Ep. 67: Schedules, Sustainability, and Saying Goodbye: Tennis in Transition

Alvin Owusu (00:30.712)
So welcome to another episode of the best of three podcasts. I was wondering if I was gonna remember how to start a podcast. I'm like, we haven't actually recorded one of these in about three weeks, but I'm still Alvin, that's still Tory. And we are here, we're in the, I don't know, it's early October. We're somewhere between Beijing and Shanghai on the men's side. Women are playing, I think still in Beijing right now.

Torrey (00:37.305)
Hahaha!

Torrey (00:58.97)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:00.458)
Yeah, Carlos is still good, Yannick's still good, women's tennis is still interesting as all hell, and Monfius announced that he's retiring, but TH, how are you doing? Good to see you again.

Torrey (01:08.836)
Yeah.

I'm good, man, good. It was really good to catch up with you about your trip to Ghana. it's always, I think the more we travel, obviously, shout out to Vicky and Dixon, back there and the rest of the fam. And just happy you're back. obviously, how did the kids, how are they processing Ghana and how are they processing all of that coming from Atlanta, obviously.

Alvin Owusu (01:41.164)
Yeah, it was...

Torrey (01:41.262)
to Accra, opposite to Comasi. Am I saying it right? Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:44.888)
Kamasi, yeah, Kamasi. It was, yeah, it was interesting. So like my kids spent a good amount of time this summer while you and I were grinding through French Open and Wimbledon. My kids were actually down in the Dominican Republic for a month. So that was almost a precursor to seeing different things, seeing how people not like themselves, live their lives. So when we got to Ghana, they were kind of, they were ready to roll.

Torrey (01:57.124)
Yeah.

Torrey (02:05.879)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (02:10.362)
And they had, I think they had a really good experience. They played with kids that they couldn't really communicate with, and some they could. Yeah, like it's just kids, we're all just humans, and sometimes our language barriers are just like, sometimes they're self-imposed, and you see it with the purity of children, just having a good time, making it work. But it was a good little pilgrimage, but everyone got there safely and got back safely, so.

Torrey (02:10.427)
Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Overfound the way to. Right.

Torrey (02:34.555)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back up and help.

Alvin Owusu (02:38.446)
Yeah, so we're right back in here once again. Right back up in here. So yeah, this is a weird time of year for the tennis fan. I always like to tell people between the start of the French Open and the end of US Open, it's like roughly 100 days where we pack in three grand slams. And we were there for all of it. All the balls hit, all the matches played.

And now we, you know, we take a little time off. We come back and it's like, wait, tournaments don't start on Monday anymore or Sunday. They start on Wednesday. Time zones flipped upside down. unless you're in Asia shouts to you listening to our, our, our little podcasts here, but, you know, I've been, I've been following along as a responsible tennis podcaster would, but I will come clean. I'm not that motivated.

Torrey (03:12.133)
Right, Yeah Yeah Yeah

Alvin Owusu (03:36.384)
I'm not overly interested. The tennis is fine, but it's all kind of checkpoint stuff. The players aren't much different than they were a month ago in New York. Indoor hard courts, kind of similar to New York. So it's not that much different and we're seeing a lot of the same results, right? Like Carlos' dog walking people in Beijing and where was Yannick? Yannick was in.

Torrey (04:01.455)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (04:04.897)
Tokyo I believe, he's dog walking people in Tokyo, maybe that's back and forth. But yeah, and now we're rolling into Shanghai. all the same, nothing was the same, everything's the same, I don't know. I don't know.

Torrey (04:07.192)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey (04:19.274)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think on the women's side too, I saw there was some decent results. saw Sabalink is obviously doing some similar, has some similar carnage with a lot of the top players. her revenge match over Anissa Mova. I think she'd be JPEG in another match as well, a week or two back. It's the same story. I love

I love tennis. I love tennis from all parts of it. Love watching tennis. I really feel like for whatever reason this year, I feel like the volume of the Vogue Tours has started to come to a head. And I feel like it's between the injuries and the pull-outs. I know they were trying to dangle a carrot.

you know, with the prize money from the US Open Series and other terms. And even though the tour itself has been giving these action incentives, right? I guess the bonus pool, I feel like they're doing a lot of things like that. But I have to say, I know you were talking about this before we jumped on with Carlos potentially opting out some of these. I have to say that might not be a bad choice. I read an article, I don't know, six months ago about.

