Ep. 63: Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka are you 2025 US Open Champions | US Open Finals Review

Alvin Owusu (00:00.078)
Welcome to another episode or another edition of the best of three podcast, one of those. I'm still Alvin, that's still Tory. It is, it's done. It is done. US Open 2025 in the books. We got two champs, Irina Sabalenka on the women's side, Carlos Alcaraz on the men's side. First and foremost, TH, how you doing?


Torrey Hawkins (00:19.756)
Yep. Yep.

Man, I'm good, man. I had a good Sunday service, had a full-length convention this weekend. I'm feeling good about me and the good book and the man upstairs. Happy to come back to some tennis. And how about you, Alvin? How you doing tonight?

Alvin Owusu (00:28.63)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (00:37.676)
I'm doing really well. Enjoyed my weekend, enjoyed the festivities kind of in flow. Are my good friends Matt and Lisa, shout out to Matt and Lisa, hosted a US Open party yesterday for the women's final and they're both just got a new addition onto their house and they christened it with this party. They're both huge Sabalinka fans. Exactly, you guys might remember Matt went to Charleston with me earlier in the year.

Torrey Hawkins (00:43.669)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (00:51.039)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (00:55.911)
Bye bye.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00.239)
So they were feeling good about themselves.

Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:06.496)
Lisa is a huge tennis fan. She was at the US Open last week as well. So that was great. Very different vibe, right? It's you're at a party. I found myself sometimes feeling like a bit of a recluse recluse because I'm watching the match and talking to people when I could. But that was fun. And then today was very different. was at my house, you know, the kids taking it all in like the kids had play dates going on. So there were like seven kids running around the house. But I was outside on the deck.

Torrey Hawkins (01:18.284)
Sure. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24.671)
Yeah. Taking it all in. Yeah. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:34.764)
enjoyed it with a buddy, my buddy Andrew. And it was good, it was good. And he's a former college tennis player as well, so it was nice to just kinda talk through it as we were watching it, but that was fun. That was...

Torrey Hawkins (01:47.307)
I'm good tennis man both days the last album the last four days have been some phenomenal tennis I mean phenomenal I mean I can't stop short of calling it phenomenal we were you know we were a stone's throw from having a few new champs on both you know what I mean and you know I was very I was very happy to see the way it the way it panned out and you know

Alvin Owusu (01:54.658)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (02:15.804)
All I gotta say is, it keeps getting better. know, let me just say this one thing. Amanda Anisimova is for real. She is, she's here. She is, she is kicking butt and taking names. And I can't wait to see what she does in the next calendar 12. You know what I mean? To really kind of put herself in that next echelon. Like to her credit, she's not going to put any expectation on herself. I think it was great, but a phenomenal rebound from Wimby.

Alvin Owusu (02:24.907)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (02:44.666)
And she's really put the tour on notice and said, hey, don't forget about me. You know what mean? I'm here and Naomi Osaka, you can't forget about her. And you know, Coco and Iga aren't going anywhere. So I think that's what I'm left with is that, you and we can't, you can't say enough about Krijikova. You can't say enough about Rebecca. You can't say enough, you know, Taylor Townsend put her foot down in this tournament. You know, there's so many new stories. I know you're a big storyline guy that are going up. And I have to say,

Alvin Owusu (02:54.772)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (03:11.339)
I am. That's my thing.

Torrey Hawkins (03:14.654)
Even though the men's side isn't as, you know, it's a little more straightforward. It seems like the women's game has continued to evolve a few new champs and very dihedral opposite, but just as entertaining. I feel like Carlos and Janik are taking tennis to a level we've never seen before. And I just have to say that because we're watching perhaps the best.

Alvin Owusu (03:36.16)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (03:43.622)
of the best of all time. And that's hard to say in its current, but I feel very confident in saying that this is the best tennis I've ever seen on a point-by-point basis, as far as quality, shot for shot. it's just, Alvin, it's truly another level.

Alvin Owusu (03:45.429)
of the yeah, yeah, that's.

Alvin Owusu (04:02.178)
So.

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (04:12.178)
I mean, you know, that's one of my favorite terms. We've been in our academy that years ago. This is next level 10.0.

Alvin Owusu (04:18.893)
So I'll, okay, so we're gonna start on the men's side. We're gonna talk a little bit about that final and how we're feeling right now, maybe even macro, how we're feeling about where we are with men's tennis right now. But first I'll give a little peek forward. So you and I were talking about what are we gonna do, how do we wanna continue to show up here in this space between now and the Australian Open, right? So obviously we do a lot of, in the last 100 days of summer, we've done a lot of grand slam.

Torrey Hawkins (04:27.369)
Sure. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (04:44.617)
and Masters level coverage, right? And we're talking about these matches and the evolution of the sport in real time from our perspective, and it's been so much fun. And we have some time between major events now, about three, four months. So in the next 10 weeks or so, 12 weeks on both men's and women's side, we're gonna do a top 25 players of the last 25 years on both the women's side and the men's side.

Torrey Hawkins (04:51.774)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (05:08.083)
Okay. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (05:10.045)
And I've started doing some preparation for that and we'll do like five a week. So that's gonna be something you guys should look forward to and feel free to go along that journey with us. But when you start to talk about where we are in the men's game right now, when you take a step back and look at the numbers, as I've been looking at them a lot over the last few days, it is happening. It is happening in real time. And I've had the opportunity to talk to some people, some very educated tennis fans over the last few days who came out of the Roger

Rafa Novak, like I feel like we all went through that, that whole 15 year run together and we all come out of it with similar, it was phenomenal, but I think as it was happening, because we had never in our generation had never seen anything like that before, people took sides and got in camps and made you kind of actively cheer against the other in a certain way. But.

Torrey Hawkins (05:43.785)
Sure. Which was phenomenal, by the

Torrey Hawkins (06:02.128)
and didn't appreciate the gestalt of it all.

Alvin Owusu (06:04.725)
Until the end, only because it's been happening for so long. And I've heard Federer fans and Adolf fans all acquiesce and go, yeah, Novak's the goat. Like, you can't really argue with what he's done. And even now, what he's doing is another, you know, a testament to his own greatness, like of being able to, you know, there's those two, there's him. It's it's those two, Gap, him, Big Gap, everyone else, right? And he's 38, so.

