrap up and say, who knew that Eega had a slice? I hope we come back and we start saying, who knew Eega had a phenomenal job volley? I'm hoping I'm hearing that, right? Because if so, that's great for a game. Arena to her credit has found different ways and different shots.

Alvin Owusu (36:17.085)
how Ega is gonna hurt her consistently.

Alvin Owusu (36:37.021)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (36:40.637)
the inner part of

Torrey (36:45.197)
You know that she's incorporated in her game, which I think has been a very unsung part of her game, her overall game development where I don't, I haven't seen that. if anything, Ega's pace has picked up off her serve. And to me that actually might just hurt her in this case, hitting too thin and spinny, you know, might've almost helped her, but she hit the ball a little bigger now and serving bigger. That almost helps Amanda. I hate to say it from what I see. And I hope I'm wrong for all the Ega fans out there.

Alvin Owusu (37:13.275)
If she can, if Egan can find some depth though, like find the depth and still produce that spin, like that's when it starts to get tricky. Like maybe she's not as aggressive with her core position. yeah, it's gonna, it'll, it'll, it'll.

Torrey (37:20.154)
Yeah, I agree. I agree. And right. And we know Ega is going to compete. Right. We know she's going to compete. We know she won't give up. There's no there is no quit in her whatsoever. And yes, she has all the experience of multiple grandstands. We know that. This is not about to me. This is not so much about Ega playing Amanda as much as it is. looking at the matchup, the ball, the core position, what she likes to do just happens to match up very, very poorly.

with one of the best backhands I feel on the tour right now.

Alvin Owusu (37:51.538)
The math would say if you look at the two players and their strengths and weaknesses on surface should equate to something like 55-45 advantage, maybe like a 52-48 advantage. No to Amanda. You would think Amanda has the advantage. When you just look at the this woman does this well, this woman does this well, we are on a fast surface.

Torrey (38:05.858)
He got a man. Right. Okay. Yeah. That's look at the numbers. Sure. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (38:17.797)
it's just getting faster and drier, mean, drier and different, let's put it that way. Yeah, five and a half times out of 10, like maybe Amanda wins this match. I'm not sure, I don't know. I don't know, which is great, I don't know.

Torrey (38:21.0)
Yeah, I know what mean. More compact.

Torrey (38:33.582)
Yeah, yeah, same. Yeah. And it'll be an interesting one to watch.

Alvin Owusu (38:40.177)
Yeah, we've had some we've had some fun man. We're in such a good place right now with tennis like we've had

Torrey (38:43.8)
Yeah. Is this helping your end of the year? I know you love the story. Is this helping your end of the year story? Is Irina coming into the open now with a chip on her shoulder, a bigger chip, maybe a log on her shoulder now going into the US Open?

Alvin Owusu (38:56.507)
Here's a funny end of the year scenario. Not that I'm cheering for it. I don't really care. I care. When I close the book on 2025, I wanna go, yeah, that made sense. But what if we find ourselves in a situation after the US Open, let's say, doesn't win it and someone else wins it that has not won one this year, Arena's gonna end up being number one in the world at the end of the year and no Grand Slams. And no Grand Slams. Exactly, exactly.

Torrey (38:59.588)
Okay. Yeah, you're right. Yes, yes, come on.

Torrey (39:19.418)
Again. And no, and pull the Caroline Mosniaki. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I'm with you. And that would be fun to see. Yeah. Because she's been in, know, to your point, the conversation. How many times now? mean, final of the other two?

Alvin Owusu (39:26.2)
that would be, that'd be great for tennis though.

Alvin Owusu (39:33.536)
Yeah, just three straight Grand Slam finals. One US Open, finaled Australian, finaled French Open, semi-final here. She is the most dominant player on the women's tour by far, most consistent as well, but she ain't got no trophies this year. She ain't got no big chips.

Torrey (39:37.966)
Yeah, and the semi here, mean, let's, yeah.

No doubt. She's gone.

Torrey (39:50.202)
I'm trying to say who did that way back in the day. it Lindell that led the ATP in like the most Grand Slam finals with, I want to say Lindell had some stupid number like 11 or nine like Grand Slam finals that he, and you know, he's got several championships obviously, but like, I want to say it was nine, you know, Grand Slam finals that he did not. And, but was in it almost every year up until that point in time. So, I mean, so to me that's.

Alvin Owusu (40:16.979)
Right, yeah.

Torrey (40:18.905)
And that speaks to her greatness. She's pissed now, but that speaks to her greatness. And unfortunately, Amanda did not do that great. A few of the other slams, and unfortunately with Madison, obviously Coco lost her first round. my point is that that winner hasn't necessarily gone on to phenomenal better things every other tournament after. And she's been consistently in the last days of the tournament on each one.

Alvin Owusu (40:40.084)
Amanda? Right, but look at our two finals though, like Ega, semi-final French final Wimbledon. Amanda, I'm pretty sure she lost in the quarter finals to Arena, and now she's in the finals of this event, right? So you're starting to see, like Coco obviously won the French, lost in the first round. JPEG's kind of been in the woods a little bit in Grand Slams this year. Whatever, whatever, it's not really about that.

Torrey (40:46.391)
Yup. Yup.

Torrey (40:57.763)
Yep. Yeah.

Torrey (41:04.791)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (41:10.29)
But I like to see players being able to convert on both surfaces. And then obviously Amanda won a Masters 1000 on hard court earlier this year. So she is slowly building. She is building. Like if she.

Torrey (41:20.503)
Yep. Yep.

Oh, building a nice body of work. mean, and I'm very happy for her, her success. And anybody's been watching this podcast for a while. You guys know that I've been singing her praises even before she had this resurgence. just, just from what I know of her and know from her game. And as I say, I remember her playing when she was, when she was a little bitty thing playing my, girls 12th tournament way back in the day. She was just fun to watch then the back end was effortless then. And it was in clean. I watched her a few other tournaments over the years, spring nationals back when they had it back in Delray and

other tournaments that I've watched her play over the years. I just, again, it's been fun to watch her, fun to watch her maturity and her, and her resurgence back to the game and obviously what she'd been able to prove to herself and whatever she did take that time off. was, you know, clearly it was, it was beneficial for her. was much needed. I'm sure on things outside of tennis, but she looks to be in a really good place, whatever happens tomorrow. So I'm happy for it. Happy for her team. They've done a phenomenal job and it's been great for tennis to be able to watch that. Tennis is the better for it.

Alvin Owusu (42:23.166)
Yep, agreed. I think we can leave that there. I'm excited for tomorrow's match. What are you doing for tomorrow's match? What's your game plan?

Torrey (42:29.058)
Yeah. I don't know yet. I'm trying to decide what I'm, what I'm doing right now. I got to take out the times and figure some things out. I've got some other things to do on my end and I've got a, that intense thing I think cranks up tomorrow. Remember that, that intense tennis. I think, I think that thing is cranky. So I'm trying to figure out when they play and they play early, like two o'clock ish. think I got to go back and look at the schedule where there's one to match at two. think the one at seven. So I need to decide what I'm doing and factor in my, my watching around that I was.