Alvin Owusu (05:21.421)
Yeah, the bonus pool, yep.

Torrey (05:42.424)
playing the of matches. The term was, and it was written by Jim Curry. And he was talking about how back in their day, they played everything. That was almost the way they were encouraged. They encouraged to play a lot. And he said, the generation behind us, he said, probably starting with Roger, they put more emphasis on scheduling. And they put more emphasis on playing the season, playing the tournaments.

that mattered more for them, for their careers. Not necessarily that mattered for the tour, not necessarily that mattered for the immediate prize money, not so much that mattered for the schedule that was given them, but they chose to play certain events and chose not to play others. And he, Jim Currier, what, four slams? Three? Arguably one of the best players in the world in his day. And he was coming from a perspective of...

how much smarter they were for scheduling it like so. And I look at the tour now post the big three and I see a lot of the same tournaments kind of the same tour issues coming around again, or maybe even more tournaments now than there were 10, 15 years ago. And I wonder has someone gotten to the ear of Carlos and Yannick both and said, guys, take the hit on that penalty.

Save yourself, save your body, get ready for next year because it's gonna come up again on the slams. At the end of the day, you're really going to be measured by your slams. Let's be honest. And I wonder if that confidence has been had. I'm curious your take.

Alvin Owusu (07:16.267)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (07:20.621)
I feel like it 100%, I mean you look at the teams that the two gentlemen have put together. Obviously with Juan Carlos in Alcara's corner, former world number one, former Grand Slam champion. And then he has some of the people who worked with the doll around him as well. also, and then Janek having, I always wanna say it's Paul Anacomb, but it's not Paul Anacomb. Cahill in his corner.

Torrey (07:47.084)
Up there, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (07:47.822)
Yeah, it's like, and Darren's been around, you know, multiple Grand Slam winners, multiple number one players in the world. These guys have seen it, and not only have they seen it like firsthand, but the players themselves, Yannick and Carlos have had the benefit of seeing the generation before them. Like, they know what the goal is. Like Roger and Rafa and Novak, like once Roger got past Pete's number, it's kind of like.

Torrey (08:05.389)
Right. Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (08:13.869)
Okay, we're all just, creating the future of tennis now. We're just, we're pushing this thing forward. Where these gentlemen, like Carlos, I think he mentioned it, or somebody mentioned it in the Netflix documentary, like, the goal should be 20 slams. And that really is, that's a 15 year career of going at one and a half slams a year. But you gotta, if you're gonna look at it like that, it's definitely doable. Probably doable, but you gotta stay healthy.

Torrey (08:28.716)
Right.

Torrey (08:36.834)
And you got to schedule it so that you stay healthy. And I think that's the conduit that I'm getting at is that there's been up again, you and I can appreciate with a total of zero grand slams between the two of us, right? There is an understanding that those without slams, and there are many of us, have to schedule so much to make a living.

Alvin Owusu (08:55.757)
Heh.

Alvin Owusu (09:05.964)
Yes.

Torrey (09:06.566)
And the level, the echelon just above that is the, I'm getting in all the slams. I don't know if I'm a threat to win any, but I'm getting into all of them I'm getting better, which is great. And those handful of select souls are doing a great job of being relevant and being in the conversation. They need said prize money pool, bonus pool and so on, because that's a huge bonus on the end of their year. Now you get up to the next very small echelon of

15, maybe, maybe 20 people that have the ability to knock off a top eight seed at a given tournament. And of course that's even double for them. Now you get to that top eight. And when I am talking with the top two, the top eight, and they have a decision to make. Do we chase the money? Do we take play every tournament? Do we play 40 weeks? Or do we really try to key in on playing 28, 30?

maybe 32, just call it a day. And now what I'm really liking, I have to say, I like it a lot for the top to do this, and they of course can afford to, is to say, you know what? I'm only gonna play this many. I have next year to think about, I've got my body to think about, I've got the next several years to think about, and to Jim Currier's point, they are not taking the schedule, they are creating their own within the schedule. You guys have to ding me that.

Alvin Owusu (10:07.061)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (10:15.628)
they can afford to.

Torrey (10:35.137)
15, 20 grand if you need to go ahead. My health and my whatever is more important. And then you got, you know, then you got King Novak here on the side who's basically telling you what he's going to play, you know what I mean? And deciding that that's going to be the way it is. And to be quite frank, Alvin, good for him. You know I mean? You get to be 38 or almost 39 and still playing this game as you've been able to not just keep your body right, but you've also been able to dictate the terms again, can afford to.

