Ep. 55: Tales from the US Open | Scoville Jenkins shares lessons from playing Federer, Nadal and Roddick at the US Open

Alvin Owusu (00:01.55)
And welcome to another edition of the best three podcast. I'm still Alvin, that's still Tory and we are joined by Scoville Jenkins. You know, I figured it was only right for us to have Sco back on the pod. One, by popular demand and two, as Kalamazoo just wrapped up and the US Open's right around the corner. It only makes sense to to someone who's

who's seen both. was a 2004 champion at Kalamazoo, earned the wild card to take on Andy Roddick in that year's US Open. Before we dig into today's conversation, gentlemen, how are we doing?

Sco (00:49.258)
Alvin, we're doing great. Appreciate you guys having me back on. Last time was great. Look forward to this time as well.

Torrey (00:56.044)
Yep. No doubt. So, yeah man. I know buddy. So, and Sco can appreciate this that when he was, when we were training together Alvin, it was a couple early mornings, Sco's senior dropped him off and he was getting, you know, helping my little one get Cheerios. You know I'm saying? And Zaev still talks about it. Yeah, Sco helped me get me Cheerios.

Alvin Owusu (00:56.77)
The people have been asking about you, Sco. They've been begging, when's Sco coming back? When's Sco coming back?

Sco (00:58.711)
Yeah.

Well, these kids are holding me down, man. I got three young kids. They're holding me down. They're holding me down.

Alvin Owusu (01:18.519)
Right.

Torrey (01:23.286)
got my breakfast on the table. And I'm like, well, now Scott's got his own little ones. He's putting Cheerios on the table. You know what mean? And I just, it's funny now that my youngest is going, started grad school up in Boulder. We were just there all last week and here you are now got your, got your own little ones, man. You go into parent orientation. You know what mean? So it's just funny. Alvin's got some young ones. It's so cool to me having worked with you both to see you both being great fathers, man, and just being great individuals. I mean, that's really, as far as I'm concerned.

Sco (01:36.088)
Oh man, that's nice.

Torrey (01:53.131)
You know, not to say this, I don't want to miss this in the closing. I want to say that right now as a coach who's seeing you both grow up, man, you guys are two great, great people, man. And I'm happy to have been on the other side of the net from you. Happy to have been on the same side of net with you for a few summers as well. And like I said, happy to be on this part tonight.

Alvin Owusu (02:11.758)
Well, I appreciate the word story. And we're all lucky to still be here together. We all go back a pretty good ways and it's nice to be able to kind of kick around and tell these stories and kind of reminisce from different vantage points. Reminiscence? Okay, so I won't waste too much time. We'll get into it and then we'll kind of see where this goes. I think this should be a fun one. So let's go 2004, right?

Torrey (02:19.244)
Sure.

Torrey (02:27.648)
Reminiscent, la laissant, old school.

Alvin Owusu (02:41.678)
You're the three seed Kalamazoo. went back and did my Denver research. pretty much were dog... I wrote it down, I wrote it down. Nah, you were a three seed and dog walking people all the way through that tournament. Didn't drop a set before you got to the, I mean think maybe the finals. Lost one set in the finals against Matt, but.

Sco (02:46.668)
Was that the three seed? Damn, I thought that was like a seven, I thought that was a seven eight seed, okay.

Torrey (02:53.19)
Now you're

Torrey (03:03.255)
Yeah. Scottie Ud's got one set off him after two sets down. He played phenomenal. And by the way, shout out to Scott Alzma and Tom Walker and the whole KZOO crowd. We were not in a friendly environment where we go. You know what I mean? But I think me, was packed. Scott Alzma, Alvin, if you may recall, was from Kalamazoo. So the whole town was all out in full force.

Sco (03:17.495)
No, it was packed. I remember walking in, it was packed. It was packed.

Alvin Owusu (03:24.778)
Right, yeah.

Sco (03:27.734)
So if you remember that stadium, was standing room only. It was packed.

Torrey (03:31.969)
And there was a row where me, Sco, and the family we were staying with had a row that was pro-Sco. I mean, you me, Alvin, I'm a pretty big guy. When I got up and, you know, Sco, Sco, I mean, I had literally 3,500 looking me like, you cheering for, brother? And I'm like, hey, Sco, Sco. I was like, just to make sure you knew you weren't alone, brother. But that crowd was out in full force. Half of them didn't even know tennis, but they were there cheering Kalamazoo's own.

Sco (03:47.648)
Mwahahahaha

Sco (03:53.303)
you

Alvin Owusu (03:59.938)
Hometown kid.

Torrey (04:01.581)
And Scott, great, great dude as well, always was. And Tom Walker, who really kind of first Kalamazoo, right? Sco took us in, helped us get some good hits, took us to the caravans. I remember the first time he got, Sco was hit with Rajiv Ram, who had come up to train a few days before. Raj is already in the, we called him Rampras at the time, because his game was so much like Pete. But Rampras was hitting some balls in with Sco. He would only win the 16th, if not mistaken, early those years, right Sco?

Sco (04:10.078)
Yep, he did.

Alvin Owusu (04:21.164)
Yeah

Sco (04:22.258)
Mmm, yep.

Torrey (04:29.825)
Maybe that was one of my first ones, but you were probably still 14. Sco, if I'm not mistaken, when you played your first one in the 16s, but long story, Alvin, was, I take it to that time back in the day, but bro, that final was rough. mean, Sco literally went in to slay the dragon. it was, and I don't think you ever played, Scott, before Hedges and Sco. I don't think you ever played them. Right.

Sco (04:51.798)
Never, that was my first time. Doubles, doubles we played but for singles, practice a lot together but never played in a match.

Torrey (04:59.112)
Yeah. Bye.

Alvin Owusu (05:00.558)
Well, let's go backwards just a little bit, right? So you played Scott in the final, but in the semi, right, you play Phil Simmons, right? And up to this point, like your role in, Phil had a tough, tough quarterfinal match against Odesnik, right? And I think Odesnik might've been the number one seed in that event, probably going in. Yeah, yeah. And Phil took him out, I think six in the third, right? So coming into that match, you've got Phil, you guys play a tougher set.

Sco (05:17.941)
Yeah, he was at he had a high ATP ranking at that at that age.

Torrey (05:20.523)
Yeah, they did.

Alvin Owusu (05:29.73)
goes into a breaker and then you win it, he pulls out after that, right? So now we're moving from the semifinal on to the final, right? And for those who don't know, the winner of the boys 18s, USCA national hard courts gets an automatic wild card into the main draw of the US Open, right? It is the crown jewel in US junior tennis. Like this is the prize, right? So now we're moving into that final, right? So you know what you're playing for.

Torrey (05:53.572)
.

Alvin Owusu (05:59.96)
This is effectively what you've been training for. What were you thinking going into that match?

Sco (06:06.645)
You know, I remember that day I woke up not feeling like it was a regular day. Um, I wasn't more intense. I wasn't like really nervous. I didn't understand really the situation. I just knew I was playing pretty well and I'm in the finals and if you win, get a wild card. And I'm a pretty cocky junior. I'm already like top 10 in the world. I T F you know, top in the nation. I'm doing some futures. Got some ATP points like playing. So, you know, I'm coming in thinking like,

Torrey (06:07.424)
.

Sco (06:37.365)
I'm going to win. It's going to be good. And I remember having breakfast with the people I was staying with. The Carters, remember them. Shout out to the Carters in Kalamazoo. Great people. The dad, he played football at Notre Dame. And I'm eating by myself. And he comes down and he never, he's always joking, joking guy, always saying something, never actually serious. And he sits down and he starts talking to me. I think he can sense that I'm just like, yeah, I'm going to go out and play. We'll see what happens.

Torrey (06:46.56)
Yes, sir.

.

Sco (07:07.029)
And he told me a great story. said, my freshman year in Notre Dame, I was running back and we went to the Nass championship. And before the game, I thought it was just another game. You know, like we're so good. This is Notre Dame. He goes, and we lost. And I never went back to the Nass championship ever again. Like in my years of college, like I really took it for granted, you know, the position we were in because this Notre Dame will always win.

Torrey (07:22.038)
Hmm.

Sco (07:36.22)
And he told me that he was just like, don't take it for granted today. When he told me that that fired me up, I was like, I'm not losing today. Like this is I'm here, you know, like it's time to do it here. And so I remember having a good warm up with Tory on the back courts and you know, Tory never really warmed me up, but ain't nobody else in the tournament. So, you know, Tor, me and Tor, we had a great warm up. I felt good. You know, we always had our routines.

Torrey (07:40.532)
Yeah.

Albert, let me add a little context. So the finals of KZOO, the courts are.

Sco (08:03.251)
I remember coming out in the match. I remember Tory remembers this too. I hit this backhand angle early in the match and that kind of, that kind of settled me down. And I was like, if I'm hitting this, I'm feeling this today. And I just took off.

Alvin Owusu (08:19.948)
Yeah, I would love to get your perspective on that same period there.

Torrey (08:26.335)
You know the numbers go better than me. There's three courts that are in the stadium situation. There's two more courts on the other side of the bleachers and there's four courts in the back, Sco. Is it five and four? Six in the back? I thought it was five and four. Let's say it's six in the back. Five in the front. So there's three and two. Is my memory correct on that one? So there's bleachers on the side, the wall.

Sco (08:39.251)
Six, maybe six, six in the back, I think.

Sco (08:51.453)
Yep, three and two in the front, yep.

Torrey (08:56.221)
The tower on, if you're looking at the courts and you're in the main stands, the towers to your left, three courts, the wall, three, on the end of third court, there's bleachers going this way. there's not really bleachers on the other two. That's mainly focused on those three courts. So Scow's on the middle court, court two, court one and court two, the nets are down and the linesmen are in the alleys of court one and court three. Am I drawing the picture for you, Alvin? Scow's backhand angle.

Okay. Almost hits the leg of the ref of the linesman on the service sideline on court one. He's away from me. He hits this backhand angle, Alvin. I've always worked on Sco's angles and other shots, just make sure you had all the shots, right? Brian had a phenomenal angle, Behaylee, and I was like, man, you want an angle, you gotta have an angle like Behaylee. Behaylee had a sick angle. He would just roll that thing off you. It was just ridiculous. Sco hits this angle, Alvin.

Sco (09:48.531)
Yeah.

Torrey (09:54.683)
Scott and Scott's six three give or take rangey strong fast. Scott couldn't get the angle back because he would have ran into the official. Now he's in court one on the other side has to go through the fit, the linesman and the chair to get this ball back. And he's almost kind of looking like that's gotta be an interference, you know, for this guy in my way, but the ball was legitimately about to be in the service box of court one.

Think about what I'm saying now. Dude, it was to this day, one of the nastiest backhand angles I've seen, and he held it so long, you just knew it was gonna go to line. And so when he whipped this angle, I was like, I was like your boy LeBron James in the commercial. Lord. I was like, Lord. That backhand angle, I was like, snap. He about to get pops, he's about to get pops.

Alvin Owusu (10:25.016)
Heavy. Heavy.

Sco (10:28.006)
Ha ha ha ha ha

Alvin Owusu (10:43.31)
So, okay.

So it's early.