Torrey Hawkins (06:21.032)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (06:29.52)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (06:34.853)
but you know, right now we are as tennis fans, we're going through this and, appreciating, think what we're seeing in front of us. These two early, but these guys have health, you know, if as long as they're healthy, assume these guys are the, the sky is the limit with these two as far as like where they can land. I'm not just talking about like grand slam totals. We're talking about their, you know, their rivalry in itself and

We've now gone back to back years where the two young men have split Grand Slams 2-2, 4-4 over the course of eight slams. Like you said, they've raised the level so much that if either one of them are slightly off, you get a match like today, you get a match like Wimbledon. They were more or less like, mean, fairly similar. Yeah, the second.

Torrey Hawkins (07:21.458)
Yep. Thank you.

Still not that, still not, but clearly of clearly a one degree of separation of the difference, but yet that difference pisses the other one off enough to get the other one in the next. And we are the benefactors of it Alvin, as we're watching this unfold in this, it's like that, it's like that. And then, and then it keeps going.

Alvin Owusu (07:39.821)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (07:51.851)
It's like that. It is like that.

Torrey Hawkins (07:55.278)
And then, I'll see one and I'll raise you one next term. And it's almost like I heard Al Kharaz tell Yannick at the net, I owed you for that one. You kicked my butt and win me. I owed you for that one. and and and Sinner said, yeah, you're right. You're right. And just and just for that, I got you. Be ready. Be ready for us. Yeah, really.

Alvin Owusu (08:05.568)
And he did. He did.

Yeah, you got me. Yeah.

That's the beauty of it though, right? It seems like both of the players are in this place where they appreciate what they're doing so much that nothing else matters. The rankings don't matter even though I love a good race for number one. We're on the March of Turin. The race is afoot, right? I love it. But the two of them, like it's not the money, they've got plenty of money. The difference between winning and losing is not gonna move the needle.

from that standpoint, the rankings, whatever, the points, whatever. They know that they are in this little bubble together and all they can do is continue to push the other one to get better, continue to push the other one to bring true excellence, true excellence every single time they line up on the other side of the net from one to each other and that is where we benefit because like the Dalton Federer so

different in game styles that if one of them was playing their game style well, honestly, usually not at all, Roger was gonna be in trouble and there wasn't much change or, know, especially on various surfaces. But fair, fair.

Torrey Hawkins (09:22.949)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (09:26.943)
I'll push back a bit because I saw Fed in 04, 05, 06. I was right there, courts that for much of it. And he took off so far. Nadal wasn't even getting into the second week of many of the slams, especially the US Open in those first four or five years. The year Skol got beat pretty bad by Roddick, the very next round, Roddick took out Nadal.

Alvin Owusu (09:35.34)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (09:52.073)
Young at all. Yeah. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (09:52.935)
You know, I think the dog, I think he may have gotten two more games. Go got beat 02 and two. want to say the dog got beat 03 and three. So I say that to say he was still getting beat down by and mind you, Randy Roddick is a phenomenal player, Grand slam champ, but he was not even close to the rivalry years for five years and a little older. We understand that and all that. But I say it to say, I felt like he caught fed and found a way.

Alvin Owusu (09:57.707)
Yeah, it's like, yeah, yep.

Alvin Owusu (10:19.531)
He did. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (10:21.445)
So I pushed back on some of that. Nadal was, was they were for sure the last five to eight years, but the first five was all fed. And I feel like that's where this Rob was a bit different. Fed was the front runner that they were catching. Nadal caught and then led and fed made it interesting to keep up. And then, and then Novak much to his credit. And I'll be the first to say I didn't give him enough credit early on. He seized upon the

Alvin Owusu (10:36.513)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (10:41.579)
in the end,

Torrey Hawkins (10:51.002)
higher level that these two now reached and beat both of them. can't say Fed in his prime because he didn't beat Fed Fed in his prime prime, but he certainly beat Nadal in his prime and beat a Federer as he was aging and matched if not surpassed the level and then some and then beat all the all also rants in between. What we have now is we have two players in their prime. This is more Mac Borg. This is more Pete Andre. This is more

Alvin Owusu (11:12.758)
Fresh start. Fresh start.

Torrey Hawkins (11:19.654)
These two are just going tit for tat Alvin and neither of them is so much of a front runner or so much of a, let me catch up. No, both of them are literally in uncharted territory going forward, but it's familiar territory for us tennis fans because we've seen this before. And both of them are in a sense, putting tennis on their back saying, let's go, let's go to K2. We've already been to Everest. Let's go to K2. Let's go to El Capitan. We haven't been there yet.

Alvin Owusu (11:37.686)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (11:48.848)
Let's go over there this time. And it's just really fun to watch.

Alvin Owusu (11:49.725)
Yeah, and it's crazy. Like even when we have to pinch to zoom in here to find like the minutia of the rivalry and someone has to start, right? Set the tone. We go back a few years, a few years, like this was way back in the day, 2022, when these two gentlemen met in the US Open, right? Fantastic five set match.

Torrey Hawkins (12:04.037)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (12:15.052)
It is, is lore at this point, that match. And then Carlos goes on to win the, win the grand slam or win the U.S. Open that year. But like, we got a taste of what, what could happen. And then Janik got his camp together and then the build. And then from 2024 on, it's been on, like it has been on the more so winter, say winter, fall of 2023. But yeah, we're, we're Carlos didn't get much of a jump. You got a, you got a two slam jump.

Torrey Hawkins (12:38.596)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (12:44.224)
Maybe I think it was, yeah. Picked up that U.S. Open, picked up that Wimbledon and then that was it, like the game on. So, you know, in this match today, like I mentioned earlier, it felt very similar to the Wimbledon match except for, like in that one player just wasn't there, like where they needed to be. Eight and a half out of 10. And the other player was...

Torrey Hawkins (12:45.423)
Yeah, if that. Yep, right.

Torrey Hawkins (13:04.517)
Sure. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (13:08.114)
nine and a half out of 10 and that's maybe nine. I don't think Carlos played as well today as Yannick did at Wimbledon. Yannick played phenomenal at Wimbledon. And faster surface, it changes things a little bit, but I think Carlos played the same way today. He played better today than he did on Friday in the semifinal, but has played in a very similar style all tournament. He played within himself today. Like he served well, right?

Torrey Hawkins (13:32.9)
Yeah, I agree with that.

Alvin Owusu (13:38.162)
He played relatively smart and he didn't, he did not hit himself out of matches. He has found this new base level where he's efficient, but entertaining. He knows that the razzle dazzle can come from the situations in which he needs to improvise, not the situations in which he needs to hit a stupid shot.