Alvin Owusu (10:51.787)
Yeah.

Torrey (11:03.169)
both on who he is as well as where he is in the pocketbook, but also he's made those choices and made those decisions to put himself in that situation. So that to me is them taking their careers back from a very, let's face it, everybody's trying to make more and spend less and the promoters and tours are no different. They're all trying to use to maximize every weekend. If the tour could be 52 weeks, they do it.

Alvin Owusu (11:29.162)
Yeah. Yep.

Torrey (11:31.733)
you know, and do 53 Olympia. Trust me, they would. That's just business, how business works. But I really feel like that's a good sign for the top two players to kind of beg off the schedule a little bit and say, yeah, no, that's enough. And I think at that, you may have a, you're gonna continue to, the problem is you're gonna continue to incentivize yourself to win more slams, which then kind of begs the question on that number two, no, sorry, number three through number eight. Are we making the right call, right?

Alvin Owusu (11:45.622)
And I think it's.

Torrey (12:00.545)
And that's where it gets tricky because you know, you've got that, those players have the wherewithal and the to make their decisions. But are they chasing slams and chasing their two top rivals or are they chasing some money and some more results? You see what saying? It's a real tricky argument.

Alvin Owusu (12:19.052)
Yeah, I think the number one point is this is a job, right? These professional athletes have a limited window to maximize their earnings because once that window is closed, they're not playing on the tour anymore. They're not making this kind of outsized money anymore, right? Unless you are a Roger Federer or a Novak or a Carlos, mean a Rafa who has, you yes, you gotta get there. You gotta become that thing before you can then, you

Torrey (12:42.602)
That's a brand in and of yourself.

Alvin Owusu (12:48.254)
generate revenue from that thing once you're done playing tennis. So I think it's interesting in that, you know, I was thinking in my head, this is one to skip a few. It is these two guys who are, it's, think, you talk about Novak and how he manages his schedule, but he started managing his schedule like this much later in his career. These guys have had the benefit of realizing that there's nobody really between them age-wise and Novak that's gonna keep them from

Torrey (13:15.956)
Right. From what they've been doing. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (13:19.148)
from what they've been doing. Yeah, so at this point, it's like, okay, we don't need to rush. We don't need to beat ourselves up. We've got a 10-year, probably a 10-year runway before someone that we don't even know yet is gonna creep up behind us and start to push and also add to the fact that both Carlos and Yannick are still four to six years, four or five, six years away from their actual tennis peaks. This is early days and these guys are in

Torrey (13:47.103)
and physical prime, you you hate to say it that way. You're right.

Alvin Owusu (13:49.023)
Right, yeah, so I feel like that's the kicker, right? The trade-off is, okay, you can ding us on this bonus pool thing if we're not playing the minimum amount of events. Cool, I'll go to Saudi Arabia and I think Yana picked up a $5 million check last year in this six kings slam exhibition nonsense. Yeah, that'll take care of it, that's fine. And Carlos plays this fair amount of exhibitions, but like.

Torrey (14:08.734)
Right.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (14:16.85)
if you are looking at it from standpoint of these people are businesses, business entities to their own, like do you go to Shanghai? And you know, it's not necessarily like they're playing more matches, but these tournaments are now 12 days long, right? So now you gotta go straight from Beijing to Shanghai and like he's just on, like has to be on. And he's, I guess his perspective is, okay, I'm in Asia. I could.

Torrey (14:24.931)
Yeah.

Torrey (14:32.312)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (14:46.848)
go to Shanghai or I could not go to Shanghai. I could go back home, chill for two weeks, go up to Saudi Arabia to play this event, which is not far from Spain. That's like a three hour flight, right? And then come back to Paris, play the indoor, and then go to Italy and play the year in championships. And that's another thing that I thought of. When you start to think about how our tour works on both the men's and women's side,

Torrey (15:01.667)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (15:17.3)
If you are not from central Europe, you are wildly disadvantaged. Everything is, there is only a small part of the, everything is far, everything's far. mean, it's bad enough for the American players or South American players. It's horrible for the Australians. You gotta, I mean, if you were to...

Torrey (15:22.11)
Everything is far.

Torrey (15:35.89)
Yep.