Torrey (10:51.4)
Puff shoes. It was one of those angles that I was like, he's playing good today. Anyway, I wanted to get some context to that because it wasn't just an angle. It was a shot that the crowd was like,

Sco (10:52.601)
Hehehehe

Alvin Owusu (11:05.422)
And that'll do something to you. Like that'll, like you hit one of those early and it's like, oh, it's like you mentioned, it's like it's game on, right? Like it's like, I'm putting on a show today. But this is not a normal match, right? Up until this very point, you have played nothing but best out of three set matches, right? This is the only junior match that is three out of five, right? I guess it's because you are playing for a chance to go to the US Open. So they just.

Sco (11:12.199)
Yeah.

Sco (11:22.31)
Yep, never played throughout of five.

Torrey (11:24.849)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (11:32.366)
crank it up for you a little bit. How did that change? Did that have any impact on the way that you approached the match and how you worked your way through it?

Torrey (11:35.29)
Okay.

Sco (11:40.369)
Not really. mean, Torrey just worked me out to death, as you know, out on the practice court. So going five sets was nothing. Like if I can't go five sets, then I'm not trying hard in practice, basically. So going five sets was like, for me, was always the longer the better. So I didn't feel like, know, I always remember I'm playing against another junior my age too, who has not gone three out of five as well. So it's not like, you know, I have an advantage. Someone has an advantage here.

Alvin Owusu (11:45.112)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey (12:05.921)
Right.

Sco (12:10.674)
You know, Tori can talk about this too. As a kid like that, I was really spacey. Like I really didn't understand what was really going on, which was great actually. Like I didn't understand like, you know, I had no idea until I wanted, I was the first African American to win Kalamazoo. I had no idea until I wanted, no idea, no clue. You know, I didn't know, was just going out here and competing and just like, you know what?

Alvin Owusu (12:19.406)
What do mean? What do mean?

Torrey (12:29.633)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was a tough ride. Keen feeder. Keen feeder in the main.

Alvin Owusu (12:31.596)
Right.

Sco (12:37.316)
I remember going to my first Kalamazoo at Tori, getting to the chorus unseated. My second one, losing to Vaheed and the Simmies, and the third one feeling heartbroken. My first year 18 is playing terrible and didn't play well at all. And so it was, that's my man. He just chopped me up, chopped me up.

Torrey (12:54.013)
Man, talk about, didn't Keane play it at Washington? Isn't that an organ? That's what it was. I thought it some organ Washington too, Alvin, I'm gonna add a little context here well because this is, you again, you're kind of bringing some things back, you're bringing some jogs and some memories loose. Skull was probably the most conditioned player I had as well. We would do an hour to two hours of a private in the morning, pretty much every morning. And then we would start drills.

Sco (12:57.359)
He played at Oregon. He played at Boise. He's from Oregon, but he played at Boise. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (13:04.046)
Okay. Please do.

Torrey (13:23.645)
So drills were really at that time, a chance for Sco to do in live ball that we had just worked on for an hour, an hour and a half. You know what I'm saying, Sco. Then we had lunch. Shout out to Rocco Vizzari and you had the condition with Rocco most days. And then he came back out and did the second session. So I never felt like conditioning, which I was a conditioning coach. was never, know, Sco was always well conditioned. That was never an issue. He would do two or three sets in.

Sco (13:33.926)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey (13:53.596)
morning, he would do another three sets in the afternoon. was just, you know, sets weren't a problem. If anything, I felt that was a, to his point, that was more of a strength, you know, the longer the match went better. But this match here to me, as far as Kalamazoo was concerned was, it wasn't so much scope. You can test the scope. Kalamazoo could be colder, right? In some mornings it could be hot. I mean, it was always a little different. What?

Really to me, and this is something that I don't think a lot of players understand. You touched this about the locker room, about the US Open, but think about the first year you played Kalamazoo.

That was also a locker room. That was also a, who's this kid? Who's this Jenkins kid? Right? So that to me is the next, I'm going to say level to reach. The best year Sco had was the year he took third and didn't win Kalamazoo. Sco got a wild card into the quali that year. It's the second year of 16th. He gets a wild card in the quali, not into the main.

What was your boy's name? Pelgason Travis didn't help. Then Travis went in 16th beat Vaheed and all truth be told and Vaheed may even say that my boy Vaheed would even say. Sco was a little better than me. I just beat him that day. But Sco log got it off to a little bit of a tough start that match and ended up losing the break in the second. Vaheed lost to Travis big left in the planet Georgia, Texas. I'm trying to remember Scott. I'm pretty sure good player. Sco gets.

Sco (15:09.515)
He beat Vahid in the final, he did.

Sco (15:31.312)
Yep, yep.

Torrey (15:35.194)
the better end of the deal, Alvin, because he got three matches in the qualies of the US Open junior.

Alvin Owusu (15:43.042)
Right, okay. So is that what happens if you finish third or something like that, you end up...

Sco (15:49.84)
It could but I I remember Tory at that time, I didn't have a lot of ITF points. wasn't, didn't, I did not have a lot of ITF. So like, I remember before it was like, I mean, US Open playing juniors, all that was a big thing. And I remember Tory was like, you're gonna have to win it. You know, like, you're gonna have to win it to get something. Yeah, you're gonna have to win it, you know, and so.

Torrey (15:55.355)
Didn't have a lot of points, right?

Torrey (16:06.553)
right to get in right and I think I think they gave him some love shout out to the USDA for giving some love but again it was qualities and they almost kind of gave to him like USDA does a little bit left-handed like hey we'll get you we'll get you in the qualities we'll see what happens why I like to do your favor and and it was a favor Alvin and and Scott you can appreciate this he played three kids that were not quite

Sco (16:21.619)
Ha ha ha.

Torrey (16:32.251)
I think what it's 64, 60 or so. What's the cutoff score? 56, something like that on the cutoff for ITF rankings. It's high, right? Because you got wild cards to get in. Plus you got, you know, the qualities, right? So let's say it's 56. I think I'm pretty close to the number of 64 draw. So you're talking about the top 50 kids in the world getting in. And at this point, it's late in the year. So it's only the top 50. It's not early. It's not like in ITF, your number rolls off in January. It's not like a rolling calendar. All the

Sco (16:37.185)
I mean, it's just hot. It's hot. It's hot. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (17:01.11)
If you were decent in January, okay. If you were, but you played all year. Gail Monfies, for example, won the junior Australian. He won junior French. He won junior Wimby. So just to kind of give people some historical context, Kevin Anderson by who went on to be top 10, by the way, never made a junior slam in those years because his ranking wasn't quite high enough. So just kind of give people some context of where this thing goes. Scow beats three players.

And in my opinion was the best thing ever happened to him because he got three matches. He goes into the main draw Alvin and he wins three more, four more. Lose in the quarters to Baghdadis, Marcos Baghdadis. Shout out to Marcos if you're watching this. Alvin, every one of the other players that got wild cards in the main lost first round.

Alvin Owusu (17:53.826)
Right. It's a tricky proposition, those wild cards.

Torrey (17:55.584)
It's a tricky proposition and none of them have great experience either. They're all walking around, you know, playing like peacocks, but didn't have matches. We'll talk about this later as the conversation goes there. You heard it right here. The wild card into the qualities was probably a better serve situation. I still feel even for a Keizu champ because it and give them several of them, not the wild card necessarily into the main, which is great.

Nice little check, nice little experience. But since Jimmy, since Aaron Crickstein, many haven't done, gone deep with that wild card. And how could you play against top 50 in the world men? Now I won't, I won't get there. Fair enough. But I wanted to mention quality wise in the junior even, I don't think a lot of them had that level of experience. And so to me, I'll just want to put the, put that precursor out there.

Alvin Owusu (18:36.77)
Right. Well, let's not dance too far down. Yeah.

Torrey (18:50.381)
That was really what set Sco up on the stage for the next couple of years because going into 18s the second year, Sco reached top four that year in ITF. A handful of good results, semis of Wimbledon, quarters of Australia, semis of doubles in Australia with Novak and truth be told, and Novak, you're watching this, you can appreciate this. Novak was not the Novak that we all know now. The brother serve was not there and his form was suspect. So, and his volleys were, you know what mean? Just saying.

So I say that to say, Novak improved a ton in the next two or three years and clearly he's best of all time now. But I say it to say, it wasn't like he was carrying Scho, was a little more the other way around. Scho had a great year that year. With every tournament, he got better. And that to me is really why he walked into Kalamazoo with a little bit more of the favorite. It's because how well he played all year. And Kalamazoo just kind of tied the ball around it.

Alvin Owusu (19:45.944)
So, as you're moving through that match, so for those, can go back and check it, seven, five, six, one, six, three. Pretty straightforward, right? That's a pretty straightforward match. So, you finish that match, right? You're the Kalamazoo champ. At what point does the preparation for, and I don't remember, you can tell me, what's the distance between finals, finish, and then the US Open? Because I really want to dig into that.

Sco (19:54.615)
Yeah, sound about right,

Alvin Owusu (20:15.98)
that time period right there.

Sco (20:16.526)
That's a great question. at that time, right before I won Kalamazoo, a few months before I signed Pro Contra Octagon to go on Pro. And as soon as I won Kalamazoo, it the first African American. I get back home, a lot of media, I'm on the radio, I'm on TV. I have some responsibilities to do. But I do remember like wanting to

Torrey (20:40.665)
Right.

Sco (20:41.901)
practice and just like man, just playing great and just wanting to play. But there were some responsibilities. The business side is starting to kick in now of the tennis that I have not had any experience with. I remember the day I found out I was playing number two seed defending champ, Andy Roddick first round. I was at Ryke club of the South now lifetime finishing in practice with Torrey and Torrey told me and it was kind of like, are you serious? Are you joking? Like

Alvin Owusu (21:10.946)
Wait, so you're playing Andy first round, right? He is the defending champion, he wins his first and only Grand Slam at the US Open 2003, year prior. So that match you guys played, what, Monday or Tuesday of the event, something like that, one of the first two days. The draw comes out the Thursday prior, so you're still at home. You guys have been training, you haven't gone to New York yet, and you're at RCS, and that's when you find out you're playing Andy. Okay, so does anything change at that point?

Torrey (21:18.82)
Okay.

Sco (21:25.515)
Yeah.

Torrey (21:40.408)
Yeah.

Sco (21:40.86)
I mean, I'm like, wow, this is TV. man.

Alvin Owusu (21:46.089)
Night match against the defending champ.

Sco (21:48.893)
And Andy has been great to me, especially as a pro. This was my beginning of meeting him. I didn't know him at all. I had been to a USDA camp when Davis Cup played, USA played Sweden in Delray. And a lot of my age group, went to a camp there and we trained and watched. But Andy wasn't talking to us. He's professional. He was looking around, but he wasn't talking to us.

Alvin Owusu (21:55.532)
I was gonna ask like when it did you know him at that point? Okay

Sco (22:17.324)
So I never met Andy, really. I maybe knew him a little bit, he maybe knew of me, but I didn't really know Andy at that time. And then we ended up being pretty great after.

Alvin Owusu (22:26.83)
Okay, okay, so you find out you're playing Andy. What are those next two days look like before you guys head out to New York? Does that change practice any or is it still like, okay, same thing, just we know who the person.

Sco (22:41.185)
No, it didn't really change practice. It was the same thing. I just do remember like, you know, I had a grand slam like that. Like the practices like Tory was setting me up with, was like, I remember Sarge Tarkeesian practicing with him one day, then the next person like an hour later and Tory was like, you know, it was new for both of us. Like I think Tory understood, hey, if I want to get practice courts and I want to get some, I got to sit at this desk, you know, and I got to wait, you know, or I got to find some people that were, everyone's looking.

Torrey (22:59.06)
Right.