Torrey Hawkins (13:41.124)
Very smart.

Torrey Hawkins (14:01.668)
1000 % agree, but I'm going to offer a different take.

Alvin Owusu (14:04.716)
99.9 % agree.

Torrey Hawkins (14:06.755)
He... No, no, I agree on all parts. I'm just going to flip it upside down. Inception style. He didn't need to play 100 % today. And he's found a new way to beat Yannick. He threw an off pace. He threw in the slice. He made Yannick create pace at times, which he's never done before. He sliced more, looped more, hit

Alvin Owusu (14:23.979)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (14:34.925)
Alvin there were two or three times he played defensive shots against Yannick just to throw off the game. His racket speed and his position. Knowing that Yannick was going to counter, he didn't give him anything to counter with. We knew he was going to come to that. He played such a smart game style. Number one, against Yannick. Number two, he didn't play a bad match all tournament. All tournament. Right. He might have been the short person against Nova.

Alvin Owusu (14:58.89)
His worst match might have been against Novak. his, I mean, and also Novak takes that out of you. Like Novak might have forced that out of him a little bit as well. Let's,

Torrey Hawkins (15:06.916)
little bit I think it was a little bit of pride and a little bit of oh oh don't think don't think we're gonna have that Australian situation again ever number three and this is probably most important

I want to be the number one player in the world and I have to prove it against the current number one in the world, who's my buddy, friend and current rival, but don't sleep. I will put my foot on your neck if I need to. And by the way, I wear a size 12. I mean, that's what it looked like today, Alvin. looked like Carlos took a major lead, was pissed off from Wimby and said,

Yeah, I got a little lucky in the French. I got my butt kicked in Wimby. Didn't like that at all. Let me show you with my performance all the last two weeks that I've been training for this. And balls in your court, touche, you know what I mean? Your turn. Because it really felt like he just took it up a notch. Wimby was to me a series of Yannick.

Alvin Owusu (15:59.658)
Right. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (16:18.211)
bottomed out against Demetrov. Bottomed out slash Demetrov played off out of his mind and unfortunately couldn't finish the deal. But he played the worst, was that? Round of 16, quarters, whatever was, and then was on his way up and then caught your boy Carlos playing on his way up. And I thought Carlos is on his way down. He played some of his best tennis. That Rubalev match might've been his best match of the tournament.

Alvin Owusu (16:20.649)
Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Alvin Owusu (16:30.507)
I remember if they go 16.

Alvin Owusu (16:44.137)
That might have been one of the best tennis exhibitions short of, like, that I've seen in a while.

Torrey Hawkins (16:47.14)
Right? So, so I thought that was, and I don't, it's been too long since geometry, sine and cosine, I'm gonna say as far as the, way the things are going opposite directions. That was what happened to me at Wimbledon. It wasn't so much that Carlos got beat down. It was that he wasn't playing his best and that had already happened. And Yannick was on the way up. Today, I felt both of them played pretty well, but you could tell Carlos was just better today.

Alvin Owusu (16:55.487)
Yeah, there you go.

Alvin Owusu (17:16.245)
Today. Today.

Torrey Hawkins (17:16.437)
And I tell you, it was very, very, very encouraging to watch. It was very encouraging to see Yannick take that second set. He wasn't going away. Even though I don't think Carlos' level dropped per se. That early break that happened in the first didn't happen in the second, right? There was a lot of it was very fierce contested. But I felt like Carlos was in control. And I felt like he was in control. Wimbledon too just didn't control it, right? It was on him to do it. And Yannick's always going to counter. I've used the term before.

Alvin Owusu (17:31.915)
Hmm?

Torrey Hawkins (17:45.202)
After counterpuncher, you get counterpunisher. And Yannick is the best counterpunisher the world has seen. And that's saying a lot after one Novak Djokovic who initiated the term. So my point is, is I felt he found a way to counter the counterpunisher is all I'm trying to say.

Alvin Owusu (17:53.802)
So.

Alvin Owusu (18:01.343)
I want to go back to like on the counterpunisher point, I want to go back to the match against Novak, Novak versus Carlos in the semifinal. And I saw something in that match. And I don't know if we talked about it on the podcast, but whatever, say whatever I want here. I might say it twice. When they brought the angle down, you started to see what Novak was trying to do to Carlos. And it was the same thing that my eye caught that he was trying to do to Carlos in Australia, which was

keep the ball low, make Carlos hit up. He can't dictate when he's having to hit up, right? And so once Carlos kinda got a little, yeah, yeah, like hit it hard, flat, through the middle, a little bit shorter. He can't really do anything with that ball, right? It's a tough ball to, you have to kinda check it neutral. Hit it up, if you hit it up too thin, now Novak is on, he's working from the inside of the court and he's pushing out the angles, right?

Torrey Hawkins (18:37.506)
Correct.

and shorten the court as best.

Alvin Owusu (18:59.125)
Carlos kind of flubbed it in Australia along with some other things. The same thing happened, I tried to do it pretty early on Friday and that's where that backhand slice came in so clutch. When you started seeing him slice that ball, you could tell he's not taking the bait. I'm gonna slice that ball to the corner cross court and then I'm just gonna wait for you to leave one middle, slide over a little bit and now we start dancing with the forehand inside in, inside out. And you can do that all day long.

Torrey Hawkins (19:16.118)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (19:26.112)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (19:27.529)
and then forced Novak to come up with something else, right? And I saw it again today and one of the Mack and Rose was talking about, I don't love this strategy. And it's like, well, you know, he's gone, if he doesn't hit it well, that's one thing. But if he hits that slice deep cross and continues to have Yannick hit back hands up, same, same pattern. Yannick was hitting for, Yannick started by the third set, he was.

running all the way around both feet into the alley trying to hit forehands and spraying wide.

Torrey Hawkins (20:00.337)
running out of running out of camera angle to be honest with you Al there were times you lost him if he was on that on the camera side

Alvin Owusu (20:03.911)
Right, yeah.

And that is again, very similar to how Naomi handled Coco. That's where your tactics and execution blend. And it was like, was like, oh man, this is fun to watch. Like watching him adjust in real, quote unquote, real time over the course of three, six, nine months. That was how he flubbed it in Australia in the last two days. He's shown I'm rounding out all of my corners, all of

Torrey Hawkins (20:21.697)
Thank you.

real time. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (20:36.225)
It was it was both Mack and Rose that kind of mentioned it because he took that early stub of his toe in the second set. But you heard it right here. That was a bit of an anomaly. He kept doing the same exact thing. He kept slicing that ball, making Yanuk create pace off the inside out forehand. He continued to go bigger off the backhand, off of Yanuk's bigger ball. So he became the counterpunisher against Yanuk. And he had to. And first, let me say this.