You're just giving up on being home for that extended period of time because nothing's close. There's no high jump, quick flight. Now you're absolutely right.

Alvin Owusu (15:43.806)
Nothing's close. You're bending time zones, you're throwing your body off, which is like, part of the tour, but if you are traveling between two time zones versus six time zones, that's a game changer. I don't think Taylor can, right, Taylor can't go home. He finished up in Beijing, he can't go home and then come back. He's here.

Torrey (15:56.296)
Yeah.

Yep. Especially coming from home, if that's where you were. Yep.

Torrey (16:08.626)
Right. He's there for the duration.

Alvin Owusu (16:12.524)
He's in Europe for a while, I mean Asia, and then probably straight to Europe from there. Maybe come home right before Thanksgiving. But yeah, I think these guys are doing the right thing and they've taken control of their destiny. The thing that worries me is, okay, what does it mean for the rest of them and what does this mean for the game? At what point does it become, at what point do we have a Masters event where, a Masters 1000.

Torrey (16:23.409)
And two.

Torrey (16:29.106)
What does mean for the rest of them?

Alvin Owusu (16:41.462)
where neither Carlos or Yannick shows up, then what?

Torrey (16:43.1)
Right?

Wouldn't it be pretty cool though, Alvin, to see the players push back? At what point do the players push back? Let's say, okay, that's enough. You can have whatever tournament you want. It's a free country, know, free world. You can do whatever you want to do. However, we're not gonna be there. And I feel like no one asked the players to quote Jessica Bagula about the whole situation with the whole US Open thing. Did you ever think about asking the players?

And I feel like both tours have done this. ATP in particular. They've extended draws. They've made qualities longer. They've made what used to be a week long, week and a half, some even two weeks. They keep adding. They keep adding. They keep adding. And no one thought to ask the players.

Are you guys down with this? We're trying to do this to make a little money for everybody. And if it was sold like that, maybe you'd have a little bit more, I'm gonna say a little more traction with those. But it seemed like, at least from everything I'm reading and everything I'm seeing, they simply added and assumed because there was more money, right? That everybody would be on board. I'm, the Tiffany Iceberg of course being the mixed double situation, of course that I'm referencing with Jessica Buhula's comments, but also the rest of it.

Alvin Owusu (18:03.53)
Yep.

Torrey (18:05.486)
so many these tournaments that are now, there more of them, they're longer, to your point about the whole Asia swing has crazy starts and dates. mean, you've got a lot of, the Masters is a tournament in itself, but I mean, this isn't even the end of the year tournament. This is like, they're trying to make it like the unofficial fit slam and outside of the sun, what do you call it? The sunshine.

Alvin Owusu (18:33.429)
Sunshine double.

Torrey (18:34.225)
The sunshine W. So my point is now and again if I'm in if I'm in Asia and I'm one of the tournament promoters and I'm trying to build tennis I'm all for it. I think it's great, right? But I'm just also I'm thinking about the players. I'm thinking about how I'm thinking about how the draws were completely I'm not gonna say completely The draws were impacted due to so many injuries from the French We're not even talking about

I'm talking about the US Open, you know, and how many players have taken some time? How much more is that going to impact? Are players going to now have to pick and choose which penalty they take because they can kind of pick and choose what tournament they feel they may play better in? You know, this is largely indoor tennis over in Asia. And so I'm a South American clay quarter. You know what mean? Am I better off? Am I better off just, you know?

Playing my schedule then and coming back, if I'm from Eastern Europe, I played a lot of indoors, maybe this is my time. I don't know, there's a lot of questions. I think the question I'm posing to you is at what point do the players push back to tell the tour enough? That's the question I'm getting at.

Alvin Owusu (19:44.854)
Yeah, think, and this comes up a lot and sometimes I dance around it, but I think I'm gonna just take it, I'm gonna take it head on and this might mean we never end up having a player on this podcast ever because when you start talking about the way that the tours are set up, right, WTA, ATP, ITF, all of your Grand Slams and those federations, right, we have a lot of entities here, but these entities are not thinking about.

Torrey (19:57.584)
Hahaha

Alvin Owusu (20:13.299)
Right now they're thinking about the progression of their federation or their entity for the next 10, 15, 20 years, right? They're always thinking about the future and trying to grow the entire pie, right? And that's how businesses succeed. Like these are businesses to effectively. And I think the part about asking the players, it's weird because we're not in a space where players are under contract.