Torrey (23:05.847)
Thank

Sco (23:09.12)
You know, and so Tori did really great at like, remember just playing sets with everybody, you know, like nonstop.

Torrey (23:14.008)
Yeah. Maybe a few too many. But I remember one day, Scott was like, but I didn't get a chance to finish this set here. Hey, got another set over here. Almagro's over here. 11 o'clock. We got to go. You had Chung Crack Lee. And I was like, hey, hey, sorry. We got to go. We got Almagro on court five. We got to go. And I was like.

Sco (23:25.33)
Yeah, I mean, and then, you know.

Sco (23:32.404)
And let's say, let's say I wasn't playing good in that set or Torrie saw someone we can work on. He'd be like, go outside. going outside. going to finish the practice later. You know? You know? So like, it was, it was always like, Hey, we got stuff to work on. got stuff to do, you know, like in play. And so, it was, I was 17 years old and I didn't know what the hell was going on at all. I was just like, dude, of course it's my dream to play us open. And I'm here. Wow. This stadium is humongous.

Torrey (23:38.807)
You

Yeah.

Torrey (23:53.271)
Yeah.

Sco (24:01.673)
You know, I'm going to play on this. I'm in the big boy locker room before I was in the juniors in the little boy locker room. You know, and going through that, I'm in the big boy locker room now.

Alvin Owusu (24:11.63)
Yeah, so what are the differences between like you're, just the previous year you played in the junior year, so you've been qualified and like Tori talked about, and then now you're playing in the seniors' main draw. What are what are kind of the stark differences even though you're on the same, you're at the same place?

Sco (24:28.684)
You know, lot of it in your mind as a junior, you're like, and this is the false reality of Junior Slams is, you know, I put enough of them, like, I'm gonna be here all the time. You know, I'm playing Junior Slams, I'm going far enough and I'm gonna be a pro doing the same thing. You know, so it was like, hey, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I didn't realize like, you know, I hadn't put enough futures yet. I barely played challengers at that time, you know, and it was not like it is today. was...

Torrey (24:53.618)
Yeah. Right.

Sco (24:56.043)
less more, far less tournaments than it is today, especially challenge, especially on challenger side in the U S. Um, so it was always the blur. I was just, I just followed Tory, whatever Tory told me follow his lead. I mean, since I was 14, Tory put me in, put me in the right direction with my tennis in my life. So I just followed that. Remember getting some good practices and we don't know what to expect, you know, coming out on the court. I remember, I do remember I never saw Andy until right before I played in the locker room.

I do remember that. Never saw him at practice court, never saw him in the dining, barely in the locker room. It was like right before I'm about to play him.

Alvin Owusu (25:26.976)
Interesting.

Alvin Owusu (25:34.366)
Interesting and like the point about the about the challengers like not you know, weren't as many then as there are now You know kind of comparing your your situation to this year's Kalamazoo winner Darren Blanch, right? He just you know, we're recording this on Wednesday. He won the event a couple days ago and he's he has now earned the wild card to play in the US Open Today, he's playing a challenger and Sumter right like in between these two monumental events. He's getting you know, he's getting pro experience

Torrey (26:00.821)
Pro experience.

Alvin Owusu (26:04.002)
I mean, he's been a pro for a couple years at this point, but still, he treated Kalamazoo as like, that's just another tournament on my schedule. Yeah, it's a warmup. It's a warmup. Let me go get this wild card so I can keep on with my year. But that's really interesting. But you didn't see Andy at all. Where the hell was Andy? Andy, where were you?

Sco (26:04.075)
Yes.

Torrey (26:11.21)
Warm up. Yep.

Sco (26:23.017)
He's probably just doing his thing, you know, like, I mean, this is defending champ Andy Roddick here. He's playing some kid.

Torrey (26:24.511)
Yeah. He was there. He was around. I watched him a few matches. He had a lot of practices when Sco was out either eating or getting, seeing the physio. I was watching him. He was out there. It's funny about that. You mentioned it. I just do a quick little tangent here. Andy was playing so well. People don't understand this. Andy, the very next round after Sco Alvin, beaten the doll like a drum.

Sco (26:51.262)
down. 6-0 first set, 6-0 first set.

Torrey (26:52.083)
I mean, it was a beat down. I mean, like, I want to say Skoll lost 0-2 and 2, and I think he beaten the Doll 0-3 and 3. I it was, it it was like, I was like, dude, all thoughts considered. You know what mean? You didn't do that bad compared to Rafa. You know what I mean? I mean, he played, in fact, he went out, well, he finished the year before, but he, that year, he actually peaked too early. I remember watching the match, because I knew, I knew Andy going back a little ways.

Alvin Owusu (26:52.14)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (27:04.568)
Yeah

Sco (27:05.45)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (27:09.998)
Well, he finished one of the world that year, right? Like he ended up being world number one that year. Okay, number four.

Torrey (27:21.802)
Brian Behaley and who I used to work with back in the junior some was real good friends with Andy. And they played some doubles together when they were first coming out. This is back when Andy obviously went pro and Brian obviously was coming out of Virginia. And obviously, SCOA members, you guys both remember Ryan. So when Brian brought Andy to do a couple of his foundation events, I met Andy and Mandy Moore and the whole nine. So I got to meet Andy a little bit then. So I knew Andy, I knew John. So I was watching Andy practice.

And dude, I'm telling you, Andy was on fire. mean, Andy was literally like, I was like, wow, this guy's playing unbelievable. I thought he was going to win the tournament like without dropping a set. He peaked almost so early. He played so well the first week. He had one bad match and it was against Gilles Muller. You remember Gilles, Gilles, let's go. Savvy lefty, big serve, kind of sleeping serve.

Sco (28:10.9)
That was actually the next year. It was Thomas Johansson, the big tall Swedish guy he lost to. Yep, in the quarters. I remember being in Times Square and watching and I was like, my God, Royce about to lose this match.

Torrey (28:15.101)
What was Hanson beat him that year in 04?

Torrey (28:22.739)
Maybe I think you're right, have been the next year. But I say it to say he was playing, beating everybody down that first week. And it must've been early in the second week when he lost because it was like, it was almost like, wow, hell, he beat him? Like it was a weird match because Andy was, it was the first day he had kind of a dip in his performance. It was almost like he peaked too early. Anyway, I say it to say that's how well he was playing coming in, Alvin. I want to say Andy's first serve in that match, go, you remember it.

was like a buck 55, buck 53. It was something serious.

Alvin Owusu (28:55.79)
Oh, I wrote it down. in the there. I mean, we're getting a little far ahead of ourselves, but he went 148 150 152 in the opening service game and the crowd was like.

Torrey (28:59.922)
Yeah, yeah.

Sco (29:05.385)
So that's what everybody remembers and I always get shit from, you were ducking the serve. And in reality, I didn't know how fast that serve was. I just knew it went by me fast. But you got to remember how I do things like I'm a spaced out stupid kid there. Me and Tory always worked on, we take the baseline on returns, I had great returns. So my dumb ass is standing on the baseline against Andy Roddick. And he probably most likely took offense to it.

Torrey (29:23.796)
Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (29:28.27)
You

Alvin Owusu (29:32.878)
took that personally.

Sco (29:34.279)
Yeah, and so I remember it going by me and then walking over to the next side and the crowd's like, ooh, and I was like, looked up for the gun and I'm like, wow, that was big.

Alvin Owusu (29:44.748)
Yeah, yeah. So let's go back just a little bit before we get to the match. I assume at some point, the day before the match when the order of play comes out, you figure out you're playing on Ashe. Did you get a chance to play on Ashe, like practice on Ashe before you got to play the match against Andy?

Sco (30:05.032)
don't remember. I probably did. I for sure had to. I just don't remember. I don't remember actually.

Torrey (30:11.231)
That year, I don't think we did. We did. The next year I made a point to it because I actually called the bit of a ruckus with the lady at the desk because little known fact, maybe it's changed, but back then the desk and I.

Alvin Owusu (30:13.677)
Okay.

Torrey (30:25.694)
hung out at the desk religiously, Alvin. I was there early, late. I ate my lunch right next to it. Anybody looking, I was stalking him, Alvin. was like, I'm looking some match for my boy. That wasn't the desk for Ash. There was an office down the way that controlled all of Ash's practice courts. That's why we never saw him, because he was never at that desk. There was some lady down the way in, what's the old tournament director, early?

Alvin Owusu (30:27.723)
You

Torrey (30:55.057)
Michael Early, was it Scott Ealy? Early, I think it was Ealy. He was in his office, the terminator's office, his secretary ran the practice course for Ash. You had to have a sticker, you had to have a credential, and she did. Who? All of the top eight seeds practices. They got Ash whenever they wanted because they were gonna be playing on Ash. So before Nadal's match,

Sco (30:57.01)
think so, Ely, Ely, maybe, yeah, maybe.

Alvin Owusu (31:21.207)
Right.

Torrey (31:24.491)
I went in and pitched a fit and I said, I can't believe you that we didn't have this last time. This is the first time I'm hearing about it. Are you, I said, it's like you're stacking the deck for the player who's played there before. said, why can't the kid who's playing in that turn in that on Ash also get timed? And the lady looked me. Bro, nice. Yeah. Buddy, buddy. You didn't know? Hey, it's those who know, know, right?

Alvin Owusu (31:43.182)
It wasn't in the player packet. It wasn't in the player packet. You didn't go to the player meeting, the orientation meeting.

Sco (31:45.106)
Hahaha!

Torrey (31:52.495)
And I went in there and picked an absolute fit. And the lady said, well, you know, keep, your voice down, keep your voice down. Well, I'll get a man. I'm like, you don't know why you're going to get a man. Because I realized at that point in time, I had been hoodwinked. You know what mean? And I'm like, really? He can't even play on the same court he's about to play on to, you know, later on? I'm like, what's that about?

Alvin Owusu (32:12.43)
Okay, we'll get to that one. We'll get to that one, because I think we got some more fun stuff.

Torrey (32:16.093)
Yeah. So, so to my point, no, he did not play on Ash before that match. He played several times the next year. I made sure of it. But at that time, no, he didn't. And that, and on top of not St. Andy, on top of everything else, dude. And that's all. And again, I hope everybody who wins it after this understands this and works through all the nooks and crannies. You know what I'm saying? But in those days, buddy, and you better, you better know who to talk to.

Alvin Owusu (32:23.437)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (32:36.334)
You gotta go to the right desk.

Alvin Owusu (32:40.782)
Well, Darwin, if you're paying attention here, make sure you, if you draw an Ash assignment, you better go talk to somebody, talk to the right somebody. Better ask somebody. So Scott, you said like, now you're in the locker room. We're little bit, we're night of the match, right? I don't remember, were there two matches that night? Or were you the, were you?

Torrey (32:43.123)
Please.

Torrey (32:48.467)
You better ask somebody

Sco (32:50.593)
Hehehehehe

Sco (33:03.057)
There was a women's match before, can't remember who the match was, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (33:05.784)
Fair, fair enough, fair enough. you're in the locker room, now you see Andy. I'm assuming you see Andy now. What are you feeling as we're getting ready to walk onto the court?

Sco (33:18.475)
Scared. I'm feeling pretty scared. Andy's looking pretty intimidating. Brad Gilbert's looking pretty intimidating. The locker room is empty. The women's match before, I remember there was a little rain, so it's a little delay. It's just making my nerves go a little bit more. You know, I don't know that before you go on court, the lesser player or the less seated player goes before and talks to the camera.