Alvin Owusu (20:58.601)
Yeah, and he had to. had to.

Torrey Hawkins (21:03.166)
his backhand looked the best I've ever seen it today. The best. We know he's got a big forehand. We know he's got a good return. Backhand's good, don't get me very good. Like, number one in world good. Not best of all time good. I think Yannick, if anything, would have the 9.7 versus 9.2 over in the backhand. His backhand out hit Yannick's today. And I think it out hit Novak's the other day as well. And so what I was very, very impressed to see

Alvin Owusu (21:06.463)
Yeah, I think it's bulletproof right now.

Alvin Owusu (21:20.297)
Yeah. Agreed.

Torrey Hawkins (21:31.124)
was that he slowed it down to manageable pace for him, knowing the other guy is not going to create this. I'm a pace creator. I'm not going to take the bait to your point and out hit myself out of my coverage area, but I'm still going to hit it when I need to. And I'm going to hit my big forehand and my wide forehand. I'm not going to keep going line risking all like all in, you know, like I'm world championship poker. I am going to go hard wide. He did that quite a few times and all of the net play that we've been seeing all

Alvin Owusu (21:35.167)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:01.13)
The last two weeks really came to fore. His net play was phenomenal. He had some great touches. His passes were on point. He even forced Yanuk to come to net several times. Yanuk's not quite the volleys yet. But again, this is still young in the rivalry album. And I have to say this. Carlos took it up a notch or two with this match today. And I was very, very impressed with what he did with the adjustments. And I'm very much looking forward to the next iteration.

Alvin Owusu (22:02.314)
Hmm?

Torrey Hawkins (22:31.071)
turn in, you know, come next year Australia and so on and so on. It's the bad news, the only bad news. Everybody else ranked three and out might just want to book some tickets to watch and have their team, you know, look at some things because they're putting on a show right now. They're putting on a show that if you're not careful, if you're not really staying abreast of what's happening, they're going into warp three, warp four, and everybody else is still stuck in warp two.

Alvin Owusu (22:33.716)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:58.8)
They're pulling some things you haven't seen before. And you really need to kind of start to understand tennis is changing before our very eyes. Counter punishing is being countered. Aggressive baseline is no longer, you have to be an aggressive all quarter. The style has merged. It's no longer one style. It's all of them. Which one do I want to show you right now?

Alvin Owusu (23:23.018)
That's the beauty of what I think Carlos did today that you mentioned earlier was like, he's like, I'm not getting into these pinball rallies with you. I'm not getting into this arcade tennis with you. need to check down, I need to go high, I need to change the pace and then use his speed and world-class footwork to then start to manipulate off of that ball to just kind of throw a little bit of curve balls in there every once in a while and that's...

Torrey Hawkins (23:31.104)
Bye. Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (23:40.222)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (23:52.159)
That's the game within the game within the game. Yeah, it's it's it's like I'm smiling for those of you who are listening on Spotify or Apple podcasts or Amazon music, whatever. I I beg of you just go to YouTube and see the smile on my face right now. I am so happy right now. I'm happy for tennis. I'm happy for the you know, we've had this conversation lately or in tennis around with is it good for the game that these two are the only thing

Torrey Hawkins (23:54.525)
within the game. Inception all over again.

Alvin Owusu (24:23.156)
kind of holding up the men's side right now. Like if we don't get this at the end of the tournament, we're kind of left like, which to an effect it's true, right? There don't seem to be very many challenges along the way unless they become self-imposed, right? And that is in itself, that's unfortunate that it is right now. I'm sure things will, I'm not actually all that sure. I hope things change as we move forward in the next,

Torrey Hawkins (24:29.343)
I'm disappointed a little bit.

Torrey Hawkins (24:35.838)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (24:51.85)
12, 18, 24 months, but is the payoff worth it? I can't say it's not. Like these matches have been.

Torrey Hawkins (25:00.83)
When you say the payoff, who are we talking about?

Alvin Owusu (25:02.568)
the payoff being like we have to wait two weeks to get the good match and then we get this match. Would you prefer like, you know, some better semi-finals, some some quarterfinals that actually matter?

Torrey Hawkins (25:16.473)
I, Alvin, I think that tennis has been great. I know what you're trying to say. I know exactly what you're trying to say. Yeah. Yeah, man. You know what I mean? And I think that's where I'm going to make sure that we understand the context here. Alvin, you know, I'm going to use a car analogy for lack of a better one. When I see one of my students has an RTR Mustang, right?

Alvin Owusu (25:20.682)
I'm talking about the conversation at whole. enjoy watching pro professional players practice. Like don't get me wrong.

Torrey Hawkins (25:46.302)
It's one of the fastest cars, production cars out. It's 900 horsepower Mustang. It's past the GTR, it's past the Roush, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're now comparing in a sense an RTR Mustang or a Corvette ZR1, right, with some of the best supercars of all time. It's as if you're poo-point, you, not you, the tennis fan, is poo-point on a phenomenal car. Oh, but it's not the...

It's not the Ferrari, you know, or the, what's the, what's the crazy, what's the crazy car that has, you know, the Bugatti, the Baron, right? The Bugatti. Really? Are we, are we getting that picky? You know what mean? No, what it is, we're not, you don't get often the ability to even see one of those. And let alone, can you even understand the context? And if you truly understand, let's, I'm just going to say a zero one.

Alvin Owusu (26:23.23)
like a Bugatti or a, yeah,

Torrey Hawkins (26:44.451)
the RTR at work. You understand how high level of an automobile you're dealing with. So then to have an automobile that's a little bit faster racing, it's another phenomenal automobile. You're like, whoa, dude, I thought that was fast. You never think that the ZR1 is slow. You never think the RTR doesn't have enough horsepower. You know what I'm saying? So

Alvin Owusu (27:02.313)
Right, fair.

Alvin Owusu (27:06.644)
Taylor-Fritz is obviously the Corvette in this instance.