Alvin Owusu (42:43.698)
Yeah, yeah, tennis, yeah.

Torrey (42:58.381)
When we get off, was going to figure that out.

Alvin Owusu (42:58.76)
Why don't you, it's 11 o'clock, start tomorrow. Why don't you come to the house? Because I'm close to intense tennis. Come to the house, we'll watch the final, and then we can go to the intense tennis. Because I need get over there. We need to go, we've had some contact with those folks over there. I need to, you've been, I have not been in person due to the schedule lately. But that would be a good opportunity to go. I was.

Torrey (43:03.768)
There you go. That might not be a bad move.

Torrey (43:19.48)
Pretty cool. Give them a quick plug. Any of you guys that are watching, listening, it's intense with two N's I-N-T-E-N-N obviously tennis S-E. It's they play nine bolts, nine 10 minute bolts. So it's 90 minutes of tennis, but the clock runs for 10 minutes. You and an opponent play, whoever won, but it's, but it's team Jacksonville to correct its teams.

Alvin Owusu (43:44.084)
And they have teams like Team Jacksonville, Team Nashville, Team Atlanta, yep.

Torrey (43:49.068)
but it's a singles men, singles ladies, singles mixed, singles doubles, girls and obviously doubles guys. But the neat thing about it is the format. So lose a point, one hit a winner, it's two, right? And so you're incentivized to go for a bit more, but should you lose, you lose serve. You only get one serve, everything counts and it is tennis on the clock. So it's a pretty fast paced environment. It feels like you're in a club more than it feels like you're at a tennis tournament. There's noise, there's...

Alvin Owusu (44:16.596)
Hmm.

Torrey (44:17.995)
things going on, there's hecklers, there's everything a tennis doesn't have, Intense has, and if you guys ever get a chance to watch it streaming online, even if you don't have it in your own hometown, it's a pretty cool atmosphere, and it's tennis in a much different way than you've seen it before. Pretty exciting, pretty fun to watch. Usually you see players stalling and taking too much time, you're like, serve already. And in Intense, you're like, man, slow down. You gotta, don't blow this point.

Alvin Owusu (44:43.326)
Hehehehe

Torrey (44:45.908)
literally, as soon as the point is over, they're asking for the ball, because they only have so much time. So it's a really neat spin on how to play. And if you get a chance to watch it, you'll be pleasantly surprised how different and how fun that difference is. And they're playing in studio, 100%. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (44:50.184)
Right. Okay. I see what you did there.

Alvin Owusu (45:00.862)
And they play it in a studio. They set it up in a studio with lights and stuff and this whole thing. And I think they only have one home location. I think this is where it happens. So the teams, they travel in or some of them live here and just play for the Jacksonville team or play for the Nashville team, whatever it might be. but it's less than five miles from my house. It's like right down the street. Anyways, on the men's side though, we do need to, I feel like,

Torrey (45:08.756)
Right, right, they bring all the other ones in, right.

Right, or play for the Atlanta team, right? Yep.

Torrey (45:22.91)
Right. Yeah, I'll get back on that, sir.

Alvin Owusu (45:30.152)
we should watch that final together. I know your Sundays are usually pretty packed, but I wanna watch that final together and then I want us to do an in-person podcast. So in the comments, if you think Tori should come over for the men's final and we do the in-person podcast, got some new equipment today. I am setting up, ready to do an in-person, maybe even live stream it. Maybe even live stream it.

Torrey (45:38.675)
Yep. There you go. You ain't got to twist my arm on that one. You ain't got to twist my arm. That would be a great one.

Torrey (45:51.98)
wow. shoot now.

Alvin Owusu (45:59.582)
Little, little caretta for you there. Speaking of carrots, Yannick Center broke, he broke Novak. He broke Novak.

Torrey (46:13.687)
In the words of the Iron Sheik, put him in a camel clutch, break his back, make him humble. I mean, I saw that match today.

You know what I'm going to quit listening to all this rigmarole about the elbow. He might be dinged up, might be hurt. That's, that's like Steph Curry saying, saying his shooting hands a little bit is a little sore. Buddy, your boy Carrot Top played about as clinical a match as I've seen in a long time. And he just beat him in the semi of the French, which I thought was fairly clinical. used speaking of the word old school Bill Walton clinic.

He put the clinic on your boy. Yes, sir. He put the clinic on your boy Novak today to a point where looking at Novak's kind of shrug slash smirk when he was shaking hands was like.

Alvin Owusu (46:56.371)
Rest in peace, Bill Walton.

Torrey (47:11.734)
Maybe it is time to go. Not yet, but I have completely been mastered and you have out Jokovic me. Commentator said it. I'm saying it. I'm telling you right now. I hope he doesn't play him again because it'll continue to, I won't say Tarnished Legacy. You can't Tarnished 24 Grand Slams, but it's just a bad match up and it's getting worse.

Alvin Owusu (47:20.893)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (47:36.405)
So that's the interesting thing, Novak is by all accounts probably the third best player in the world right now. He's at the end when Novak.

Torrey (47:46.262)
Right. By a far margin.

Alvin Owusu (47:51.946)
Well, I mean, he did beat Carlos in Australia. He did beat him, like in a Grand Slam. yeah, yeah. Well, I'll come back to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with you, I agree with you. I'm not, it's not about Lorenzo. I told you we have a Taylor Fritz segment to come onto later. But the issue is, and I've taken to listening and watching these post-match,

Torrey (47:56.95)
I'm speaking more to the for-through.

Torrey (48:04.449)
Don't you bring up that Lorenzo Masetti business right now. Please, come on now.

You

Alvin Owusu (48:21.301)
player conferences or whatever, press conferences. And usually they're worthless, but sometimes you get a thing or two that makes you go, huh. And Novak's post-match press conference today was very, they just come off the court, right? So they haven't really had much time to process. Well, sometimes they're out the court, sometimes they go shower, I get treatment, that calm down and then come in. like.

Torrey (48:22.975)
Okay.

Torrey (48:42.229)
much.

Alvin Owusu (48:48.019)
depending on the distance between match end and press conference, you kind of get different outlooks. But Novak was very reflective in his in that like, don't feel like this is my last Wimbledon. He's like, the hard part is like, do a better job of taking care of my body than anyone, but it seems to not be enough for me to be where I need to be in match six of a Grand Slam. He's like, by the time I get here,

Torrey (48:48.053)
Yep. Right.

Torrey (49:12.329)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (49:16.297)
Cause you look back at it though, right? So he's had, last year French Open, right? He gets hurt, right? Let's just say that's an injury, right? Gets through Wimbledon, had a shaky, did he have a shaky US Open? He wasn't great at the US Open last year either. Australian Open didn't finish his match against Zverev, right? French Open, I don't think that was an issue there. I think he just got beat by center. Right, but you come into this tournament.

Torrey (49:39.198)
That.

Alvin Owusu (49:45.141)
Yeah, he was a little ginger early, but he said he just didn't feel great. And it's like, yeah, bro, you're 38. Like, you're not gonna feel great. Yeah, he's just...