Alvin Owusu (33:19.534)
Okay, okay, it's starting to set in.

Torrey (33:26.417)
All right.

Sco (33:47.28)
Then you got to wait on that player to come. You walk together or you might go first. It just depends. Like, and they, kind of tell you what's going to happen here. And then it's just like, all right, go. And there's just nothing, nothing that will get you ready for when you step out on that court for the first time at night and you feel that energy, you're like, my God.

Torrey (34:01.777)
Right. Yeah, I agree.

Alvin Owusu (34:07.886)
because it's not just a tennis match anymore. You're a part of a television production. You are a character in a thing that people are watching all over the world. You're not just playing a tennis match. So yeah, so what's that like? You walk on the court. look, are you, so I see players take it a couple different ways. Like some walk out and they look around, they take it all in. Or some just like, eyes on the chair, I'm walking straight to my bench, I'm not looking up there.

Sco (34:09.775)
No.

Torrey (34:10.898)
Yep. Yep.

Sco (34:12.175)
Yeah.

Sco (34:35.876)
I was kind of like that. I was like, I'm walking straight to the bench. I'm pretty nervous, you know, like, my gosh, this is big. Like, I'm just thinking of all the things that make you nervous, you know? And playing and competing in the tennis match is like very far away from me actually. Like, for how scared I am. You know, I'd never been in situation before and I'm 17 years old and I'm like, can I do this?

Alvin Owusu (34:37.87)
Hahaha!

Torrey (34:40.945)
Yeah.

Sco (35:05.657)
You know, you just ask yourself, you're asking a ton of questions and you're obviously, you're not, you're not ready. You know, like at the time I was not ready, not even close to it. And Andy beat me down like he should have beat me down, you know, like, but I learned so much from that experience. And I learned so much for what happened after in that experience as well. that I couldn't, that no one could really teach me or talk to me about, just

Torrey (35:11.377)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (35:33.528)
such as, let's just go with it, let's just go with it. What did you take away from that at that time?

Sco (35:38.583)
After that, I went to Andy Rock's house for a week. did Davis Cup hitting partner and Charles South Carolina and Patrick Macron was like, Hey, Andy lost early. Can you come down to Austin and train with him? The Brian brothers going to come artificial come later, but can you come? I was like, of course I can come. Like, yeah. So I go down there. meet Andy. Andy was just open his house up to me. I was the first one to get there. Went on his boat ride away. He was just Andy.

Torrey (35:41.617)
Yeah.

Sco (36:08.294)
was so good to me, opened up his house. If I could call him, he'd always text, call back. The practices were great. He treated me like a little shitty eight 17 year old, which I really appreciated. You know, like I remember being at practice and me and Andy are playing two up two back against the Bryan brothers. I'm like, wow, you know? And.

They're beating us down and Andy's blaming me. I remember and I'm just like, I don't think I'm playing that bad, man. Like they just don't miss volleys. Yeah. And then I went and practiced with Davis Cup right in South Charleston and it was still tough. And you know, being around Andy, if anybody can tell you, especially a junior coming up when Andy was the man, he was tough on juniors, man. my goodness, practice what can be stressful if you're not bringing it. Because he saw it as.

Torrey (36:33.839)
You

Alvin Owusu (36:36.317)
Hahaha!

I mean those three end up in the Hall of Fame. I'm just saying, I don't know, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. So, okay, so.

Torrey (36:43.393)
Yeah.

Torrey (36:46.928)
Right. Right.

Sco (37:00.547)
I'm trying to be great and you're over there missing, messing me up. So I felt a lot of anxiety with him, but it made me like, hey, I can't be missing balls here. You you had to be on it with him. So right after that, I got to be around him for good two weeks, spent my 18th birthday with him, you know, in Austin. I got to be around him a lot. And what the biggest thing was, like Brian Vahealy helped me so much, but as I was coming up older,

Torrey (37:17.768)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (37:18.286)
guys.

Sco (37:29.989)
17, 18, 19, he was more traveling more. So I got to be more with Brian Vaheily around 15, 16. And then when I started traveling, he started, and our schedule just went away apart. So I didn't really knew what it was like to be a professional. being around him really showed me, it was like, you go hard in everything you do? That's the big thing I know about Andy Rodriguez. You go hard in everything you do, no matter what.

Torrey (37:44.975)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (37:58.382)
And that piece about knowing how to be a professional, I think I heard this or read this somewhere, fellow Atlantan, Chris Eubanks, he said once he got on tour, he felt so much more, he was comfortable right away because he traveled around as Donald Young's hitting partner when Donald was on the tour. So there's something to being in a place and seeing it, not for the first time, when the chips are down. I wanna go back a little bit.

Sco (38:23.672)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (38:28.238)
in the locker room, right, before you go to play Andy, right, now you're going on, TH, what are you thinking? I'm assuming you're scurrying over to the player box and now you're about to settle in for this somewhat of a culminating, if not a culminating, very salient moment in your coaching career. What are you thinking at that point?

Torrey (38:37.124)
Mm hmm.

Sure.

Torrey (38:50.339)
Did I prepare him enough? Did I do everything I could have done to get him ready for this moment? I know the moment may be big. I know the moment may be a little large. And of all the people to play, he's playing fricking anti-Rodick, right? Not a qualifier, not a wild card, the defending champ, you know? So I'm like, thanks a lot, USDA. You know what mean? That was on one side of me, right? But the...

Alvin Owusu (39:13.326)
Right? They're early, are eight wild cards. There are 64 places you could land. Or a hundred something places you could land. Yeah, that's...

Sco (39:14.659)
You

Torrey (39:18.335)
And he and thank you and he landed with that one. Don't think the conspiracy theorist side of me wasn't thinking there was a little cooking of the books on that one. But I also knew Andy, right? And so immediately after the match, I went up to Andy like Andy, hey, what does he need? And Andy laid it to me. And I took a person.

And then he says to me,

Alvin Owusu (39:48.216)
What no no what he laid into you what do mean? What do mean?

Torrey (39:50.605)
He told me Skull played the same set three times. He said he didn't change. He didn't adjust. He said, I adjusted on his serve six times in the first game. He said he didn't adjust on my serve until midway into the third. And I was like, fair point. I saw it. I understood it. And then a part of me who never won Kalamazoo, who never played on Arthur Ashe says,

And I'm 30 years old and I'm just not appreciating making adjustments like that in the match like that at 17, 18. I don't know if I'm thinking like that. I'm thinking, try not to get embarrassed. And how do I look and feel out here? He says to me, Tory Fair. He says, but he's in the pros now and he's got to learn how to make adjustments and he's got to make them fast. He ran, scow down so bad to me. I think he felt bad. And he says, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to take care of, I'm going to hit with him.

And then I think that hints why he ended up taking you on to go because again, I knew him from years before, but he says to me, but I tell you what, after he ran him down for 10 minutes, he says, but there's a lot there. He says, I like this kid. He says he never backed down. He never, and he said, he never looked scared. He says, I know he was nervous. He says, but he never looked scared. He says, and even when he won his first game, he didn't celebrate too much.

And he kept trying the whole time. He says, there's something to be said for that. He says, let's go, can appreciate this. And I was playing well. He says, I played well tonight. He says, I was on fire from the moment that first serve.

He wasn't ready for that. And I'm like, you know, of course not, right? No one was. But he also, and this is what I love Andy and John, a couple of years later, school, you remember this, we had a practice at Grand Central at that indoor court underneath Grand Central station. John came and found me and went and said, hey, we got a court at Grand Central, John Roddick, his older brother, who was his coach slash manager slash whatever and says,

Alvin Owusu (41:38.062)
No one was.

Alvin Owusu (41:57.55)
This is John Roddick. John Roddick, Andy's little brother,

Torrey (42:03.765)
Andy's got a court at Grand Central. Can you guys be there? Nine o'clock tonight. I'm like, done. I'm like, wait, there's a court under Grand Central? You know, you know.

Alvin Owusu (42:10.926)
If you know, you know.

Sco (42:12.033)
Hehehehe

That court is still there, lightning fast.

Torrey (42:17.709)
lightning fast. And sure enough, went there, Sco played him and I will say this and Andy can feel free to come on here, come on the podcast and defend himself. Sco played him a couple years later and absolutely beat the brakes off Andy for about 45 minutes. And in my opinion, and another time he jumped on Sco, he jumped on Sco for beating him and not doing more in the main draw at the open. So that was a whole nother talk show, but I say that to tell you Alvin.

The same Andy was a fan. He was as much of an older brother and a mentor. And I will say this, and I want to make sure I get this on wax. Andy Roddick was one of the best mentors for the juniors in that year and that span of time. And he likely didn't have an Andy for him, but he was that way for the juniors and especially Sco that I knew at that time. And I can't thank the brother enough for what he did for Sco.

for what he, cause he brought you down a couple of times, Scott, if I'm not mistaken, you know, and just really took him in, took him under his wing. And yeah, he gave him a hard time. He's supposed to. He's Andy Roddick and he's Grand Slam champ and all that. But he made sure that he backed it up with, come to my spot next week. We're going to train for a week. He didn't just talk about it. He, as my uncle would always say, don't talk about it, be about it. He was about it. He brought Scott in into the fold and he allowed him to train with him.

Showed him what it was like, showed him what it was like to be pro material. And to me, that's what the U S is missing is the level of that kind of interaction with those kind of top players. And I will forever, I Sco you may feel the same, be feeling indebted to him to just to taking it on his own. That wasn't through USDA set up. That was Andy. That was Andy doing that. And I say that to say Sco improved a lot over that whole timeframe because of

Alvin Owusu (44:16.846)
I'll even triple down on that. Just 10 years later, I was working at Austin Tennis Academy and Andy was retired, but living still in Austin, he would often come out to our academy, work with Ryan Harrison, because Ryan was in town and working with Trace Davis a good bit, but he would also hit with our juniors, Grayson Brodus and Josh Hager and those guys. And Andy would be out there, he's working in with them, he's sitting on the bench with them afterwards, and he's retired at this point, but still giving his time.

Torrey (44:42.797)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (44:46.414)
Let's go ahead and get out of

Sco (44:48.897)
got a good Andy story about Davis Cup. know, what kind of what Torrey piggyback on what Torrey said about. So after I played him, he is open. I'm at his house. I'm training hard with him for like 10 days. So when we go to Charleston, I'm playing him in a practice of the day before he's gonna have to play. And this is probably one of the, some of the best in this I've played. I take the first set. I hope Andy remembers this because I remember this. I remember, yes.

Torrey (44:57.772)
You

Alvin Owusu (45:14.03)
I'm gonna send this over to his producer Mike and see if he can get it over to Andy.

Sco (45:20.609)
So now I remember the couple of weeks before Torrey and I were talking about like, I was just going too big on first sir. I'm trying to get aces. He's like, you've got to mix in some kicks, throw some people off. Like you got to change it up. So when I'm, I'm, beating Andy and Andy's Dean Goldfine is there. Um, I don't know if Jay burger is there, but I remember Dean being there. Patchy macro was there and he's breaking rackets. He's pissed. He's breaking rackets and I have to just stay focused. And a lot of it's kind of show he's pissed, but a lot of it's kind of like.

Torrey (45:36.907)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (45:42.946)
Hahaha

Sco (45:50.644)
I'm pissed. So we're in this long game. I'm having a chance to like go up in the second set. I'm serving this long game. So I remember I was like, God, I'm not getting any free points on the serve. Like this is a big game. So we're on the do side. So I'm like, all right, I'm throwing a kick here. This might be a good time. And I start throwing a kick and he grabs the ball. He doesn't even play. He stops it. He goes, what the yells out? What the fuck are you doing?