Torrey Hawkins (27:09.784)
I'm saying, and again, and I'm not one to heap a lot of huge praise on Taylor, but Taylor is number four in the world. Now the brother's bad. I gotta give him his props. I just have to appreciate right now, those two are playing at such a level that it is beyond what the current level can handle right now. And they're darn good as the other cars are fast. And I just want to make sure we don't

Alvin Owusu (27:17.224)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (27:40.493)
make the fan mistake of relegating the rest to, how do I say the word, ignominy, know, to such a poor level that we don't appreciate the level that we're seeing. Novak is still every bit of 24 Grand Slams. He's just a few years past his prime and he's been showing this for a while and make no mistake, he is that phenomenal car.

Alvin Owusu (27:51.668)
Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's.

Torrey Hawkins (28:10.289)
that says, buddy, I'm gonna ask them about Vanquish. I thought I was pretty fast. These guys are just a little bit faster. And that's what I'm getting at. And I just wanna make sure we appreciate the excellence in its class, not necessarily to knock the other down, but to raise them all up at a level that we can all appreciate. And just appreciate the highest of the high level right now, those two are able to push, is putting us into the stratosphere. And make no mistake,

Alvin Owusu (28:16.488)
Right, yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (28:30.58)
It's a...

Torrey Hawkins (28:39.384)
It doesn't mean the other or worse. That's all.

Alvin Owusu (28:41.064)
It's an AP course with a lot of smart kids and these two just happen to be busting the curve. It's fine.

Torrey Hawkins (28:47.596)
100%. And out of nowhere, asks the question of relativity. And you're like, oh, oh, relativity, oh, who would step out?

Alvin Owusu (28:52.454)
Right, yeah, exactly. right, right. so like, as we look at it, you know, kind of taking stock, Gary Nathan, Gary Nathan wrote a book, and we're gonna talk about this in another episode. I might have Pat come back around and he's an author, he's read the book, we're gonna talk about it. a book has already been written about the beginning of this rivalry. Gary Nathan wrote a book, came out I think right before the US Open.

Torrey Hawkins (29:15.93)
Okay. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (29:22.056)
kind of chronicling everything up to, think through the end of last year between these two. So you ain't got these three chapters in it, but the idea that someone, a writer, a good writer, a respected writer, felt compelled to start documenting this in real time and publishing it in almost epochs, if you will. Like we've got the first three years, boom, here it is. And then right after it releases,

Torrey Hawkins (29:30.14)
All right.

Torrey Hawkins (29:38.042)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (29:50.922)
or as it's in production, you get three more. They've played three Grand Slam finals in 100 days against each other. That's dumb. What are we doing except for we're blessed. We're blessed. And we're at what, six four right now in the total. We've split four four of the last eight, right?

Torrey Hawkins (29:59.42)
That's a great stat.

Yep. Yep.

And that's the perspective right

Alvin Owusu (30:20.765)
That's awesome stuff. now we come into, we come.

Torrey Hawkins (30:23.356)
Have they been in seven of eight finals? Is that my take? Six of eight?

Alvin Owusu (30:27.946)
one of them in seven of eight, like, or against each other.

Torrey Hawkins (30:32.732)
One of them, seven of eight for sure. I'm saying, have they been against the other on six of eight or has it been four of eight?

Alvin Owusu (30:37.939)
No, no, no, no, no, no, in last few years. think these were the first, these last three were the first times they've played each other in finals.

Torrey Hawkins (30:45.264)
finals of each other. Right. Seven and eight for each of three.

Alvin Owusu (30:48.923)
Yeah, so like last year, last year French Open, they played the semi-finals. Carlos took that one. They didn't.

Torrey Hawkins (30:53.789)
Right, right, Didn't play in the final, but they played each other throughout.

Alvin Owusu (30:58.661)
Not in the US Open two years. Yeah, they've they've met a handful of times prior to this year, but not in the finals.

Torrey Hawkins (31:05.156)
Right, just not in the finals. I thought they had played six of eight of the last eight, just not in the final. I thought they matched up against each other for whatever reason up until, I thought it was six. I mean, maybe I'm wrong.

Alvin Owusu (31:13.604)
it's possible.

Alvin Owusu (31:17.577)
It wasn't, I can go back quickly, not the Australian Open last year. French Open last year, yes, Wimbledon, no, US, no. So it's been, and then Australian, no, so it's been four of the eights. Four of the eight, they've played each other. And three of eight were finals, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, we've split the grand slams. They're winning all of them, apparently. And so I think next,

Torrey Hawkins (31:27.356)
Bye for now.

Torrey Hawkins (31:33.082)
What? And three of the April finals. Right,

Torrey Hawkins (31:42.33)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (31:46.41)
Carlos has lifted his level a bit this year. He's cleaned up. That's eight finals in a row. He's cleaned up. Exactly, exactly. So as we look forward to next year, like I think now we have a, we've got a sprint. We got a four year sprint here. you know, we have a sprint of four slams with both of them equal footing. That's what I they both come in healthy, right? Where I know you, you know me, let's get after it.

Torrey Hawkins (31:50.148)
Yeah, a lot. That's due to Yannick.

Torrey Hawkins (32:04.091)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (32:14.857)
We both know what's up. And let's continue to push each other. yeah, I hate to look at this final by itself. I almost have to look at the last three of them together.

Torrey Hawkins (32:15.076)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (32:26.434)
Right. Because they're almost all to be continued, you know, in a lot of ways. Part two, part three. Right.

Alvin Owusu (32:29.359)
Yeah, that French Open was an odd treat. Wimbledon was a little more what you'd expect. And then today was also just the opposite direction of what you, also kind of what you'd expect, but the other person won. So yeah, we're good. We good.

Torrey Hawkins (32:36.825)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (32:46.299)
Yeah, oh, 100%. It's the, if I can put it in film, it's the George Lucas, you know, Star Wars was meant to be one movie, six hours long, you know what I mean? That he ended up making, putting in the several episodes. That's what we're watching. They're all to be continued. Meanwhile, you know what I mean, so to speak. I think it's gonna.

Alvin Owusu (33:04.594)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (33:13.193)
Right, let's slip over, because I think we're good there. Are you good there on the men's side? Yeah, I'm satiated, I feel good. On the women's side, Irina Sabalenka, she came good. She came good. And I was watching the match, and in a room, mixed crowd, a lot of people, a lot of talking, a lot of socializing, but I'm watching the match and I'm like,

Torrey Hawkins (33:18.426)
Yep, 100 % up there. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (33:36.815)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (33:41.588)
This is just like a normal tennis match. It's a normal tennis match. In that, so before the match, I think I said it on this podcast, I think I said it to people that asked me or pressed me on who I thought was gonna win. I was like, well if they both play well, then I think Amanda will win.