Torrey (49:54.843)
38 and you're playing the younger, better, newer version of yourself. Alvin, I hear you.

Alvin Owusu (50:02.55)
And he's also not he's just not fresh on day 12 of a Grand Slam like you're not ready to go

Torrey (50:07.156)
And no one is at least off your 38. Alvin, Alvin, let's cut through the minutia here. He got beat down. He got countered, out hit, out hustled. And your boy Carrot Top has found out he can slide on the grass. He had some of the best slides today. It was amazing his sliding. He was.

Alvin Owusu (50:28.661)
We're gonna come back to that too. That sliding.

Torrey (50:34.1)
slipping and sliding even in the first week album. He's on skates now bro. He's on skates.

Alvin Owusu (50:39.347)
Yeah, that's what he said. That's the thing that he that he yeah, no, he yeah, it's it's it's fine. It's It's fine. It's fine.

Torrey (50:47.412)
fine. I'm more worried about Carlos tomorrow because of Sunday due to the skates. Alvin, he has learned to control the slides everywhere on the court. He's sliding for droppers. He's sliding out wide and that's only helping his footing. I told you he was very normal on the grass. Footing just wasn't quite there. You were talking about the slickness in the patches and the surface squares up over the course turn, which I hear you. I did not see him slide this well until today.

Alvin Owusu (51:17.907)
Yeah, it's a a it's it's a feature. It's not the whole product. It's the thing like it's what he can do.

Torrey (51:21.651)
Maybe not, but when you move well, your game's based on movement and you had not been moving well, and now you're moving better. How many slap points online did he have today against Novak? he, against the whole guy, that you felt like his footing was there and his footing was better. That's all I'm saying.

Alvin Owusu (51:32.693)
against the old guy. They couldn't cover it.

Yeah, it's that matchup like it's less about the magic right yet. It's just he's just No, can't hurt him. He just can't hurt him. He can't hurt him. If this would it like he can't hurt him. No, I mean, no back as well past his prime at this point. And when compared to someone who is that good and still moving toward his prime, it's like, OK, right. What? OK, I I Alvin Wussou said a thing that I thought Novak was going to be him. That was stupid.

Torrey (51:45.139)
38. Can't hurt it. Period. Period.

Torrey (51:58.355)
All right. Yeah, toward his.

Torrey (52:04.84)
Yeah.

Torrey (52:08.583)
Yeah. I'm going to let you keep beating up on yourself because it's fun. I love listening to it. But I want to say when you get finished and I'll let you do it. Okay. I want to say three other passes prime is no that that's understood. Alvin.

Alvin Owusu (52:08.682)
That was dumb. was a bad. That was a put that take in a bag in the trash. It garbage. It was hopeful. It was hopeful.

Alvin Owusu (52:24.757)
I'm done, I'm I'll say I was wrong. not gonna tear down my own stature here.

Torrey (52:38.375)
He is still number three in the world with everybody else. I feel like.

I feel like Novak is here and thinking and understand I'm talking about, let's just say three o'clock in terms of far right to this situation. Your comment may have been far left at nine o'clock in the sense of things for Novak, right? But I think 12 o'clock is somewhere in the middle. Novak is making the comment that he's not fresh at the end of a grand slam. of course you're 38.

Alvin Owusu (52:58.004)
Okay.

Torrey (53:15.219)
And you're a phenomenal 38 by the way, but you're still 38. You're not going to be fresh after on day 12. You were looking like I was looking at most was looking, you know, center did almost get beat down by Grigor. We don't know what would have happened had Grigor not got hurt. He has it looked great. The elbow this that and the third Novak's looking better Novak's this might be his best chance. He's great on grass. He's won seven of these right and so on and so on and so on easy to pontificate on what that may look like.

Alvin Owusu (53:29.525)
Sure. Sure.

Torrey (53:44.613)
In the middle is the answer. He's not ever going to be that fresh. He's not ever going to beat these two guys routinely ever again. Could he beat him once in some strange situation and scenario? Of course, it's possible. It's not likely. And I think the more he keeps playing the match, it's getting worse. He's losing worse to Carlos. I hear that he beat him before. He beat him whatever at the open. Of course, he's Novak Djokovic. He can beat anybody. However,

you have to now understand the 12 o'clock I'm speaking to is not the middle and the truth. It's Carlos and Jannik are the two best players in the world and they are the new combined Novak, Fed and Rafa of our time. And right in front of our very eyes, we're watching history, Alvin. These two guys are taking the game to the next level and everybody else, including the former Grand Slam, the goat, is

having to watch and pay homage. And I think that's what I'm saying. It's more about, to your point, it's more about those two than about Novak. What say you?

Alvin Owusu (54:51.775)
Isn't it poetic that Novak now, let's say Novak's on the way out, right? He's on the way out. I don't know where the door is, but it's probably not today. It's not today, but it's there. He's going to go out as the third best. When we got Novak 20 years ago, he started off as the third. He broke it up, he ascended, and now he's coming down, going out the same door he came in.

Torrey (54:56.495)
Yep. Sure. Right. He don't know what the door is, you know? Right. Yep.

Torrey (55:12.017)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (55:19.893)
Which is, and there's some other similarities. Like they mentioned today, Novak, first time qualifying for the French Open was like, I mean for Wimbledon was like 2005. And then he won it five years later, 2010.

Torrey (55:33.019)
Mm.

Torrey (55:36.301)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (55:37.877)
Yannick's first French Wimbledon was about five years ago. It took him five years to get to the final. That's like, that's kind of how long it takes to get really, really good on this. Carlos Sacaraz is just, just showed up and it's like, oh yeah, I get it. I get it. No, no, this is good. This looks like fun. Oh, I didn't tell you. Talking about just showing up and it being fun, I played Padel yesterday for the first time. Ooh.

Torrey (55:49.103)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (56:02.096)
Oh, how'd it go? You liked it? I knew you'd like it. I knew you'd like it. I tried to tell you.

Alvin Owusu (56:07.213)
I played with these, I played with three other tennis players and they usually play together at ITP, old ITA is now ITP, Social Racket Sports Paradise. I was going off the wall early, like overhead smash, I was like quick read, turn around, off the wall, come back, switch hands if I need to. I hit a tweener lob off the wall once. was like, this is like.

Torrey (56:13.061)
Yeah. All that's yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Torrey (56:21.424)
Yeah, good for you.

Yep, yep, there it is. Yeah, right, Right.

Alvin Owusu (56:33.096)
This is like when Travis and I used to screw around in the garage playing off the wall. I get this. This is fun. This is fun. I had so much fun. So much fun.

Torrey (56:36.209)
Yeah, Fidel is, and if people haven't played, need to give a shout out to IGP and Network, they had going on there with Candice and the crew. It just looks amazing. I've been playing around with the Padels for a while and we played platform tents a lot up at Wimert for many years. But it's very similar, it's just a cage instead of walls.

Alvin Owusu (56:58.377)
Okay.