Torrey (46:06.859)
Okay.

Sco (46:18.548)
You got a monster serve and you're gonna hit a kick serve on the first point in a deuce game? And I was like, huh, what? And he scared me too and it threw me off. And of course I just played terrible the rest. And then I remember asking him, he asked me, he goes, why did you do that? After the set was over and I was like, I mean, my coach wanna work on, I thought I gave you the same look all the time.

Torrey (46:21.771)
You

Torrey (46:28.051)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha

Sco (46:45.824)
You know, I just wanted to give you a different look. goes, yeah, maybe you can kick it on the ad side, you know, off the court, but not on the do side. When you got a serve, you can get a free point off of, you know, and he didn't have to say any of that. You know, he didn't have to do any of that. I remember that. I remember I never, I told the junior pleasant work with that story. He was like, go for your serve. You have an opportunity to get a free point. Why would you not do it? You know, and that was just so like,

Torrey (46:55.515)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (47:10.03)
You

Torrey (47:11.435)
And he was real and that candid, right? But at the same time, he's doing it to help you. He wasn't doing it just to talk smack and you know, so you guys play with him. I remember you and Bahid and who else? It may have been Scotty and we're down there. He had a ankle. He had twisted his ankle. He was down to keep his game when it was still down when Naszak was still over there to keep his game. And he was getting beat down out by the juniors.

Sco (47:22.73)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey (47:39.403)
Hoblin on his leg, not quite 100 % was coming back. It was a week long camp. Monday, taking L's by every one of them. mean, playing shooter, on the run games, just kind of, all of them were kind of designed by Andy to kind of get his footing. Tuesday, starts to show some signs. Still going toe to toe. I think Skol may have taken them one, maybe by heat, taken them on a couple of long rallies. Wednesday, he's starting to heal up pretty good, Alvin. And all of a sudden the serve is starting, you're starting to hear it about four courts away.

Boom! God, that was, Andy must be feeling better today. Thursday, they weren't getting games. And by Friday, and he was talking smack to him, even on Monday when he was losing. Like, let's go, let's go. Get all your points in today. I'm not 100 % my first day in two weeks. And he was talking smack, you know what must go. And Alvin by Friday, it was a Bill Walton clinic. I mean, it was an absolute clinic.

Sco (48:37.663)
No!

Torrey (48:39.433)
And I said, I'm laughing like, this isn't the same guy. This ain't the same guy. And he just showed the levels that he had in this game and he started feeling, and then he thanked them all, whatever, guys, thanks, good work, good work at practice. And basically put them back in their place. But I say all that to tell you, I mean, again, I've known Andy for a long time and John and from years before, Skoll made that match. And I have to tell you, he's been the same. I listen to him on his podcast now and he's...

Just as quick witted as he is now and how fast he is on with his wit, he is just as fast with his adjustments and with what he sees in the game. He's actually a very, very smart tennis player. A lot of people kind of thought of it as a third bot, extremely savvy, extremely cerebral. I say that to say, I know I don't have to convince you to, I'm preaching to the converted, but I say that to tell you he was, and just as nice.

Alvin Owusu (49:21.887)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sco (49:23.123)
Very, very.

Torrey (49:37.129)
and genuine as a human being. He's going to tell you how to carry out the cabbage. Now that's going to be Andy for sure, but at the same time, just a genuine person as well. so again, I can't say enough about him to his credit and what he did to, you know, not only with Brian, but also with Sco as well and just was, you know, just good people.

Alvin Owusu (49:59.118)
So let's go, I wanna kinda finish up with that actual match, that experience. You said you were nervous, you were scared. At what point, and this is interesting, I mean, I watched the match in real time while I was in college. That was the first semester of my senior year of college, and all my tennis teammates were there, is the whole thing. But I haven't seen that match since then. I watched it a couple days ago just to get ready for this podcast. At what point did you, or did you feel like you ever settled in?

to that match and started to play the tennis that you felt like you were capable of playing? Never. Okay, yeah.

Sco (50:31.838)
I never, never settled in, never settled in. didn't feel like I was playing tennis out there. The court seemed so tiny. The stadium seemed so big. That's the first time someone told me, change over. The umpire said, I'm gonna let you guys go up when I say go up for TV, so you get longer. mean, everything was different.

Torrey (50:35.251)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Sco (50:59.641)
Everything was different and it was just so new and very uncomfortable for me. And at the time, I think I'm just doing terrible. You know, I don't know that like, I'm not doing as bad as I think I'm just thinking I'm doing terrible. You know, like, I'm

Alvin Owusu (51:13.634)
Right. And this is your first ATP level match at this point, right? You played ITFs up until this point, but this is in some features challenges.

Torrey (51:13.919)
Right. Right.

Sco (51:20.573)
I've played futures and qualified, gone far, like, never, I never played an ATP event till this time, never, Grand Slam, never.

Alvin Owusu (51:29.954)
That's, yeah, that is wild. That is wild. Okay, so you get through that match, ended up losing it, was it 0-2-2, something like that? But you play the junior event though, right? That you stayed a couple days, play the junior event. And I wanna kinda take a peek at the players who were in this junior event, right? Just to kinda let the listeners know, like, okay, after this, there was this other tournament.

Sco (51:53.309)
I remember who I lost to. I remember losing to Andres Beck on the grandstand out there in the corner.

Alvin Owusu (51:57.422)
And he went to the, did he go to the finals of that event? Did he final it or? Murray, so Murray won it. He beat Delpo, Murray beat Delpo in the first round. Okay, let's just, Andy Murray, Grand Slam champion, former Grand Slam, I mean future Grand Slam champion, Walmart team Del Porto in the very first round of that junior event. Query also made a run at that event. Future Grand Slam winner Marin Chilich was in that event. Monfiste was in the event.

Torrey (51:57.465)
Yep. I'm very one that year. Yep.

Sco (52:00.603)
I want to say Murray won it that year.

Torrey (52:09.045)
Sit on that. Right.

Torrey (52:17.98)
Yep.

Torrey (52:25.981)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (52:27.17)
Donald young in the event future Grand Slam finalist Kevin Anderson did get a wild card into that event Misha's ver of top 30 player Victor Troy key like are we kidding? Are we I? Think he Monfils. Yeah

Torrey (52:36.904)
Troy Ski beat, didn't Troy Ski beat Monfee's if I'm not mistaken, the quarters. I remember that, we did in that tournament. Troy Ski was what, top 10, top 15? Yeah.

Sco (52:41.437)
He did, he did. Twerky was tough. I played him in the semis of Eddie Herr. He was a top 25 player, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (52:43.883)
Emma

Alvin Owusu (52:49.6)
And Monfils was going for the junior sweep there, winning. He won Australia and French and Wimbledon up to that. And I remember back at camp, Tori was telling me, this kid is like, I'm like, what's he like? Like, what's he like? He's like, it's like Dwayne Wade played tennis. That's what it's like. And this is, we're talking about, we're talking about 04D Wade, right? So that's exactly, Okay, so, all right. So I think we've fully encapsulated this experience kind of walking.

Torrey (52:49.638)
Yeah, I

Torrey (52:53.383)
Yep.

Sco (53:03.003)
Yeah. Flash.

Torrey (53:03.868)
Yeah.

Torrey (53:07.236)
You're really welcome.

Alvin Owusu (53:17.026)
You know, from winning the turn, winning Kalamazoo all the way up to the Xandii Riding Experience. And then even afterwards, I want to take a little bit of a, this is normally when we would take a break, but we're not going to take a break. We're just going to keep going. The very next year you come back, you're a year older. You've now gotten, did you get a wild card in the next year as well? You got a wild card in one of the eight wild cards. You got this one. Now at this point you've been on the, you've been, you know, kind of on the circuit for a year. You've been, you've been grinding.

Torrey (53:18.056)
you

Torrey (53:33.334)
you

Sco (53:37.757)
I got a wild card in.

Sco (53:44.925)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (53:46.734)
You get a wild card in and you play George Bastel first round, right? Go five with Bastel, you fought off a, you know, two sets of love, fight that off, seven, six on the fifth, big win. That's your first Grand Slam win, right? And then you're back on the same court against Rafael Nadal. Now, it's a much younger Rafael Nadal, but he had just won the French Open the year before, is that correct? no, that year, that year, five.

Torrey (54:14.122)
Yep.

Sco (54:16.23)
Day one of that year. yep, that year.

Alvin Owusu (54:17.154)
He won it that year. Okay, so now we've got this young kid that you've seen a few times before, French Open Champ. You're back in the same place, but you're now a year older, you're wiser. What is that experience like now?

Sco (54:34.512)
Definitely felt more confident going in. I had a pretty good year that year going to US Open. I was confident going into the tournament. I remember Pilot Penn the week before, I lost to Tommy Riverado at 4-2 in the third, and he was 12 in the world. And my serve let me down. So I was pretty, I was, and I beat Yako Nemen in the first round.

Torrey (54:49.999)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you beat your boy, Yoko, yeah, at four and a third. I remember that. That was a huge win for you.

Sco (54:58.544)
Yeah, first round. Yep. He did. He did.

Torrey (55:01.093)
Yeah, Yarko will go on to get to the semis of the US Open the next week. That same time and it's gonna be the first round. So go ahead.

Sco (55:11.376)
So it was, I was a little bit more ready. I knew what to expect now. That was the biggest thing is was I knew what to expect. Like I remember going into the tournament with Tori and just we're going on with some serving stuff. I just had a hard time serving down the T on the outside with confidence with it at that moment. And I remember Tori said to one thing, he goes, I was getting frustrated with it, like pissed. And he was like, dude,

Torrey (55:30.02)
Bye.

Sco (55:38.684)
You're served out wide. Everyone knows that's your serve. Just hit it. It's all about executing. Don't worry about it. And that kind of calmed me down. I was like, you know what? I don't have to go for anything big against these people. I can do it. So going in there, I knew about the TV. We're kneeling on the dolls in there running around, you know, with Vaseline on his, all over his body and his hair. You know, just doing his thing, intimidating you. Yep. But you know what?

Torrey (55:54.086)
That Tiger print thong he was wearing. my God, no doubt. Yeah.

Sco (56:08.065)
Andy intimidated me the year before. was like, I'm not letting this person intimidate me. I don't give shit. I know what to expect now. I got to go out here and play. Now the fear of Nadal was there. Everyone's watching him on clay, destroying top 10 players, not just people, top 10 players. Everyone's seen that forehand. Everyone's seen this guy doesn't get tired. You know, so I don't know if Tor remembers this.

Torrey (56:23.755)
Yeah. And Alvin, he's doing spin moves. He's doing spin moves. He's doing shake and bake in the locker room going to the bathroom. I mean, this dude is like, he changed shirts twice in the locker room, but he was lathering up in the locker room, moving around, changed off his shirt, ripped the other shirt out of the plastic, put a new one on.

Alvin Owusu (56:38.894)
Hahahaha

Sco (56:39.225)
Yeah, he really is.

Torrey (56:52.686)
he was going again I'm like this dude here I mean he was it was clearly a excess energy as I look back on it now but also he was definitely trying to get in your head you know what I mean so and they're about the same age they weren't that far apart names so yeah

Sco (56:53.659)
Yeah, he's doing all that. He's doing all that.