Torrey (20:20.238)
Right? Sure. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (20:41.993)
Like they don't play for teams, they're independent contractors, right? If you don't show up, you don't get paid. And you can not show up, that's fine. But the players have very little leverage here because they are pitted against each other always. unless they all move together as one, anyone who bucks the trend or false steps out of line is just gonna be replaced by somebody else.

Torrey (20:48.817)
Yeah.

Torrey (21:09.564)
That's

Alvin Owusu (21:09.597)
And that's the downside. And the part where this is gonna come off as not player friendly, and it probably isn't, is that the players themselves are replaceable, the vast majority of them. Not that someone's gonna be like, if Irina Sabalinka doesn't show up to a tournament, they're gonna just bring in another player of equal skill. No, of course not. But the nature of our sport is like,

Torrey (21:19.452)
you

Torrey (21:32.706)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (21:36.779)
these players cycle out and players will come in after them. Like if you go back to like 2021 WTA year-end rankings, top four players were Ash Barty, Sabalinka, Muguruza, and Plitskava, right? Where three of them are retired, okay? So like that's four years ago. That's four years ago.

Torrey (21:48.925)
We have more time. Yep. Yep.

Torrey (21:57.915)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:00.36)
The NBA has not changed that much in four years. Steph Curry and LeBron James are still playing and Kevin Durant, like it's very, very different. And so I say that to say like, yeah, you would, the players want to be consulted, but.

Torrey (22:02.716)
All right.

Alvin Owusu (22:16.296)
they are representing the players today, not players in the future, because they will not be here. So your perspective kind of only matters right now.

Torrey (22:16.827)
So my pushback on that is it's their business. They don't need the player's consent and clearly haven't taken it. My point is more to say.

Alvin Owusu (22:35.368)
Right, right.

Torrey (22:41.231)
But like many of the other players, minus the player union that the NBA and other sports you just mentioned have, you are still dealing with the athletes or the draw. So my pushback to what you're saying, and I think it's a great debate, is sure, go ahead. But if Sabalinka doesn't pay, or doesn't play,

Alvin Owusu (23:06.036)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Torrey (23:07.13)
Do you have said draw? Do you have said media coverage? Do you have said following? Does your tournament turn out the way you thought? Because to your point, ratings, it is a business, ratings, ticket sales, et cetera, et cetera, without the top two, top four, does your tournament happen the way you thought? Why is Saudi putting six kings together? Because they can guarantee the darn draw. That's why, you know that as well as I do. And they got the money to be able to

Alvin Owusu (23:33.258)
Bingo, bingo.

Torrey (23:36.495)
basically circumvent the whole tour system. you don't want to give us a master event? Great. We'll buy the players and we'll just go straight to the top and we have enough jingle to do so. I feel at some point the tour is going to have to make a concerted effort to say, these are our priorities over the next five years. Okay. We have growing interest in this.

of the world. have growing inches in this part of the world. But we're really going to try to make it to where the player is at his schedule or her schedule is focused. You can play everything, but we know the likelihood and sustainability of it is probably that you won't. You can't. So we're going to let you have the legs, you know, so to speak, that can work for you the best it can. And you know what we're going to have? Six. I'm just going to spitball the number. Six big pushes, right?

One of those pushes being the grass court season, the clay court season, the Asia swing, which technically kind of wraps up right with Australia, but it's even though there's a little bit of break there with Christmas and New Year's and then we're gonna obviously have the long, know, there's a fairly long US swing right there, right? a wrap with French. And then of course it goes back to indoor hard court and Asian office as you mentioned back to, is it Turin? Is that where it's at? And they moved it down.

Alvin Owusu (25:01.002)
They might have moved. I think it's in Turin maybe one more year or they moved it, but it's in Italy. It's still in Italy.

Torrey (25:05.754)
So I say that to say, and then of course that tournament there could be, and again, I think, almost think they need to almost make that tournament be something of a, you know, they need to have some level of an out clause for the players playing that event if you want them to come in in top form and truly prioritize the schedule.