Torrey (57:02.353)
But very similar. And you can overhand serve, not underhand. I was so, I'm going to get my certification for Padel in Costa Rica in November. So I'm looking forward to it, but it is just a fun game and the paddle, the sound that ball makes when you rock a volley and stick it clean. It's just, and the point can go on forever. I mean, because it doesn't really, the harder you hit, it's almost the worst. You almost have to, you really got to know what you're doing and place it.

get it toward the corner and let it go off the other wall and kind of die in that corner. You really can't put it away like you might think, know, in tennis, at least not in normal tennis fashion, but it's a lot of fun. And if you like bowling and you like doubles, you will love Padel.

Alvin Owusu (57:30.577)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (57:48.329)
Yeah, that's me all day. I was sliding around and I'm getting to be athletic in all 360-degree radius. It was so much fun. If I play tennis, let's say in a good week, if I hit three times, I would be fine if I hit twice and played Padel on the third day. That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun.

Torrey (57:51.567)
Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (58:09.304)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I was over to your house, a couple of your friends were asking what's Padel like? And I'm like, it's like the best parts of tennis times five. I mean, it's just the best part of doubles anyway, you know, times five. If you like to volley, if you like to hit overheads, if you like coming forward, if you like, you know, if you like a lot of action, you just, you just can't find where a pickleball to me is just a life-size version of or standup version of a ping pong. You know what I mean? It really is. It's just, it's just.

Alvin Owusu (58:20.99)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (58:35.688)
Yeah, and they have they pickleball courts there and like there's people playing pickle. I'm like, I'm diving around jumping over that I'm watching them play and I'm like, yeah, I'm never doing that. I'm not doing that. If I can do this, I'm not I'm never gonna do that.

Torrey (58:38.928)
Yeah.

Torrey (58:45.072)
Yeah, it's completely, I was telling one of your friends that, I was like, your tennis is in the middle. I was like, Padel's over here and pickleball is way on that side. You know what mean? There could not be more different. You know what mean? So anyway, that's all fun. They're all fun in their own right. But I haven't played at ITP, but I'm looking forward to getting up. One of the places that I was looking at, working at, they had Padel courts there.

Alvin Owusu (58:54.28)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, so yeah.

Torrey (59:11.254)
I loved it there. I just loved the game itself. It's fun. I want to play more. Good for you. Good for you for playing.

Alvin Owusu (59:16.914)
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And I have entertained at times the idea of playing pickleball as I can do it with like anyone, like, especially when I, when I travel, like you can't, it's hard to, yeah, it's hard to find people to play tennis with because of, you know, a relative level, but pickleball, like anyone can play with anyone more or less. But I was trying to explain to some friends last night at dinner, they're like, we can play podell together. I was like, no, you can't play podell with me. because it's, it's a lot closer to tennis.

Torrey (59:26.114)
Right, and the kids and right. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey (59:36.58)
Right. Yep.

Torrey (59:44.14)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (59:46.868)
and I'm gonna hit you with the ball. I'm gonna hit you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. not like a, you just jump in and if everyone's pretty decent, especially tennis players, you need to be at that level to hang with that level.

Torrey (59:46.905)
Sure. Right. And we'll look forward to it.

Torrey (01:00:03.383)
Right, right, right. A non-tennis player can hang a pickleball, which is I think what frustrates tennis players. in Padel, if you, you know what saying? If in Padel, if you're already, you know, if you're already not quite, you're close to being black belt level, so to speak, in tennis, Padel will award that. If you're not, buddy, you have a strong learning curve in Padel, because then you add that plus walls, you know what I mean? Which for most people, that's not that, it's not inherently,

Alvin Owusu (01:00:11.142)
Right.

Torrey (01:00:32.367)
You know, it doesn't always make sense. When I first, my first three or four times playing platform, I'm still going to the wall as the ball is going the other way. It took me the longest to just know to move the other way as an allow the ball to come off the wall, just the retrieving instinct. And so that, that took me a little bit. Once I finally got that down, you know, um, it was a little, a lot simpler, but you just, you gotta be ahead of it, right? You just gotta be ahead of it. But anyway, that's, uh, I'm, I'm happy that you played it.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:47.601)
Right.

Torrey (01:00:59.673)
Tell me about this Taylor Fritz stuff. You've got me concerned about, because I'm wanting to know what we saw different, but you haven't tipped your hat yet, which way you're going with Taylor Fritz.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:59.698)
Yeah, it was fun.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:15.006)
So, okay, in this particular match, I took some notes, right? Outside of that first service game, I think Taylor played great. I think Taylor pretty much played about as well as Taylor can play given the set of skills he possesses, right? He lacks the skills to win what I call the non-traditional or non-standard points, right?

Torrey (01:01:19.519)
huh. Okay.

Torrey (01:01:31.905)
Agreed.

Torrey (01:01:36.334)
you

Agreed?

Alvin Owusu (01:01:44.317)
if they get kind of like up in front and they have to be kind of handsy or whatever, he doesn't really like to come in and like force net opportunities. like he wants the bang from the baseline and he's pretty good at it, right? He's pretty good at it. He can spot serve with pace. He returned, I thought he returned phenomenally. Like he put a lot of pressure on Carlos' second serve specifically. Backhand returns, I cannot emphasize enough how well he hit that backhand return today.

Torrey (01:01:55.874)
Darn good. Nope. Nope. Nope. He might be one of the better American back, better American returners on grass that we've had. And that's with.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:14.898)
which gave him lots of...

Torrey (01:02:23.274)
I put him up there with the likes of, of, of Andre. I would even put, I would even put, who had a really, really good back and return, on the men's side that was.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:37.204)
American man with a good backhand. Actually, Genevrey had a pretty good backhand return too. Yeah.

Torrey (01:02:41.87)
Nep's, I was gonna say Nep's. Nep's is who kind of comes to mind. My point is, and that's, and for a guy that's in my opinion, have that great of a backhand, he's got a really good backhand return is what I was getting at.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:52.828)
And it's because he can generate speed off of a very short tape back on both wings, which I think looks even better on grass when he makes contact. Right.

Torrey (01:02:58.317)
right on both wings yeah

I couldn't agree more. I saw him here in Atlanta and he looked very, dare I say slow. And I'm not saying he's a slow player. I'm just saying he looked a little bit slow. The slower the court, to me the slower he is. But his returns make him look so much better on the grass. And he just knows to square up, get his balance and hit the ball. Keep going. I don't want to change your line of thought.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:24.2)
Yeah. Yeah. So from, and I think also in his, in his post-match press conference, he was very, he was one of ones that took some time and then came back and he was very, he was so cerebral about the way that he's looking at the matchup with himself and Carlos and the difference between Carlos and Janik. And he made, he made some points about like, he's like, when he plays against Janik,

Torrey (01:03:34.286)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:48.509)
That one is a little more straightforward because you know what Yannick's gonna do, he just does it really, really well. They almost play a similar game style, it's just that Yannick's footwork is so much better, allows him to hit it so much bigger, so that will throw you off a bit. He said the thing with Carlos is that Carlos has so many different ways he can beat you. He's like when the court gets slow, he moves so much better than Taylor does that it gets him out of position and it just becomes a very, very bad matchup for him.