Alvin Owusu (57:05.326)
was gonna ask, like you guys can't be that far apart.

Sco (57:06.715)
We're born same year. So, yeah.

Torrey (57:09.157)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (57:09.678)
Okay, yeah. But this time you hadn't seen him in Juniors, right? Because by the time you're playing ITFs and Junior Grand Slams, he was already on the tour, like age 16, whatnot.

Sco (57:15.515)
Never.

Torrey (57:15.782)
is already out.

Sco (57:20.123)
Yeah, a pretty established professional at age 16, actually. So I was very nervous going on to the court, of course, but that nervous energy, I just took it in more. was like, dude, I'm going to take in this New York energy, this New York crowd. I'm going to feed off of this time. I'm not going to let it bring. I'm not going to let the moment be too big. And I remember being very nervous.

Torrey (57:24.166)
.

Alvin Owusu (57:25.558)
Right, yeah.

Sco (57:46.798)
And Tori and I talked about this. There was a point in that first set. I go down to break early, just double faulting. Nadal comes in and I go backhand lob passing shot. And I kind of just looked at Tori with a fist pump. He looked at me back and I was like, okay, now I can play tennis now. You know, this is it. Yes.

Torrey (57:58.73)
Money. That lob came down with raindrops. That lob was so sick. Because he hit it off his ankles, Alvin.

Alvin Owusu (58:03.852)
Right. very, very similar to the Kalamazoo experience. It's the backhand winner that breaks the shackles off and gets you loose.

Sco (58:11.418)
Yep, and it was a lob winner. I held it pretty good. It did. Because I shocked myself with it. I was like, this is a good lob.

Torrey (58:20.837)
off his ankles like, like the dog bit, like went forward, bang. And the lob went over him, came down 30 feet later. Wow. And I was like, oh, I was big. And he probably caught my reaction of how the shot was as much as I was trying to give him some confidence because when you see a shot like that, I'll put him, you can't help it. Just, just, you know, feel what just happened. You know what I mean? So no, he was, he was playing some good ball and this is after the five sets with Bastl. You know what I mean? So it wasn't like, it wasn't like he didn't play enough. That match was four and a half hours out.

Alvin Owusu (58:25.068)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (58:47.266)
Right.

Torrey (58:50.744)
That was a four and a half hour match his first five setter. I mean, I was telling people man, I'm tired watching. I mean, I can't imagine playing. You know what I mean? I'm like, man didn't even go to the bathroom. I'm like, bro, you know what is going on? This is this is a long match. So he felt very comfortable and that lob I remember that lob make made him feel like he kind of settled in a little bit and it was it was a those first those first two sets were some work with nip tuck. I have to say that for sure.

Sco (58:52.226)
was a long match.

Alvin Owusu (58:58.412)
Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (59:20.11)
I'll leave some links in the description when we get this up, because I watched the match this morning. I got my way through the entire $100 match, and it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. felt like after the experience you had the year before, you could see the real Scubal Jenkins, and you were in it. You were in the match. You were in the match. So okay, so you got broken at some point early in that, I think maybe, maybe two alls, like that, maybe in the first set.

Torrey (59:33.496)
Yeah.

Torrey (59:39.012)
Right.

Sco (59:40.855)
Yes.

Sco (59:49.305)
But then I held the rest of the way and he kind of held on. But then I realized, I was like, this guy's hitting everything short. Like, I can tee off on every forehand just about. You know, this was a very clay court defensive Nadal. This was not the Nadal we came to see for years, just ripping. He was not like that yet.

Alvin Owusu (59:51.383)
Right.

Torrey (59:51.935)
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:03.436)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:08.108)
Yeah, that was the cool thing about watching the match. It's like till 2005 Nadal is very different than the Nadal that we know now It's like he is like I felt like the vast majority of that match like you were on his ass I was like this was like a approach shot pass game that like I you hit so many step before but anyways continue I'll let you go

Torrey (01:00:13.742)
21st of the 100 %

Sco (01:00:27.801)
So that's what was it. It was stuff of forehands. And that's what Torion talked about. He's like, dude, getting in a rally with this guy for consistent long-term, it's not going to work. We all watched roll on girls this year. Like you get the forehand, you got to go after it. Like you can't give this guy a second chance. So that's the first thing in my mind. I'm like, I get a forehand. So you don't know. And then when you go into the match, you don't know if the forehands going to click. Like you could hit the fence. Like you don't know yet. You know, it's like, I know I should be going big, but like

Torrey (01:00:37.39)
Yeah.

Sco (01:00:56.546)
Do I have it? And so once the first couple ones came off big, I was like, I got it. And then the New York crowd, the air, I brought it all in. Like I was like, I can do this. Like that was in my mind. I can do this. Like I can do this. And then seeing him get a little nervous, seeing him make mistakes, it's like, I can do this.

Torrey (01:01:02.052)
Yeah. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:23.986)
I mean you were wearing out his his his back and return on the do side. I'm like over and over It's like every time you served there. It was like step up for him right after and I was like, huh I mean, I know how this match ends, but damn this is fun like Right on top of it right on top of it

Torrey (01:01:37.969)
And one of the tactical things that I told him was everybody was afraid of the forehand and I told Sco hit to the forehand. Take him out wide. He wants to take you. He wants to get an inside out. His out wide point isn't as big as you think. Run it first. Go wide backhand.

wide and glide, go big forehand, go out wide and then go back behind him. Go back forehand again. I go because he's actually more dangerous on the backhand side with the pass and his forehand was big but heavy, thin, but it wasn't as big. It wasn't as threatening, at least not thin later on. And I'm like, Skull, your forehand's bigger. And he was looking at me like, Skull was like, this guy's one French. I'm like, Skull, trust me, go to the forehand. I go, your ball's heavier than most, your ball's bigger than most.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:19.896)
Right.

Torrey (01:02:28.771)
He ain't played a guy like you that has that kind of a kick. I was going, it's it's, I'm telling you. And the first one, the first times, let's go ahead and kick out wide. And I think it was one of the games you helped, you almost held it love or like 15. You had a kick out wide on the deuce. You had a step up four and you went back wide. And the doll did this little almost broke ankles kind of move and looked over this box. And I remember looking at you like, there it is. And I think at that time, you know, cause how many matches is there Alvin? You got, you all three have coached.

You tell a kid a good game plan, you're 70, 30 that it'll work. You know in theory, but at the same time, you don't know what the guy's gonna do. You know what I mean? You know it works in theory. But at the same time, if that guy would have gone over there and laced the forehand big up the line, everything you would have said now is garbage. mean, you're not, and now you're here.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:22.606)
Well, let me tell you, if I've got a game plan for a 14-in-under event at Hudlow, I'm pretty sure that's gonna work if the kid can do it. This is a whole different scenario.

Sco (01:03:23.819)
hahahaha

Torrey (01:03:30.036)
Right. another talk show. I'm like, and I'm watching tape after tape. I'm watching. And it's not like YouTube ain't like it is now, bro. You can almost pull up points, you know, show me, you know, points of Nadal on the foreign on the run return. You know, it's just YouTube was lagging. You had the it was glitching out of me. It was I'm sitting there trying to find a good spot with Wi-Fi. You know what I mean? Just to get the

the direct coverage that I'm trying to watch point after point to see what happens. So anyway, I say it to say I was as pleased that it was working as well as Sco just so he could settle in and take heart to what I was saying. And at that point, help him understand, forget the strategy, forget me, that he had a shot here. And that was all you really want your kid to do. Sco made a point. and I'm going to tell you this right now. Sco, one of the best things about you.

was you were, you weren't so literal. You were more literal than you were cerebral. But that helped you because you weren't so manic in the moment either. You weren't so overwhelmed. Your overwhelm was, wow, it's a big service. It wasn't, my God, how do I look on TV back home? God, I must be embarrassed. God, I look like a fool out here. You were so dialed in.

Sco (01:04:49.926)
Yeah.

Torrey (01:04:55.394)
Your level of embarrassment was like, wow, the ball almost hit me. Glad I moved in time. You were more calm, the most calm cucumber I've ever seen. I'm in the box, Sam. I almost hit him in the face, but I was in big serve right there. And Skull was like, the ball was kind of big. And by the time you won your first game, you were almost like, yeah, yeah, I caught up to it finally. But it was more of a, and I'm like, dude, I don't know if I would have felt that way for three hours.

Sco (01:05:01.398)
No.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:01.838)
Hahaha!

Torrey (01:05:21.481)
You know what I mean? And I'm watching, I'm a coach, I'm 30 some years old. So you, one of the things that was so good about you was you were so calm as a person that you called it space. Yeah, maybe, but it wasn't like a space cadet. were ADHD out there. You were just more topical and you always had this sense of looking at from the top down, like, I know what to do. I remember a match you guys, you and Sax played in the three, four doubles in the quarters of Simmons or KZOO.

And I remember Saks back in here, right behind you guys in K-Zoo. what should I do, Sco? What should I do? Should I run on four and? And you were like, Saks, calm down. Make the return. Let's go. And it was such a coach's moment where Saks and you know, Saks did overthink some things. Good player. Great, great. You know, good player on his own, right? But overwhelmed at time or two. And you were telling him, Saks, calm down. Make the return. Let's go. And I say it to say,

You weren't that different in the US Open. It's just the opponent got a lot better. So I wanted to kind of make that point to you. There's times when, you you can look at yourself in one way as your coach of many years, as a player that watched you grow up and watched you grow into who you became. That was also one of your mutant abilities. You were just so calm and able to see it for what it was. If you weren't playing well, you knew you weren't playing well. If you're playing well, you know I'm playing pretty well.

without the extra to make it worse. You know what I mean? A lot of times, guys, Alvin, I know you and I appreciate this. There's moments when I'm playing well, I'm gonna go for more on the forehead. Oh, I'm playing good today. And instead of, let me just stay right here. Maybe that's what I should do is just stay right here. Oh, I'm playing bad. So you start playing worse, right? It's one of those things, why you not playing bad? But let me try this right here and let me just stay right here. That's a gift. I find, and I want to say,

Alvin Owusu (01:07:05.934)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:14.926)
Well, so let's bring it back. Yeah, I just wanna.

Torrey (01:07:17.428)
That's the piece that you don't always appreciate, Sco, about yourself, because you were you. You had that level of calmness. Your low was never really that low. And your high got a lot higher because you were able to surf, so to speak, in the barrel a little better than most because you weren't too emotional. that's, I always give you credit for that. You were just so calm in the moment, or at least you seem so to me.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:44.014)
So, let's go throughout that match. You got down a break in the first set, but you're playing, once you got into it, you're into it, right? It's like, can do this, I think you said earlier. So, as you're going through that match, you're getting to the second set, that second set's nip-tuck. Are you still feeling as confident, or are you starting to now feel some of the physical effects of the match that you're in, but then also the five setter you played before?

Sco (01:08:08.073)
You know, I never felt tired ever. Even after that five set match, I remember going to bed against Bastel. And I was like, I'm going to feel it tomorrow. I woke up a hundred percent. Like literally nothing was wrong on me. Nothing. Like nothing. I was shocked myself. the dog that I was fine. And, know, you go with workouts with Tori. That's everything's easy after that. So, so I didn't feel, I didn't.

Torrey (01:08:23.145)
Okay.

Torrey (01:08:29.951)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:32.0)
Yeah, I mean, I've never played a five-set of match at the US Open, so I'm gonna take your word for it.