Torrey Hawkins (33:46.02)
How do you, how do you mean?

Alvin Owusu (34:03.197)
But if they don't, this is what you get. And there's not that much between them. And you start to look at, okay, well what actually happened? It's like, well, Amanda didn't serve that well. And her forehand kind of went off the rails. She's spraying enough, mean, the numbers will, early, right? And then at that point, you start to, we're talking about a Grand Slam final here, which she's already been in that situation before. She got it back together.

Torrey Hawkins (34:29.754)
And I only got 12 games of it, I might add. But I your point.

Alvin Owusu (34:32.089)
Right, but she got down with 3-0, I think in this one, in the first set, and then came back, evened it up, okay? But then 6-3, there's a little bit of, she never found her rhythm. Her hands and her feet did not look like they wanted to play together in the first set. She was able to come up with winners on the backhand side, which she's gonna be able to do that when she's 70. But everything else just looked a little bit,

Torrey Hawkins (34:36.749)
Early on, yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (34:55.929)
and anywhere. Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (35:01.385)
but you have to consider you're playing against one of the greats, the number one player in the world who showed up. And Amanda needed to serve. The thing that she could have controlled was serving better. She did not make enough first serves. And when we're starting from second serves, like that's not, either woman, either woman, like is going to go off on second serve returns, Arena just gotta look at more of them than Amanda did.

Torrey Hawkins (35:14.241)
Agree? Agree?

Torrey Hawkins (35:19.565)
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (35:28.964)
I would also say the 5-3 was a 5-2, 5-3 in the second to 5-6. I think we both understand that that game had turned out differently and the tiebreak had a little bit of a different start. That match could have gone through. We could have saw more fireworks. Here's what I saw, Alvin, and maybe often this is a nice role reversal for us. You're usually macro and I'm micro, and now you're going micro.

Alvin Owusu (35:56.701)
A little micro.

Torrey Hawkins (35:59.359)
Amanda has just now played, in my opinion, a reasonable final. I call the Wimbledon a just an aberration. Let's be honest. We just call it that. It's an outlier. Emotionally, physically, all the above. She just didn't show up, period. We understand that. She said that. She said as much. This was her first, in my opinion, first real final where she actually played.

Alvin Owusu (36:10.141)
Yeah, for sure. Toss it out. Let's toss it out. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (36:25.859)
She did this against Naomi a little bit, but was lucky enough to get through second and third and was able to find her rhythm and then obviously able to get through third. And trust me, Naomi was not waiting around for her to find the rhythm. She was almost, server space, server space, here we go. I mean, and I like that, but something similar is happening. I think her camp's gonna realize, okay, Amanda, you're healthy. You're doing great. This is a phenomenal year. Two finals, you kidding me? In the same year? We were happy to get seven matches without getting hurt. This is great.

Alvin Owusu (36:28.103)
Yep, she turned it around in the second set. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (36:55.721)
Now let's start working on you starting faster. This match to me, was more about experience, more about starting out of the gate quickly and not necessarily stubbing your toe. And this match was about, Arena did a great job of not letting it go free, which unfortunately Naomi let it go free. This match to me was more about finals experience and being able to win all the ugly quiet points. Cause if you look at winners Alvin,

Alvin Owusu (37:05.289)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (37:23.626)
I'm pretty sure Amanda led in the winners category. And you talk about the four and off the rails, she had as many foreign winners late in the max as she had backhand winners. The four haven't started getting bigger than the backhand. I will say bigger, as big as the backhand did late middle to late of the second. So served a lot better. Everything got better.

Alvin Owusu (37:25.769)
She did, yep.

Alvin Owusu (37:41.673)
She also served a lot better late middle second. That's a big deal. She's starting from a better position to hit those four hands as well.

Torrey Hawkins (37:47.564)
but she also hit the forehand bigger. And she was trusting the forehand, lying, not just crossed, not sitting at the backhand. She was going for it. And I think what I'm getting at, Alvin, is that all happiness and congratulations and props are due to Arena. I called Arena before the match, you know, I talked about it. She's just that experienced and she's due. I said that before, she's due. She's been in three or four of these all year. She's due. She was not going to be denied. However, what I saw from Amanda is Arena better keep training.

because Amanda is still figuring out what Amanda can do. This rivalry is starting to get very complex because she's as tall, maybe a tad taller, has a better backhand, quietly has almost as good of a serve, has definitely as good of a turn, right? Foot speed, we know, Irina's a little bit of an athlete, but as far as firepower and ball striking, she might be the best ball striker.

Alvin Owusu (38:33.896)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (38:44.208)
on both tours as far as it's concerned, as far as average ball speed. And that counts for a lot. So what I think once she gets two or three of these more under her belt, Alvin, this girl's gonna be tough to beat. And I'm worried about Ega, Coco, know, all the rest that are coming behind her because of JPEG, because she is a taller version, harder striking version than JPEG. She can hit the back end bigger than Ega.

And, you know, in a lot of ways, she's kind of a Freehold New Jersey, you know, revamp of Madison in a lot of ways.

Alvin Owusu (39:21.992)
She's Madison without the variance is what she is.

Torrey Hawkins (39:26.911)
Right, right. And coming into her own. And so I don't want say that to say, back to my point, we can't look at this through a microscope. The women's tour is phenomenal right now. And I got to say, Alvin, for all those years that Serena kept the tour on her back, I got to tell you, I am happy, man. I'm happy to see all the variety, the chances. You've got Grand Slam champs that exited early. You got Grand Slam champs that didn't play great. You got Grand Slam champs that...

Alvin Owusu (39:48.456)
It's fantastic.

Torrey Hawkins (39:55.96)
showed up and played spoiler. We haven't even gone in depth yet about Emma Navarro, Cocoa Golf, others that could still, that have yet to reach their potential. They're still coming. Peyton Stearns, McCartney Castle. We got players that are coming that are just getting into the top 20, getting comfortable. And we got 20s to 10s that are now pushing the Grand Slam Finals. That's what I'm seeing. And I got to tell you, Alvin, this is phenomenal for tennis.

Alvin Owusu (40:21.384)
So with these two, and I agree, I'm in love with just the depth. And I've said it before, continue to preach it as long as it's true. The depth on the women's side right now is phenomenal. Like, Arena is the number one player in the world, right? And she just won this Grand Slam. But over the course of last two years, she's three and two against Amanda, right? And this is Amanda coming back, right? So now we get to, again, like,

Like we talked about getting through this the rest of this year and coming into Australia. Like Amanda is, Amanda's kind of like a diesel engine. Like just takes her a little bit of time to get warmed up and get rolling. We need her coming out like a snappy, like a snappy like inline six, right? Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think her being able to start better is probably going to be the.