Torrey (01:03:55.31)
Thank

Sure. Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:17.288)
grass is the best opportunity for him. But even then he has to almost be perfect because Carlos also makes adjustments very well. So Taylor mentioned that like he felt like he was on top of Carlos's second serve, but then Carlos got a read on that and then just started bombing like low 120s and then mixing up with like a heavy kicker at like 85 miles an hour and got him out of rhythm. know, early break, Carlos serves out fine, right? I think he got a,

Torrey (01:04:17.934)
100 %

Torrey (01:04:23.714)
Yep.

Torrey (01:04:28.888)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:46.964)
Carlos had about a five, six minute bad stretch at five all and five, six in the second set where he just kind of like took a brain dump, couldn't miss second serve returns like crazy. Yes, yes, that will happen. That will happen to him. And it did. then like Carlos.

Torrey (01:04:52.384)
Right, right, right, right. Yep. As he's apt to do. Yep.

Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:08.52)
This is why the Rublev match was so entertaining and why Carlos was so good because Rublev gave him enough balls to run around and hit. Carlos wants to run around and do stuff. Like just run around and do stuff. It gets him jacked up and then like the stuff, then the magic starts flowing out of his body, right? He never really got a chance to get loose and start doing stuff until the third set, right? That's kind of when it got, they both got into it. got a little longer and then Carlos pulled off some magic, got pumped up and then ran.

Torrey (01:05:19.692)
Sure.

Yeah, yeah, great.

Torrey (01:05:28.779)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:38.59)
Taylor had his chances, right? He definitely had his chances, especially in that breaker. He had set points, right? And we get into the, and I was texting with a buddy during the fourth set, I was like, it's weird that Carlos is obviously winning this match, but we are one bad service game away from this going five. And then once it goes five, I got no idea. We could be looking at a day where Taylor Fritz is in the final of Wimbledon and changes my entire Sunday, right?

Torrey (01:05:40.394)
Yep, for sure.

Adam. Sure. Sure.

Torrey (01:05:55.014)
for sure, for sure. I'm going five. Anybody's match? Sure, sure.

Torrey (01:06:04.522)
Right. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:06.677)
because we'll get to that, we'll get to that stuff right there. But my takeaway was like, Taylor gets it. He gets it. He's not as far from these guys as Ben is. And that was kind of like my, like when I watched Ben play Yannick and even heard his comments afterwards, it's like, I don't know, man. I just don't feel like Ben's gonna be able to close that gap.

Torrey (01:06:34.88)
That's interesting. Not where I expected you to go with this.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:35.262)
But Taylor has a chance, I know, I know, Taylor has a chance to pull it off here at Wimbledon one day. It ain't gonna happen, it's not gonna happen on hard, it's not gonna happen on clay, and he knows that. He knows that the foot speed issue, like it's gonna be too many balls in a point, but he has a legitimate chance here because I saw it, I watched it. I was like, Taylor Frisk, he could win this match.

Torrey (01:06:43.87)
All I'm

Torrey (01:06:51.5)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:04.5)
Like after he got broken from the time he got broken first game of the first set to blowing some chances in the tiebreaker in that fourth set I was like this is not a this is not a yeah, this is not a this is a he just didn't execute in a couple spots This is not a like he doesn't have a chance like he's right here in this match

Torrey (01:07:13.204)
And the fourth, yeah. He was there the whole time though. I'm with you. I'm with you.

Torrey (01:07:23.66)
I will say I took more stock in the third set routine. Anytime it got past surf first strike, return first strike scenarios, every longer point was Carlos period. It just so happened. And I'm looking at the stats, 80 % of first serve points one for Taylor. Taylor had 19 aces, Alvin 19. That's, that's a pretty good.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:40.894)
Sure. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:51.112)
Yeah, but that's, the thing, that's, that's repeatable for him though. But that's repeatable for him. That's within him though.

Torrey (01:07:53.259)
That's still a pretty good amount, Alvin, is what I'm saying. I don't disagree. What I'm saying is that that's why he held so much and the reason why it was so close. And in the second and in the fourth, he served first, right? So I just feel like those are, you have to look at that. You're playing downhill at that point, right? You're not playing uphill. We know, and got broke, but to your point, I only say it to say, right? I only say it to say.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:07.754)
Right, yeah, that's a big one, yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:12.787)
Well, he also served first in the first set too and got broken.

Torrey (01:08:22.014)
he can hold serve the best of them in general and on grass he does it even better. I just feel like.

outside of serving, I feel like his game is woefully behind on everything else. I hear your point and you qualify each statement very well on grass one day. I hear you. And one day and I'm with you. And I do that. We don't argue. do not disagree with each other on that whatsoever. I wonder. I wonder. And again, Carlos can be a little bit loose. I saw Carlos.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:40.019)
on grass here at this tournament.

Torrey (01:08:57.802)
trying a bunch of things today. I saw him volley more than I ever saw him volley. Alvin, he was at the net 41 times. 41 times. 131 of them. know, you think about that. That's a big number for a guy that loves the baseline. So I saved that. ahead. Thank you. Serve and drop volley at times, Alvin. Serve and drop volley. mean, which just shows you how far ahead and how much he was exploiting.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:04.607)
Yeah. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:11.859)
And he's doing it off of servant volley. Like he's creating opportunities to go.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:20.446)
Right, and-

Torrey (01:09:25.353)
The drop shot. This is my point. was mentioning earlier in that, the podcast about what that's going to do or what Eagle may need to do. What I was really hoping that Arena would have done more. Alvin, I don't know how many drop shots I counted. I got tired. I got tired of counting. How many times he went drop, reverse drop, fake drop, slice. I mean, it got to the point where if I am, I was proud of Taylor for continuing to run him down. I was, I was proud of him for not conceding that those points.

But I was also saying, Carlos is saying, I don't care how long this match goes today. I'm going to beat you and work on some, not work on some things in a sense that you're not that good. No, you're very good. I'm going to beat you another way today to work on this for me going forward. That's what I saw that match.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:09.206)
So this is the Carlos Alcaraz experience right now. He is unbothered by 127 players, the other 126 players in the draw, not Naveonik Center. He doesn't care. He's like, best out of five sets, I got all the time in the world. It doesn't matter what I do out here. I'm going to beat you eventually. So I'm just trying some things out.

Torrey (01:10:25.844)
Sure. Right.

Torrey (01:10:31.144)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:37.363)
because some of the things he did to Taylor today is what he's going to need to do against Yannick on Sunday. And he knows that. He's like, I need to get I need to get these reps off.

Torrey (01:10:41.502)
Thank you. And that's what I was getting at. That's why he. Right. And he wasn't bothered by the fourth set. It just so happened that Taylor served so unbelievably well that it had to go for and he was right there and he stubbed his toe a couple of times in those breakers. Well, the seven five and then the break in the second and I was the seven six and the breaker in the fourth. But I don't, I was never, I'm sure you weren't, we're never concerned that that match may go the other way. It was just more surprising at how close it was throughout.