Sco (01:08:37.267)
I didn't feel, I didn't feel tired. What mostly I felt was like, okay, we're playing tennis now and he's doesn't feel superhuman to me anymore. I feel like I can, he's going to miss and I can take it to him. I just have to execute. that was the biggest thing. So like, could just calm down and now I'm focused on executing my game plan against him because I see it's working over and over again. and at that time,

Alvin Owusu (01:09:01.016)
Right. Yeah.

Sco (01:09:04.978)
my volleys weren't good enough, my coming forward wasn't good enough, especially for someone like him. It just wasn't good enough at that time. But that was it, it was just like, and I was so uncomfortable coming forward that time. my goodness, I remember warming up with Donald Young in the daytime before that match and we're playing points and I'm missing and I'm getting pissed.

Torrey (01:09:07.91)
Right.

Yeah.

Sco (01:09:30.772)
I remember throwing the racket in practice and Tori stopped the practice and was like, let's just stop it here. And just talk to me like, calm down. It's fine. Like, let's just stop now. And I'm like, I remember I was like, no, we can't stop now. If I don't play better, I'm just going to go our hand and get embarrassed again. Like last year, I remember thinking that because I was just nervous. You know,

Alvin Owusu (01:09:50.466)
Right, okay so you're, that day you're hitting with D.Y. also from Atlanta, also black, at least not from Atlanta, but I think he was probably in Atlanta at that time. You've got a lefty, right, that you're, now you're going into this match, so you're at this point, you're putting into practice what you expect to do later on that night. You're like, I'm gonna be hitting a lot of stuff beforehand, I'm coming in first ball, trying to close off at the net.

Torrey (01:09:58.336)
Very different lapis by the way.

Sco (01:10:00.625)
huh.

Sco (01:10:15.058)
Yeah. And I'm trying to implement it in the practice with Donald and I'm missing and it's new and yes. Yeah. And so I'm missing and it's not working how I want to. And I'm nervous. I remember it's just being upset. I remember Tori stopping it. It was like, let's just stop now. Like you're fine. Go get something to eat. Just chill. Just chill out.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:23.617)
Sure.

Torrey (01:10:30.077)
No.

And for context, sure. For context, he had not ever lost to Donald Young. And I think in his mind, he was thinking, if I can't do this against Donald, who I've never lost to, how the heck am I going to do it against the dog who just won the French? And I could tell he was kind of getting to him a little bit. I was probably getting to him a little bit. I was leaning on him a little bit, of course, I leaned on him all the time. And I realized at that time I needed to kind of calm it down. I bumped into Rick Macy.

During that tournament, he was talking to me about getting my player prepared mentally and making sure they're in the right mindset. he, for whatever reason, Alvin and Sco, he kind of talked to me. I never told you about this, Sco. He talked to me about making sure the player felt great going into the match as if that was the most important thing. Not what they did well or wrong or not. Not X's and O's. Making sure they felt like they had a chance to win. And I'd never forgot that.

And I took that to say, Sco was redlining in that, in that practice. Um, Jared Palmer and a few other top doubles guys were right next to you. Remember that's go. And I remember Jared pulled me aside and was like, you know what coach he shot his ball is actually pretty good, but he needs to, you know, they gave me a couple of pointers from the volleys. And I remember thinking to myself, wow, that's, that's gold right there. Like I hadn't even thought of it that way. I was trying to get Sco to split step and come forward.

ball's coming 110 miles an hour. And they're like, yeah, split steps are great if you have time for them. And then Jared's like, and at 110 miles an hour coach, he says to me, and this is number one in the world doubles, I don't know about you, but when that ball's coming that big, I don't have time to split step. And I'm like, bro, if you ain't got time to split step, you know I ain't got time to split step. And so all of a sudden, I said, let's go. My bad, I know. We ain't got to split step every time. just try to go forward.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:09.314)
If you have time.

Sco (01:12:10.741)
hahahaha

Sco (01:12:24.313)
Hehehehehe

Torrey (01:12:31.73)
But even then I kind of laughed at it to say, let me really appreciate what he's going through and let me make sure he's good with what he's doing. We cut that practice short and Donald was a very different lefty. Donald had angle passes and flick angles and was better on the run than the doll was ironically. He didn't like his inside out. Donald loved his backhand. He would hit his backhand and had his point angle. And the doll was looking to hit a backhand to get it for him. So they were very different matchups.

Donald was at court heavy and Don and Nadal was deuce court heavy. So just different matchups. And I knew then while I was trying to get a lefty, it wasn't the same kind of lefty. so anyway, long story that I remember cutting that practice short just because I felt like he was redlining. It was probably a good thing. And the next day you had a hit with somebody who was pretty good score. can't remember. And I remember thinking to myself, you with Agassi, I want to say at some point, I can't remember if it was that year or the year before, but you were teeing off on Andre pretty good.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:59.64)
Right.

Torrey (01:13:29.435)
And I remember thinking to myself, okay, he feels good now. He feels like he's ready to play again and he's playing his game. And I'm like, you know what? He'll be all right. And then of course, know, the match came and he played pretty well. Alvin, four set points, four set points and that second set, you know what I mean? I replay him, unfortunately, too many times in my mind, but he was every bit there. And I tell him.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:52.504)
No, no, I remember you said that to me. You told me four set points. went back and I was looking at it. was, let's go ahead four break points on Nadal's, Nadal was serving six, five, love 40. So I guess it was, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, getting back on it. But yeah, that was the, I was waiting for that and it's a, it was a ride. It was a ride. Like it was a complete ride. Yeah. So yeah, get through that match, right?

Sco (01:14:01.068)
He was serving 6'5", love 40.

Torrey (01:14:04.209)
So break point, right.

Torrey (01:14:13.895)
No, dude. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:20.81)
and I think you showed to yourself that you could play at that level and you felt that way going in. You showed it in the match, probably felt that way coming out. Not the next year, but the year after. TH mentioned earlier, in junior years you played doubles with Novak, right? Your first US Open, you play against Roddick. Your second US Open, you get Nadal. Your fourth US Open,

Torrey (01:14:24.797)
Yeah. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:50.958)
Fed time, right? Sorry, bro. Tough draws. Tough draws.

Sco (01:14:53.169)
Hehehe.

Torrey (01:14:55.015)
Don't get me started on the USDA conspiracy theory. I'm still, I'm still, I'm still riding that train 20 years later. I'm like, you know what's funny? Chanda Rubin, Chanda Rubin's coach, we were leaving school. You might remember this. Chanda Rubin's coach, we were leaving the open and he said, and he said it loud for everybody to hear. He said, I've never seen a player get this bad a draw four years in a row.

And he said it loud. How do you, he says, it's not, whatever he would say, it's not feasible for a player to get that many bad draws in a row. If it ain't on purpose, I don't know what is. And he was like, he was almost pissed for us. Like, how do you give a brother that many top seeds back to back to back to back? And I said, I don't know.

I don't know if he pissed somebody off or he didn't come from the USJ Transit Center, but this man, tell you, and when I tell you he was yelling loud in the lobby, as loud as a person can say it and still sound civil, like he's not upset. But it wasn't, I was 10 feet away from him. And he was speaking to the people at the desk, was speaking to the people upstairs, and it wasn't for me. He could have told me that in private, but I say it to say.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:07.969)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:12.716)
Right.

Torrey (01:16:14.532)
Hey, it was all for the good man. And I tell you what was one of those things. look back at it now and SCO you appreciate it. I'm sure more now than before the three players, you know, that you played with obviously and against in a being the best of all time. Not many people can say that they played all three of them at, you know, in their career. You know what I mean? There's probably a hundred maybe give in the world over that 15, 20 year span that played all three and you played, you played.

Sco (01:16:43.889)
Should I had to qualify to play Federer first round? Three unbelievable tough matches to qualify. Yes.

Torrey (01:16:46.233)
Right. One three matches. One three great match in the main draw quality album that year. You know what I mean? And so I say that say and then of course Drew and of course then Drew Fed right of all players and that match was that match was to me one of my favorite matches. I mean this match here was solid. I got over the back of my screen, but dude you hit a you hit a backhand you hit a ball a backhand another backhand angle on Fed went backhand to backhand and and he ripped the backhand Fed just knew you were

Alvin Owusu (01:16:54.893)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:11.53)
Another backhand, it all comes back to the backhand.

Torrey (01:17:15.973)
Fed had this little play Alvin that I knew he was going to be looking for. He'd roll you deep. He chipped you short knowing you try to go line and he bait you in a going cross when he was ready for the running forehand. Right. And I told Sco Sco when he hits that short chip, whatever you do, do not go down the line. Angle it back. Fed sure enough, first three games backhand to backhand. He hits this big backhand deep. He hits this short chip.

And Scho gets low on this, almost scrapes his ground on the asphalt and scrapes his knee on the asphalt and hits this backhand angle back. And Fed about broke his neck trying to get this ball back. And he looked over at Scho like, you've been watching film. Like he gave him that look like, you've been scouting me out. Like nobody goes cross court off that ball.

Sco (01:18:03.408)
I remember sitting upstairs and asking Tory like, when he hits that backhand slice short, what do I do? I can't come in. Like, he's baiting me. What do I do? And I remember Tory was like, whatever you do, you just don't go line. Just don't go down the line.

Torrey (01:18:19.813)
Yeah. I said, go slice back, go angle back. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:21.838)
So like, okay, so, yeah, so you qualify into that one, right? Tough, quality run, but you get those three, what, dubs, three wins in a row, and then you fall into the draw, and you're like, okay, I got fed. At that point in year, you're probably thinking like, the USDA really does hate me. Like, this is like every year. But how are you processing that match going into it, you know, as you've had some experience with this before?

Sco (01:18:52.944)
You know, I played, I was playing very well at that time. And actually all year in that year I wasn't playing good, but that guy needed a wild card to get into qualifying U.S. Open. My ranking dropped. I was not playing good. And I remember I had a very good, like two weeks of practice with Torrey, Bobby Reynolds, Robbie Gennepere in there. Like, I mean, I played, I played so well going into New York. I was like, I'm going to be here for a while for qualities. I remember, I remember I was so confident.

Torrey (01:18:53.818)
Right. Yep.

Sco (01:19:21.507)
So going through that, I'm and now I'm playing Fed first round. And I'm like, man, it's going to be really tough. Like, I'm to have to play perfect, you know, to be someone like this. You know, I'm playing the best player at that time in his prime.

Torrey (01:19:28.476)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:35.736)
Yeah, O7Fed was not a game. Was not a game.

Sco (01:19:38.945)
Yeah. And I remember going for too much. I was so much into like, I just didn't believe I could do it. Deep down, deep down, not on the surface, like deep down, because this is going to come to the next thing I'm going to tell you. didn't like, and I look at that match, I've watched that match and I was like, dude, I was hitting pretty good.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:52.622)
which is very different than the doll match.

Torrey (01:20:06.147)
Yeah.

Sco (01:20:07.055)
like and I didn't think at the time I was I know we're fat the Fed match so he beat he beats me. I always play doubles and mixed doubles when I was at open so I remember maybe it was the next day I'm playing double or mixed doubles I can't remember this guy comes to me in the locker room it's just a normal guy see he's I see with feds sometimes and he asked me hey Roger wants to hit with you. Do you want to do you want to play and I was like what?

Alvin Owusu (01:20:09.73)
third match. Okay.