Alvin Owusu (25:26.442)
I mean, I feel like that's the thing now with not just tennis, but also with sports at large. Maybe let's take out American football, right? Let's focus on, let's just use American basketball, or yeah, NBA and tennis for this particular argument. The top players on tennis and then maybe all the players in the NBA are making so much money that imposing

playing minimums on these players, like it doesn't matter, it does not impact them. They don't, like in the NBA, I don't think they actually care that much about winning, it's a job, and they are entertainers. Like winning the championship is not actually that important. Like it's important to that fan base, but to anyone else, like is the NBA having a down year because 29 other teams didn't win the championship? No, the NBA's fine, those players are fine, those teams are fine.

Torrey (26:20.207)
Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (26:23.412)
Coaches might get fired, but players, what, they get traded, play for another team? Like, whatever, they don't have loyalty. They're paid so much money that they have other things to be concerned about. They play basketball and that's how the money comes in. On the tennis side, I think you hit on something really interesting in that there aren't 10 tennis players that truly matter. They're all great players. And I watch tennis because I am a tennis.

Torrey (26:42.394)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (26:51.89)
I love tennis, I like watching tennis, like playing tennis. I learned something from the number 100 player in the world, either tour, just from watching them hit for 10 minutes, right? So let's separate that appreciation of their skill from who actually moves the needle from a business standpoint. And on the men's side, it's like five of them that matter, and it's not the top five in that order. And on the women's side,

Torrey (27:08.345)
Right. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (27:19.364)
maybe four, maybe five as well. it's so collectively 10, But then you look at those top two men and you mentioned Sabalenka, they could just not show up. They don't have to, especially if like, freaking Novak played like 10 events last year and semifinaled every Grand Slam, he's the number four in the world. if you're doing it at a high level and it's not impacting your standing when you're running into these Grand Slams, which are not part of the tour, right?

Torrey (27:32.249)
All right.

Alvin Owusu (27:49.158)
Yeah, that's the kicker. That's the kicker. And the tours have implemented these minimums for masters and whatnot. So the masters feel like the players are obligated to show up. Most of them are, and most of them will. But two of them are not. They don't have to. You can't hurt them financially. And if they decide I don't need the points, then I don't need the points. I'll get the money, I'll get the money. I'm fine on money, I'm good on money.

Torrey (28:07.254)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's That's right. Because because at that point, know.

Alvin Owusu (28:18.919)
I'm playing for my legacy and my legacy does not include me going to Shanghai. Yeah.

Torrey (28:28.832)
You make a very valid point. I think there's two points. I think the point I want to maybe articulate is at some point.

Alvin Owusu (28:30.889)
That's leverage, homie.

Torrey (28:42.829)
What the tour owns is the scheduler. They don't own the players. They simply own the schedule, AKA the weeks, the weekends, that the players play, right? And they can play, that they choose to play, that they opt to play. Right, right. And I think that the way that, we don't have to get into the business of it, I think we all understand that, but I'm getting at, at some point,

Alvin Owusu (28:48.158)
Bingo.

Alvin Owusu (28:56.874)
that they can play.

Most of them, most of them will play. Cause they have to.

Torrey (29:13.588)
maximizing that schedule is the tourist job. But it's also the athlete's job to maximize their own individual schedules to give them the best return on not only their career and their planning and the periodization really of their entire you know year and career by definition right. Making a big push here. We're go here.

We're gonna play a few more this week to get into those big tournaments. Then we get into the big tournaments. Now we're gonna kinda, depending on how things go, we're gonna try to play a few less because we plan on being in these tournaments a little longer and the slams and the match series are a little bit longer. So we're not gonna play 40, let's just say, for two weeks. We're gonna say we're gonna play 32 because we're planning on playing a few more and so on so on. And then of course, if you're on the very top, you're gonna be playing that tournament through day seven, right, every week.

at some point you got to also factor that in because at some point you do have to rest because the next tournament is going to start the very next day. Right. And so I think what I'm getting at, that's the first point is the tour owns the schedule. The players opt to play in and we're really talking about the schedule as if all the players you mentioned the point band together. They're going to band together because they're all very different. Right. The number one guy, the number 10 guy are different. The 10 guy and a hundred are very, very different than a hundred to

Alvin Owusu (30:15.783)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (30:30.109)
Well, let's, let's, let's... Right.

Torrey (30:38.039)
500 could not are dihedral a different and what they make and what they can work on they can command Sure

Alvin Owusu (30:43.635)
Well, let me not to cut you off. Let me add one thing in there about the, the, the tour owning the schedule. They own the schedule in that, like, these are the, these are the times that events can be played, but they don't own the tournaments either. The tournaments themselves are also owned by separate individual entities who run the tournament. They run these tournaments effectively by themselves with oversight from the tour. But I think that just kind of goes along with the whole like.