I'm only saying it, Alvin to say at any given time that I think that Carlos was dialing it back, trying to beat him the way he was committed to saying, yep, I'm going to exploit his lack of speed. I'm going to, I'm going to come forward. I'm going to drop shot. I'm going to hit big and drop shot. I'm going to serve in volley and drop shot. And I will make the court go north south all day. He will have to get fast or die trying this match.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:38.185)
Yeah

Torrey (01:11:39.057)
And I feel like that's the thing that he was, and he was committed that process today. And I think that he also for future, for Sunday, he was saying, I'm going to get this certain ball thing down. Cause I realized I may need to have this up my sleeve and be pretty honed at it going forward. And you know, I think he's right, but I say it to say it was a very clear cut strategy of going forward and hitting short and making sure, Alvin, he had a couple of, he had a couple of touchdown shots.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:43.593)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:04.99)
Yeah.

Torrey (01:12:08.945)
a couple of touchdowns today that I was like, dude, I served in Bali for a long time. I just feathered the thing.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:12.117)
He hit one that Taylor hit at him pretty hard. He misreads it, gets out of the way to hit a forehand volley in the middle of the court, and then just drops it. What? What are we talking about, Carlitos? So I'm gonna finish my Taylor Fritz thing. All I'm saying is I watched that match.

Torrey (01:12:24.817)
drops it inside out. I remember that. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. For a fork.

Yeah, sure, sure. Amalgamation.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:39.741)
I listened to his comments afterwards. I compared them to my notes and I go, I take my hat off to you, Taylor Fritz. You ain't no punk. You're there. That match, two times out of 10, maybe three times out of 10, he could get that match. could see him, plays, Carlos is playing fantastic tennis right now. He is full Carlos mode right now. Let's say he's not and he's a little off.

Torrey (01:12:49.257)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (01:12:56.979)
Yeah.

Torrey (01:13:02.436)
Unwrapped. No doubt.

Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:08.297)
he comes out a little pissed off that day, Taylor could win that match. Whereas like I see him play against center, I'm like, I don't see how you beat this guy. Like there's not enough variance in the center performances for you to have enough opportunities for it to matter. Taylor has the, right, exactly. Taylor has the tools, Taylor has the tools on this surface to exploit a bad day.

Torrey (01:13:18.728)
Yeah. Right. Right, right, right. Right, right. He's centers variances are in micrometers. He's like, I was point, I was point two, two, one off today.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:37.887)
by Carlos Acaraz. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, exactly. whereas I don't feel that way about Ben. Right.

Torrey (01:13:39.174)
I agree. Or loose day to your point. I'm with you. I'll give you that. I'll give you that. That would Ben or Tommy or, and that's fair. I would also say Taylor's a bit older and I would say that he's got a little more experience on the surface. I would also say that Ben's still getting there. And I know you're not comparing the two. I think what you're really trying to say is that you feel like the others have no chance and you feel like Taylor has a chance. That's what I'm hearing you say.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:06.644)
Yes, that's what I, that is what I'm saying. Taylor, Taylor is he, like I said before, at NaZim, he is the fourth best grass court player on the men's tour right now where, and then he has a chance to, he will probably final this event at some point. I mean, he is older.

Torrey (01:14:09.167)
And I think.

Torrey (01:14:16.156)
Yeah, sure.

Torrey (01:14:24.456)
I agree with that. And we saw that when he lost that that fateful match against Nadal when Nadal had the had to pull out in the semi. He was right there with Nadal that day. I mean, let's be honest. And so and give him a give him his props. He was right there that day then and he's been he's resurfaced a few times since and he's continued to do well on this tournament obviously was no exception. So I agree with that. I agree with that. I want to get back to the point. Fair enough.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:32.585)
Yeah. Yeah, he was. He was.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:45.609)
Yeah, that's it.

Torrey (01:14:49.127)
And I'm glad you mentioned that and I will take a note in what you're saying and watch him with different glasses going forward. I just hope he can continue to the same thing on hardcore. The one thing I will say, and I've talked about this before, this is not to put any more feathers in the already full cap of Vianak and Carlos. They are playing, both of them are playing at such a superb level right now.

The comment I made to you after the French was not just how it may have been one of the best French opens I've ever seen and one of the best five setters I've ever seen, period. It was also, and I'm not sure they come down from this. And I remember telling you, I can't believe we were on wax, we'd already had cut. I'm worried about the rest of the tour because they're not going to just go into some cryogenic chamber.

You know, and cool off after that. They're going to continue and they are going to pick up where they left off. Wimbledon is not that far away. And now here we are again, coming into the same matchup. Alvin, I'm telling you, they're continuing to get better in this situation. This is going to be King Kong versus Godzilla right here. They're going to continue to keep getting new tricks, new, new powers as they do this. And I really hope those at home, those watching here and

tennis fans at large don't get bored of this rivalry, which in my opinion is starting to really get good because so much of it is countering what they thought they could do last week. I mean, the things they're starting to do and figure out are testing the limits of physics at this point, you know? And I'm really happy. I'm just telling you, Alvin, I have yet to see tennis be this exciting, be this.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:34.836)
Right, yeah.

Torrey (01:16:42.247)
constant and in motion and in being contested. were Wimbledon's when I grew up, Alvin, I'm sure you were not that far off in age, where Kevin Curran would rip off 35 to 40 aces. It was big for, it was cool for me as an 11 year old to watch a guy hit a big serve 30 times. But as a person watching tennis,

It got kind of boring. You know, the guy hit a big serve. He moved over to the side. The guy's a big serve, got double faults. You'd go through two games and see two ground-short points, right? And back then the coverage was grainy, so you really couldn't even see the ball. it was, I'm glad John said chalk flew up because I didn't see any chalk flew up on my TV back in the day. I said all to say these guys are contesting points every game. If there's an ace, you feel like, man, he stole one there.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:09.353)
Right, yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:17.012)
Right, yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:21.456)
boy, yeah.

Torrey (01:17:36.774)
I was an ace because they both returned so well. The points are long, the points are big and they're not pushing. You know, this is not old school Tracy Austin. I said to say this is really good to watch and I hope I don't hear from anyone. I'm tired of these guys being a final again. Buddy, watch the tennis. Get over yourself and watch the tennis because this is big time.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:57.575)
Yeah, no, I mean...

I think for the, so now we're at the, we've delayed the pleasure. We're at the show now. This is the show. This is the show. We are about an hour and 20 minutes into this podcast and now we are here. I was like every tennis fan, you want this. I earlier said that I didn't want it. I was almost reverse jinxing myself. I want this like anyone wants this. I don't.

Torrey (01:18:06.753)
Here you go.

Torrey (01:18:13.701)
We're here, we're warmed up now.

Torrey (01:18:25.113)
Right, right, right, yeah. Saying you didn't want it because you really want it that bad.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:29.745)
I didn't think, obviously the French Open Final was a whole different world of tennis, especially from fourth set on, right? no one expects to see that here. It could happen, something crazy could happen. No, mean, it's just, like I've said it before, clay allows for the most expression of tennis because there's so many things that you have to do and can do to win points on clay.