Sco (01:20:35.919)
Why would this guy ask to hit with me? Like, he just beat me. Like, I was like, well, I'm not going to say no. Sure, of course. He's like, okay, I'll be right back. He comes back 10 minutes later. Hey, Roger will meet you tomorrow on P5. I'm like, okay. And I remember I was had a flight to Atlanta that day in the afternoon. He was late in the afternoon and he was like 11 o'clock, 10 o'clock, something like that. I don't know. So.

I show up to the courts not knowing if I'm ever really going to hit with Fed. No idea. I haven't seen, he hasn't asked if we're going to play, we're going to practice, nothing. Right before we go out to practice, he comes over to my locker and was like, hey, good to see you again. Let's go out and practice. I'm like, okay, so this is real. So, we're walking out there and everyone loves Fed and we start practicing and then we start playing a set. And I'm just like, in my mind, I'm just like, why am I here? You know, like...

Torrey (01:21:06.324)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:26.53)
Is this real?

Sco (01:21:29.238)
Of course, I want to be here but like, why am I out here? And Fed is being the nicest guy talking to me on changeover, any question I have, anything. I'm asking him questions, he is open, all of that stuff. So then...

Torrey (01:21:41.233)
Yeah.

Sco (01:21:45.336)
Hello? There we go. So then I finally asked him on a changeover. I say, Roger, why'd you ask me to hit with you today? I played your first round. You beat me down. Why'd you ask me to hit? He goes, this is one of the best tennis moments of my life. You were out hitting me from the baseline when we played. I just needed to see your ball again. And I didn't know what to say.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:46.828)
Yeah, good.

Torrey (01:22:01.984)
Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Sco (01:22:11.682)
And I just, after that, was just, I'm looking at him like, when is, when am I going to get like a prank on me? Like, this is all like fake, you know, like he just wants to embarrass me or something. Yeah. Like a care moment. He was that, and that was, that's a true professional there. You know, he was like, you're out here, from the baseline. need to see it again. And I was like, okay. And then that always right there hit me with I'm never as bad as I think. And I'm never as good as I think.

Torrey (01:22:20.454)
Stand at camera moment. All right. Yeah.

Torrey (01:22:32.825)
Yep.

Torrey (01:22:40.249)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:40.8)
Right. Right.

Sco (01:22:40.909)
You know, right there kind of hit me like, wow, like I got to have more confidence in myself. This is the guy, the best ever in my, in, in I love that. I mean, I've been a fed fan forever. And for him to say that I was like, wow, he's got more confidence in me than my damn self.

Torrey (01:22:43.713)
Yep. Yep. It's big, That's big.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:01.718)
That is wild. Just having watched the matches recently, yeah, just having watched the matches recently, even the doll match, I felt like you were out hitting Rafa from the baseline, but then to, just to your point of just the volleys weren't there at that time where they needed to be, fast forward two years for Fed to say the same thing, I could only imagine what that feels like, or what that would feel like.

Sco (01:23:28.449)
And you know, in the set, wasn't like when we played the set, was 6-0, 6-1. It was a 6-4 set. I remember it was a good tight set. I remember that. And we play and I was just like, I remember thinking, I'm like, Fed is so good at any time, I'm like, he can just beat me at any time he wants to, can he? You know, that's what I'm just thinking, you know, because he's just so good. But, you know, when you're so wrapped into yourself and like, man, and this, and you forget like, dude,

Torrey (01:23:43.436)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:47.51)
Yeah.

Sco (01:23:58.645)
I have his respect, you know, and he's out here competing just like everybody else. He does not care how great he is and how much he's won. He's out here competing like anybody else, man. He's just trying to get better. That was it. It's that simple, you know, it's that simple.

Torrey (01:24:05.17)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:15.254)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:18.612)
And for those listening, Fed does go on to win the tournament that year, right? And also won Australian, finaled French Open, won Wimbledon that year. And we had done that since 04, right? Three Grand Slams in a row for four straight years. So 07 Fed was a joke. Was a nine of 12 with a couple of finals in Grand Slams and the French Open, 10 of Dolls as well. So 07 Fed was a joke, a complete joke. And you were...

Torrey (01:24:31.409)
four, right, three, nine of the 12. If not mistaken, right, right, Albert?

Torrey (01:24:38.22)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sco (01:24:39.073)
Yeah.

Torrey (01:24:45.432)
Probably as vintage of Fed as Fed would have been, right? And I want to just add one. Right. I want to add on one thing. And why was he that good? Because he was that humble, because he kept working that hard, because he kept trying to find ways to keep getting his game better. And I see that to say a lot of the younger players, a lot of the pro players even today may not always appreciate that level of vulnerability or that level of real. Just, hey, let me just keep getting better every day.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:51.43)
that was it. Yeah, that was it.

Torrey (01:25:14.295)
And that is a growth mindset in action. Don't care if I want it, you know, I can still, I can still improve. And in that match, Alvin, and I'll, I'll speak to this and Sco can remember it. There were four break points on each side. Sco had four, Fed had four. Sco lost all four, unfortunately. Fed converted all four. There was a few double faults and maybe some nerves issues, Sco, right? You can appreciate that. But Sco lost, I'm going to say it was three, two, and four, something like that. I think it was four breaks.

but. Sco had four breaks against Fed and I, and I want to make sure that, that, that, that that point is, is drilled home. The fact that it wasn't a blowout. And if anything, this was, you know, in all, with all respect to Andy and Rafa, the best player in the world in that era, not just at the tournament, not defending champ, the best player in the era that you were playing against at that time. And you had four breaks.

points in those three out of five sets. So I mentioned that to say, you know, it's funny looking back on it. It's been 20 years. It's been 18, how many years, right? But if there's one thing you should take away from all that Scoville Jenkins is that you were in the conversation. You earn these guys respect. And isn't it really all that you want at the end? The matches of money and all that are great. Isn't the respect?

Sco (01:26:38.666)
That's it, man.

Torrey (01:26:39.607)
In the respect as much as anything else, it's not what the real, you know, you'll get the money, you'll spend the money, you know, the records are great. They'll be broken by somebody one day. But the respect of that guy in the locker room, I was there three years later, Sco with Jamie. Fed is doing an interview with three or four people walking around. He stops the interview. Jamie, obviously I'm not in the women's locker room, obviously. So I'm around the corner. I'm waiting for her outside, waiting for transition to go home.

And Fed stops the interview and says, excuse me. And he looks over at me and says, coach, good to see you again. How's your player? And I said, Hey Roger, he's well. Thank you so much for asking. And he says, good to see you. And then he goes on with his interview, stops his interview score to say, Hey to me, your coach. That also shows you the respect he had for you. He didn't know me outside of you, but he remembered me from that match with you.

And he wanted him with you if you recall, even back when you were still playing the junior. You know, remember that day we got shipped out to New Rochelle in a junior match and the rain, the matches got pushed indoors so we had to go way out and so we weren't on site. But here's one of his coaches, one that bring you in with him then years ago. I just, we had a funny moment Alvin, Fed had gotten out of the car. He had me right in front of us and Sco actually peeped at Sco. Sco was like, there's Roger right there. So I walked up to Roger afterwards, you one part Creep and one part me.

Hey Roger, and he looked at me like, hey, hey, hey man, we're going through security right now. I'm like, hey, hey, I noticed you were without a coach right now. I wanna let you know I'm available. Let me know. I said, I got my man here. I said, I got my player here. I gotta work around his schedule. I said, but I can work you in. And he kind of, and he lets up his big laugh. He says, coach, I think I'm okay for right now, but thank you for letting me know. And then I said, hey, in all seriousness, let me know if you need a hitting partner. I said, we'd love to meet you anywhere.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:20.482)
Hehehehehe

Sco (01:28:21.139)
Hehehehehe

Alvin Owusu (01:28:33.186)
You

Torrey (01:28:34.781)
And he laughed at me and he says, coach, I'll let you know. And sure enough, three days later, he lets us know. And it was the funniest thing. He came and found us on the bus, Alvin. So you remember that. We were heading out to the bus to New York. They were shipping us out to an indoor facility. He got us on the bus. I found you guys. We got a court, five o'clock. And we're like, man, we got to go play the match. I'm so sorry. And it was literally, he made good on his word. So that just shows you the kind of person that Fed was.

Sco (01:28:47.082)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey (01:29:02.389)
You know, I just bumped into him, just, you know, me talking like I normally talk. And he was, he was following up on what he said he would do. And that's, that's how know he's quality people's right there. He wasn't, wasn't too big, wasn't too nothing, you know, and that's always why Roger's still on my all time favorite. I mean, he's just, that's why he's on a lot of my pictures album because that moment we had, when we talked, we connected, was, uh, Sco was beating Andre and a couple of tiebreakers at that time. And Fav was on Ash the next session.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:23.125)
It's a.

Torrey (01:29:32.181)
That was that, was my picture. And he was, Oh, looks like your boy's giving Andre all he can handle. And I'm laughing like, and I'm kind of smiling like, yeah, he's kind of giving him the work right now. And, and me and Fed are both kind of laughing. Ags is hitting balls out of the stadium. He's hitting ball and I'm laughing because I, I actually ain't no joke. You know what I mean? This is an eight time grand slam champ. And I'm, and Sco senior snagged that picture. That was a moment. It wasn't just the moment, but it was that conversation.

That's how personable Roger was. And that's how, you know, it's funny that he, you know, brought to go back out later at that time. And obviously, you know, had the match and all that with him. you know, I say it all to say, Sco, you had some phenomenal experiences, bro. You had some absolutely, some of the best of all time, you know, experiences with you. And man, you, that is, that is something that can never take from you, bro.

Sco (01:30:26.708)
That's what I tell a lot of, I tell the junior players is, you know, everyone's looking at ranking and UTR and want to play this and want to be that and all this. it's like, you know, good for me. didn't have UTR back then, you know, computers were just coming up where you could start looking at rankings a little bit, but like, not really. It was just about being there, experiencing it and getting respect from your peers. Like I played Marcos Baghdades two times in junior US Open.

Torrey (01:30:52.434)
Yeah. I forgot here. Yeah, flipped I think one time.

Sco (01:30:56.297)
The same exact score both times, 7661. And each time he was always like, this guy is like so much better than me. So he was a year older than me. So much, I mean, he's good like this. And the one year I can't forget the year you had yourself, but I had a locker really close to his. And I never spoke with him outside of the court. He never like, I never did it. And he talked to me was like, dude, you're playing well. And it was a moment to me, I was like, you're talking to me?

What? He was like, dude, you're playing good, man. Like just keep playing, you know, and see those moments like that. mean that that's what you like to get the respect from your peers like that. That's what that was a that was huge. You know, this is a guy who's a beat my first US Open. get to the second round and play him juniors. And I'm thinking he could be me one on one. Like everyone's telling me how great this guy is. And here this is my maybe.

Torrey (01:31:34.544)
It's priceless.

Alvin Owusu (01:31:41.314)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (01:31:51.476)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sco (01:31:55.783)
seventh or eighth ITF ever. You know, like, I'm just lucky to be here. And then for that moment to come years later, he'd be like, dude, you're playing good. I'm like, like, that's just, that's what we do this for, you know, like that respect that that of your peers like that in the locker room. That was a big moment.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:16.93)
Absolutely, We've been going for a while. I think we're gonna end it there. feel like the stories from SCO is a wealth of, it's a pool of something that just overflows. So we don't wanna take too much advantage of it tonight. But I appreciate both of you guys hanging out with us. And we will, yeah, we'll drop it there. Guys, thanks again. Best of three, we are out.

Torrey (01:32:20.82)
it

Peace.