Torrey Hawkins (40:56.545)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (41:00.267)
Yeah. The gears just keep going.

Torrey Hawkins (41:18.561)
Ugh.

Alvin Owusu (41:19.578)
It's probably the number one thing her camp works on in this off season. I say off season, like they're done, there's no off season. got the Asian swing. for all intents and purposes, it's like we gotta start better, which means we gotta get quicker. She reminds me of Maria Sharapova. that once the feet get there, she gets maniacal about becoming the best.

Torrey Hawkins (41:21.527)
percent.

Torrey Hawkins (41:39.051)
Yeah, a lot like her.

Alvin Owusu (41:46.724)
Athlete she can be in the best movers. She can be right. She's never gonna be she's gonna be Coco But she can be the best mover. She can be the best mover Amanda kid up possibly be

Torrey Hawkins (41:48.235)
Right. Right.

Ever. Right. The best version of Amanda ever possible. I 100 % agree with you. And what I also look forward to Alvin and to piggyback off that is now the seeding and the surface start to take on your favorite storyline. can, depending on three, four or five, who you run into, right? So now seeding becomes even more important and who

Alvin Owusu (41:58.824)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (42:21.046)
who's who's peaking early and so on. And as I said, when you have a tournament that had 12 former Grand Slam champs, some of them multiple Grand Slam champs in the same draw, several of which weren't even seated, you gotta appreciate the fact that that's depth right there. We're not just talking, these are good and they got, and we're not counting the number of finalists in the draw, right? There was probably another eight finalists, you know what mean, in that same tournament. So.

Alvin Owusu (42:44.838)
Yeah? Yeah?

Torrey Hawkins (42:49.512)
I'm looking forward to it, Alvin. think it's gonna be a great situation. Amanda will only get better. We already know Arena's good. We already know Ega's good. We already know, you know, Coco's good. We already know JPEG's good. Now Amanda's elbow on her way into the top five, so to speak to say. And I hope you had room for me. I think I got a table at that seat right over there.

Alvin Owusu (43:12.658)
She's the 2025 version of, from a results standpoint, Jasmine Pauly. Let's go back to back Grand Slam finalists, right? Jasmine last year, back to back French Open Wimbledon finals, Amanda back to back Wimbledon and the US Open here. And then let's keep in mind, she was able to maintain that throughout the course of the year. wasn't, Jasmine that is, not top four material, but she's sitting somewhere at eight, I believe in the world right now.

It's just we have so many women that can do it. That can do it, which means like day three of a Grand Slam, it's on. It's on, day one of a Masters 1000, it's all, round one, I should say. I don't know when the hell these things start anymore. They're pretty long, but yeah. And so for all of you who have the ability to do so, get out and go to tournaments. Get out and see them.

Torrey Hawkins (43:48.053)
Yeah. It's gonna be rough.

Torrey Hawkins (43:59.477)
No, you're talking about the first round. Yeah, Keep your head on the swivel. Keep your head on swivel because it can happen.

Alvin Owusu (44:10.439)
It's if you're not, you know, if you're the United States, I'm sure most of you here are tennis channel subscribers. Subscribe to Tennis Channel Plus, right? There's good tennis on, like this is obviously not the end. We've got some Masters 1000s left and then you're in championships and then you get a couple weeks off and then we're right back down in Australia. say some things, say a thing.

Torrey Hawkins (44:28.175)
I want to say one thing to any of the supervisors that might be on watching or just happen to type in a Google search. Talk around the fan base. Please do something to clean up the schedule to where we can see great tennis and put a higher price point or something to be able to have 25

to 28 phenomenal weeks of the year. Give these athletes some true off time. They're not gonna take it unless you bake it into the schedule. And all this bonus pool crap and your sample, they don't have to play. Yeah, yeah, but you're dangling millions of dollars in the pool if they do play. So all you're gonna end up doing is creating a bunch of Fondri Sova.

and Sabalinka matches, which we all want to see and quite frankly, the players want to play. But because these players are playing so much tennis, it's not able to happen. And now you're to get these fan of matches that are really just going to be the luck of the draw. You're still going to have a player hurt here and there. That's going to happen. But when you play 35 to 40 weeks a year, Alvin, maybe even 42 or 45.

That's too many matches to play week in week out. And if you're going to do well, you're going to be playing all six, seven matches. or six for obviously for 1000s and seven for slams. I say it to say, you've got to do something to protect this current level of tennis and keep the tennis pure and keep the matches so phenomenal. In the picture behind me right now, for those of you who are listening in may not be able to see it, but I've got a packed Arthur Ashe. You don't get packed Arthur Ashe.

for a bunch of pull-outs and a bunch of names that were in the draw but then pulled out because they couldn't play. It used to be players never pulled out of the slams. Now they're pulling out because they have to for whatever reason. And on to the next one, I got to look at that if I'm a tour organizer and say, guys, we want to make this be exceptional every year, not just for the slams, for all of it. And we have to bake in some time. We know Davis Club, know, what's the?

Torrey Hawkins (46:48.372)
What's the women's version? Hotman, Billie Jean, Cup now. was going to say the old school Whitman Cup. It's Billie Jean. so much the... It's so much... Those are going to happen. Olympics is going to happen. All these are going to happen. Can you protect the integrity of the tour by having a few less events and having a little bit better schedule where there's even maybe even a...

Alvin Owusu (46:50.705)
Billie Jean Kink up. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (47:16.063)
mandatory if you would week off in between a couple of them to give these players the time and rest they need. If they want to choose to go play a challenger or something else, well that's on them. But you baked that in. I just want to say that because I think we're at such a pivotal point that if we don't protect the schedule, you're running into, you know, so many other sports. Baseball is already seeing it. Basketball is already seeing it. Too many games, you start losing fans anyway. You know what I mean? And you hate for that to happen.

Alvin Owusu (47:29.937)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (47:44.467)
because not only are players hurt and dinged up half the time, the quality of the end result, the finals, the aren't as strong.