Torrey (01:18:36.815)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (01:18:44.621)
Are you reverse chasing yourself again?

Alvin Owusu (01:18:58.067)
you have to do everything. Whereas on grass, like the points are a lot shorter, a lot faster, there's more winners, more races, the whole deal, right? That's why it won't necessarily look like that, but it could still be great. And it's cool that it's now starting to happen, not only in finals, because they've met in a few finals now, but it's starting to happen in Grand Slam finals. Like last year they met in the French Open semis.

Torrey (01:19:19.184)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:23.093)
And a couple years ago they met in the Australian Open, I think round of 16, that night match that went five sets and they pulling out the tweeners and the slide, the whole deal was, it was nuts, but neither one of them were who they are now, right? And then at the end of last year, I remember if was in China or if in Japan, I think it was in China, they had a bang out match, best out of three. I Carlos took it seven, six, and the third got down like, got down like five, two, or five, one.

Torrey (01:19:30.191)
Yeah. Sure. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:51.146)
Maybe five in the third set tiebreaker and then just blitzed Yannick and didn't lose another one. He was hitting winners from everywhere. I remember watching that going like, are you kidding? What is happening right now? So that that happened on hardcore. Right. And then they, you know, there's a suspension and then they played on clay court in Rome. All right. First one back. Got it. Cool. And now and then they play the French Open final Pantheon match. And now here we are as tennis fans. I need us to

Torrey (01:19:51.237)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Torrey (01:20:18.574)
Again. And take and drive. Bam.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:20.757)
Breathe and take a second and realize what we are living through. The last time two men met in back to back Grand Slam finals was fed in a doll, French Open, Wimbledon, 2008, right? This is before internet tennis coverage is really a thing. This is before Twitter existed. This is before podcasts were really big. We are living it again, so you need to appreciate it.

Torrey (01:20:32.729)
Hmm. Well, yeah.

Yeah.

Torrey (01:20:44.612)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:49.093)
every single time it happens. And so here we are. Okay.

I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I assume, I assume Yannick is going to do what Yannick normally does. He's going to try to serve big and he is going to be running around doing the sliding thing, trying to hit the crap out of the ball, right? Trying to hit the ball past Carlos. Carlos has been serving big all tournament. Like he's, he's touched 20 aces a few times this tournament. That's, that's big for him. Like that is a, that is a level jump, but

Torrey (01:20:56.645)
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:24.425)
To your point about what he did to Taylor today, like serving out wide, coming in behind it, drop volley, which you also mentioned about Yannick sliding in those corners. Come out of that slide, Carlos is gonna go right back behind your ass. What are you gonna do then? Now that is the, I guarantee we see that at least 10 times on Sunday. Slide, come out of it, ball back in the same spot. That's the pot of gold right there.

Torrey (01:21:38.368)
He will. He will.

Torrey (01:21:44.366)
Yep. Yep. I agree with that.

Torrey (01:21:49.092)
Yep. Right. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:52.745)
because you shouldn't be sliding on grass court. I'm sorry. It's hard to come out of that.

Torrey (01:21:55.326)
hunt hundred percent, but, but we are also talking about sliding on drop shots. And so to my point, Novak tried said play several times to his demise. And I'm just saying it was, it was just fun to see him. it was fun to see him get his footing better in that match against Novak. And to your point, you shouldn't be sliding. Certainly not sliding that far after the shot, you know, even on clay you slide into, right? Not out, not after, but.

it seems like he's getting his footing more and more. could be the surface. It could be there's less, it's less slick. I don't know. But it, for whatever reason, I wasn't seeing that even early in the week. And I see it now. It just tells me that each match he plays is getting more comfortable. you know, whatever happened. second time he's had, second time he's been near death. You know, he almost that match against Hogaruna in Australia, this match against Grigor. I mean, this is a couple of times, but he comes out of each one like playing better. And you're like, dang it.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:40.873)
And there's more dirt. Like there's less grass, more...

Torrey (01:22:55.812)
You know, so it's, I don't know, this whole thing is gonna be, it's gonna be a fun match. I'm looking forward to it, I really am. And I'm not, you don't ever expect what happened to the French, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some more fireworks. You know, I would not be surprised at all.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:11.369)
I would like to see them both play well early. Like if we can get into it, like you know, the first set was a little, at the beginning of the friendship and final, like Carlos had a bunch of chances on Yannick's serve early and then didn't get the break and then like they got into some long, like both of them were just a little bit off, but Carlos was just a little worse off and it took a while for that match to get like good, like really good. I hope they can.

Torrey (01:23:30.563)
More off. Yeah.

Torrey (01:23:36.001)
Yup, I agree. I agree.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:38.997)
but we're in the shooter's paradise here, right? I wanna see them both just going for it. what does the story want? What is the story that's waiting to be written at the end of this book?

Torrey (01:23:40.728)
Yeah.

my god

Torrey (01:23:50.418)
You have to tell me Mr. Macro, what does the tennis gods look for in this one here? You tell me.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:59.346)
Like Carlos said, I'm not gonna just keep beating him all the time, I've won the last few, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna keep beating him. He's going to beat me eventually. It's going to happen. This is a rivalry. There's two sides to this, right?

Torrey (01:24:12.813)
Yeah. Always. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:16.722)
Is it going to happen here? I do believe. Is it going to happen here? God, I just probably probably not probably not here.

Torrey (01:24:19.235)
Hmm.

Torrey (01:24:23.991)
Yeah. Yeah. My, my, my gut, my gut says, no, my gut says not here. However, as I often say, it's possible, not likely. And he's playing better Carlos, not worse, better. I feel like it will be very, very contested. I think on the

Alvin Owusu (01:24:46.132)
Better than, better than... He's playing better than.

Torrey (01:24:51.638)
No, I'm saying Carlos is playing better than Carlos normally plays.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:52.854)
What do mean?

Alvin Owusu (01:24:56.886)
Gotcha, okay, okay, that's what I was looking for better than Carlos normally plays. He's playing he is playing well right now

Torrey (01:24:57.986)
Yeah. And I'm saying he's not playing worse. He's playing better. remember my five words. He's playing well right now. I mean, he is playing extremely well right now. And that's, you can't say that, that, uh, that Yannick is not, but I just say to say he's between his hitting his ripping his, his, his feel his, his, his drop shots, his gets, he is very comfortable on that stage out there. And there is not much.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:06.825)
playing better.

Torrey (01:25:27.714)
that he, he doesn't usually look very, you know, flustered. Uh, there's times when he's a little more tight, he's smiling less. And then you can see when he starts smiling, he, can tell he's getting, he's a little more comfortable with, with what's happening, a little less pressure on him. But there were times I didn't see him not smile today. I mean, he looked like he was having fun out there. And to me, that's his secret sauce. If he can keep it fun and keep, and keep it that way, he just enjoys beating you.

and enjoys winning. I don't think it's the wins, the championships and all that. He's one those kinds of guys, I just want to win. And not in a win, like I have to beat you, but like, I enjoy it. I enjoy being on the stage and doing what I do. And, you know, I enjoy the harder you try, the more, you Monfee had always had this level of showmanship where he loved it when it got close. He loved it when it got tight. He loved when you drop shot it. It was almost like,

Alvin Owusu (01:26:03.764)
It's showtime. It's showtime out there.

Alvin Owusu (01:26:09.515)
Yeah.

Torrey (01:26:22.621)
He got a chance to show you more of what he could do. Carlos is just a much more well-rounded and more, you know, very well, you know, healed version of, of Gale in terms of his game. He just does everything pretty well. And the more, the more competitive it is, it seems to me that he enjoys that even more. So that's what I'm looking forward to on Sunday is just a really good, hard fought match that is going to be fun. Great for the viewers and.

I think we're in for another treat. really do. I think we're in for another treat. You know, I don't want to jinx it by saying it'll go another five and there'll be another epic one, but that we don't know. That magic happens. You can't create it, but you darn sure can't bottle it. But it's very possible and very likely that that match will go the distance and it'll be a great match for everybody to see. And it'll be another great one for the agents, I think. As big as the French, who knows? But will it be another good one? 100%.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:21.109)
And I'm gonna, I was going to ask you to like give me your quick picks on both of those finals. I'm not going to. If you've listened this far, I think people know how you feel about this. I would say that in this match, same way I looked at the, know, kind of the looking at the two players profiles and going through the checklist, Carlos should win this match. I feel he should win this match. He's two time champion, like 29 and three on grass in his life, right? He has,

Torrey (01:27:38.817)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:50.002)
more things to draw from, which I think is required on this, I think is required on this surface. And he's playing, well, would say compared to his standard, he's playing better compared to his standard than Yannick is playing compared to his right now. Right now. Let's not forget Yannick was down two sets of love against Grigor before Grigor blew his shoulder out, right? Right, so he is not without fault.

Torrey (01:27:51.922)
there's now 23 and 10

Torrey (01:28:06.94)
Agreed. Agreed. Agreed.

Torrey (01:28:12.32)
Grigor. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:19.793)
So from that being said, he probably should win. He probably should win. And then from my macro story, what should happen, we should.

Torrey (01:28:24.032)
It's certainly his to win. He's the defending champ.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:29.951)
I would love for him to win this match and then I would love for Senator when the US Open and then we go to Turin and we're battling for it. That's what I actually want. I want Turin to matter. That's what you wanted. That's what you wanted. That's what you wanted. That's what you wanted. But I do think on paper, I do think when you look at it, like it would make sense for Carlos to win. There's no reason besides the onyx of things that he shouldn't. Right. And I think that's.

Torrey (01:28:33.408)
Yes, open. I Ah, here you go. That's it. Now it comes out. Now it comes out. That's what I've been wanting the whole night.

Finally, finally got to that point.

Torrey (01:28:54.28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:59.625)
That's good. are, God, we're blessed as tennis fans. are, we are blessed. We got crap in Australia. actually we got the Madison, we got the Madison-Savalinca match. That was awesome. Madison's run was, Madison's run held up the tournament. That was awesome to live through. French Open was amazing. It was like the best Grand Slam. It was amazing. This was weird in the first few days. A lot of.

Torrey (01:29:02.912)
there.

Torrey (01:29:09.321)
Yeah, that was big, that was big.

Torrey (01:29:16.167)
Yep, yep.

Torrey (01:29:22.205)
Yeah, the whole time was pretty good. I think, honest.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:26.643)
Yeah, the friendship was perfect. Great tennis. It was perfect, perfect. This tournament, little strange in the beginning, lot of upsets, which made to the back end of week one, front end of week two, and a little weird, but we got two on both sides. Four really good, three and a half really good matchups. And now these finals that we've been presented with. But Linda, I'm.

Torrey (01:29:28.307)
Yeah, great tennis all the through. Yeah.

Torrey (01:29:38.719)
Man, carnage.

Torrey (01:29:56.069)
I was wondering what match you were going with. Yeah. I have a quick question before we put a pin in it.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:57.717)
I'm glad you showed up. Yeah, it was that one. It was that one. I think we as tennis fans are, we're blessed with these two finals.

Torrey (01:30:08.615)
a hundred percent. I'm going to save my question for later. Cause I know you like Mira. I was just going to ask you what you thought Eega and Mira would have done.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:14.531)
okay.

Torrey (01:30:24.669)
Very different games, obviously. Just in general, I mean.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:26.197)
Hmm. Yeah, that's an interesting question. feel like there's, Amira does not like the speed. Like it's just the surface is a little fast and Belinda's flat ball, she struggled with it. I think Eaglet would give her more to play with.

Torrey (01:30:42.623)
I get that. I'm not talking about, I'm saying should Mira have won going against Eega?

Alvin Owusu (01:30:49.949)
Probably not. No. No, I think you still would have beat her.

Torrey (01:30:52.349)
Okay, ego wouldn't have any problems with merit either is what you're saying.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:57.493)
Yeah, I think Amira her her skill is obvious her potential is obvious She still does some kids stuff which which limits her ability to like we've talked about this at nauseam, right? It's it's two weeks of tennis You got it. If you want a grand slam, you got a you got to be there mentally for two weeks You can't no checkouts your tennis can your tennis can take a dip here and there but you can't check out right and Especially on women's side when you don't have five sets to play with right you only got two She checked out a little bit in both of those sidebreakers

Torrey (01:31:10.398)
Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Right.

Torrey (01:31:18.707)
Right. Right.

Torrey (01:31:24.315)
Right. She did. Yeah. To go home. Sure. And it'll take her a couple years, but she'll be there. I was just going to bring that up. But to your point, I still think we would have gotten to this place. Yeah. Yeah. They really are.

Alvin Owusu (01:31:27.429)
enough to go home, right? So that's that's the that's her match. That's her maturation journey. It's high. It's the it's the

Yeah, yeah. The stakes are high in two or three. Yeah, the stakes are high in best out of three. It's hard, it's really, really hard, especially with the sped up surface. You don't get a lot of chances. You almost have to be perfect. So that's where I leave it. I'm tired. I have no more words left. We're just gonna go, we're gonna watch.

Torrey (01:31:49.886)
Yeah.

Torrey (01:31:53.438)
Oof.

Torrey (01:32:00.637)
Yeah.

Torrey (01:32:08.424)
Done.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:08.789)
We're gonna watch, gonna watch it happen. We're gonna watch these last two chapters get written and I'm excited. I'm excited.

Torrey (01:32:13.055)
I love it. Fresh, ink and, and for a cup of coffee or a cold beverage, whatever we got, I'm looking forward to it as well. I will let you know about that and we'll see if we can make Sunday happen. I look forward to it.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:25.821)
Okay. All right. With, with that being said, I'm Alvin that's Tori pinning it. We're out.

Torrey (01:32:33.215)
Peace.