Alvin Owusu (47:50.78)
You say that and then I'm about to ask you, you wanna shoot down to Delray on Friday for Davis Cup, USA versus Czechia? I'm just saying, I mean, you got Fritz in Tiafo against Lahechka in Minsk. It's gonna be out, that's gonna be, exactly, here we go, tennis doesn't sleep, right? I'm not even kidding, like we should go, just for a day. Flat out in the morning, we can come back Saturday morning, I'm not even kidding.

Torrey Hawkins (48:08.851)
Good match.

Torrey Hawkins (48:18.311)
I have to say what up to my nephew Justin who lives in Delray. I'll call him. Let's see if we can't make it down there. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:23.908)
What's your two day trip? Do we get non-stop all day on Delta like just every hour shooting down there?

Torrey Hawkins (48:27.443)
Yeah, he lives right off Atlantic. I'll have to send him a quick shot, see if he's in town. Oh, that's, yeah, no, it's not a no. And that's the problem. You see what I'm saying?

Alvin Owusu (48:34.151)
It's not a no. It's not a no.

Well, I mean, OK, let's look at it like so we say that's a problem. And I agree. Like there should be the players shouldn't feel like they have to be pushing it 40 weeks a year. But as a tennis player, like Taylor lost in the quarters that was on like Tuesday. Yeah. OK, he's got he's not going to play another match that counts till next Friday. OK, that's probably fine. It's really fine.

Torrey Hawkins (48:59.762)
Tuesday, Yeah. I'm ready.

Alvin Owusu (49:09.295)
Take a days off, come back, hit the balls, play. I know, it's a stretch. It's a stretch. But Mn6k's been out for a minute. Lahetska lost in the same round that Taylor did. Tiafos.

Torrey Hawkins (49:20.839)
Tiaffo? Heskiel? Heskiel is the one guy who's played the most recent.

Alvin Owusu (49:24.783)
Yeah, guess. Yeah, he lost. He lost to Carlos, I think the same day that Novak beat Taylor. So. They're close to, yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (49:28.38)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (49:34.922)
I'm with you. I'm not and you know and I know Davis Cup will always trump the schedule because that's Davis Cup. We get that. It can't be played in one calendar month, you know, due to the tournament. They get in when they fit in. I get that. Don't get me started on Davis Cup should have already done what Olympics did and gone every two years like World Cup and Olympics. That's holding a talk show. But that's another

Alvin Owusu (49:47.973)
At least these guys are already here too. Like they're there. They just lost in New York. They're they're not going back to Czechia to come down. They're still here.

Torrey Hawkins (50:04.103)
whole nother talk show as far as Davis Cup not wanting to acquiesce and become a four year slash, you know, coupling with the Olympic situation. But I get your point. And those four, you're right. And if all I'm saying is they need to look at it. I'm not saying what the solution is. What I'm saying is, is that you would hate to see the tour continue to be hobbled by the

number of matches and then some of the top players get hurt, dinged up and aren't able to commit to what's happened because they played all your other tour events. Those draws full, kept that marketing up where it should have been. And you end up losing when every player should be ready, which is the slams. There was a whole section of the draw and this is no slight to Alex de Menor, but Alex de Menor did not face as a lower, it wasn't a top four seed. He did not, which is not his fault that Zverev lost.

He did not play a higher level seed until. No, did not play one.

Alvin Owusu (51:06.341)
He didn't play, he did not play a higher seed. He got beat by Felix.

Torrey Hawkins (51:09.042)
did not play a higher seed. And I was so happy for Felix to break through. The draw was right after the taking. My problem with that is we're gonna let, as we should, a well-deserved 38-year-old only play a limited schedule because he's deserved it. Why not let some of the others play a lesser schedule if they want to roll the dice and play that little schedule? That's all I'm saying.

Alvin Owusu (51:32.295)
Well, it's only he's only playing a less. He's only playing a shorter schedule because he can he can afford to. He doesn't need to all the whatever whatever. mean, he does get I think you do get fined or docked or whatever for not playing the requisite amount of masters. He ain't playing. I mean, I don't care. I mean, whatever. I wasn't going to see that money anyways. It's fine. So like that's that's the privilege he's earned through 20 years of

Torrey Hawkins (51:53.009)
Right. Play the fun. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (52:02.032)
Thank you. And keeping the game on his back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (52:02.064)
playing at the highest level, yeah, can keep the change, you filthy tour. But the rest of them, like this is their, that's the downside about being a professional athlete, right? Your earning window is relatively small. So get rich or die trying. That's what they do. Let's look at the bright side. We as fans, we turn on the TV, we buy the tickets, we go, we get entertained, we get amazed. And then that's what.

Torrey Hawkins (52:17.328)
Well, I'm with.

Torrey Hawkins (52:27.97)
Are you not entertained? Yeah. Yeah. God, it was intense today.

Alvin Owusu (52:29.568)
I was entertained today. was, you know, I'm entertained by the matches. I'm entertained by where we are in the sport. I'm really entertained by being able to talk to you about it and others.

Torrey Hawkins (52:39.834)
Yep. I just don't want the tail wagging the dog. I guess that's my only point. I don't want the tail wagging the dog. I want the tour to take advantage of the phenomenal opportunity they have right now and to catch lightning in a bottle and make sure that everybody comes out. There's so many good matches out and it was such a good tournament. US Open people that put it on have got to be excited about not just the turnout, the gamble on the mixed doubles, having all the players come through the way they did, having some

Alvin Owusu (52:45.189)
sure.

Alvin Owusu (53:07.908)
No rain. No rain. A little bit of rain.

Torrey Hawkins (53:08.529)
Americans, no rain. The one day it rained, they had the roof off. But I mean, so many good things happened this week. The top one and two was able to plow through the draw and still had great match on the other courts. It was just to me, it was just a great tournament and very, very happy that it turned out that way. And we got to see not just two great weeks of tennis, we saw another great final and another iteration of what could be one of the best rivals of all time.

Alvin Owusu (53:37.158)
Yeah, absolutely. think that's good place to put a pin in it. I don't wanna waste words tonight. It's been a good tournament. It was a good weekend of tennis. We are blessed. To all you new listeners, welcome. This is the best of three. This is the best three. sure, I see like 70 % of you watching, I'm talking to the camera now, 70 % of you watching are not subscribed. Don't do that. Don't be that guy.

Torrey Hawkins (53:51.109)
Yeah.

Hit us up on the chat. Tell me.

Alvin Owusu (54:05.927)
Don't be that guy or that gal. Hit that subscribe button. Follow, tell your friends, all that stuff. And with that, yeah, boom, best three. I'm Alvin, that's Tori, we're out.