Torrey (30:57.879)
Torrey (31:01.802)
And peace for sure.

Alvin Owusu (31:13.391)
These all these all these entities are not pulling in the same direction at all times

Torrey (31:18.486)
Which leads me very nice segue into my second point. You know, I've talked about tennis needing a commissioner for a long time. I've used it. I've talked about it on this very podcast. don't think we need a tennis needs a union. think tennis needs a commissioner that can be able to bring the entities themselves together in the best interest of the three. And that's the unfortunate side of this. The point I'm making Alvin is

The second point is that for it to be sustainable, there has to be some balance. The top player can't play everything and yet you're marketing him or her on every flipping weekend to draw. So that new and former and current tournament placeholder has a legitimate following. So-and-so is going to be here. So-and-so is going to be here, which is how we got into the whole thing in the first place. But you also have

Alvin Owusu (32:02.537)
Hmm.

Torrey (32:18.336)
to make sure that so-and-so is not there so they can be there for the bigger ones, which is really your draw, which is really what you're trying to build the whole thing off of. And that would mean prioritizing some events and unfortunately not playing others. We don't want any more appearance money. So-and-so is scheduled to play the tournament and they drop out the first round because they've taken their check and then ran. That bombs the tournament as much as anything else. We've had that happen here in Atlanta.

Alvin Owusu (32:46.995)
Sure.

Torrey (32:48.118)
And again, you don't want to blame the player. You can't fault them for taking the money, right? But at the same time, the event bombs. There's a few less people to come. There's a few less ticket sales. It's that much harder to get the sponsors the following year. So at some point, we got to all kind of row together if we try to get across to our destination, because it's not sustainable the way it is to play all of it. And so I guess my point is that

Tennis needs to take a strong look at the sustainability of its product because the players at some point might may not need to have this carrot of cash dangled in front because they may not be able to effectively choose for themselves to be the wiser. And I would tell you that

players that are in that 8 through 20 are the most likely to be hurt by these extra events because they might do so well at a few 500s that they actually impact their career for the thousands and the slams. And at that point, right, at that point you have to ask yourself, I actually helped

the tour, help myself, don't get me wrong, now I'm playing for charity. But I actually hamstrung myself on my career, never went, never did it, never got far in a slam, never went this far, never went, never won one. And at the end of the day, what does that say about your legacy and your career when others who are, know, Rolex is the only sponsor and I select you, you know I mean, with that seven figure endorsement, that was probably four, two, six.

Alvin Owusu (34:33.093)
Exactly, exactly.

Torrey (34:38.799)
events total purse because they only sponsor champions and grand slam champions last time I checked so I say that to say are you actually losing your earnings going the other way and if I am a player like the likes of a what's my buddy claycourt smash himself casper root right if i'm a player like on one end

Alvin Owusu (35:03.88)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey (35:07.924)
and or a player like Lorenzo Mazzetti. Am I ever going to catch the players I'm trying to catch by playing 40 weeks or 42 or 45? Tough. I want to I want to and I want to mention that because I feel like the sustainability is the issue here. You know they can't play all of them. They can't. I mean it's physically impossible to play all of them. But yet they want to. Yeah. What's that?

Alvin Owusu (35:34.237)
The tournaments need them. But the tournaments want them there. The tournaments livelihood rides on these players showing up.

Torrey (35:37.96)
But there's one of them. 100%. And if they don't, that turns to my point. while that's what I'm getting at. And so that's what I want to make sure we understand. The second point I'm making is they have to all row in the same direction for the sustainability. You're still going to have that one player do his own thing. Due to happenstance, hey, I'm just hurt. Or they choose not to.

for whatever reason.

Alvin Owusu (36:08.94)
Let me ask you this, because as you were talking, I was thinking about what is the actual problem here? What is the actual problem? You have, okay, the different entities that are involved in a tennis event, right? You have players who play the event to try to win points and win money and progress their professional careers, right? And then you have the tournament organizers who sell tickets and want people to show up.

Torrey (36:31.379)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (36:38.012)
and they promote these players and that's what they are. They're trying to provide a high quality product, right? They're not really incentivized of growing the game or anything or serving any one player. They're trying to make as much money as they can in a very small time window, right? Like Peter Levinevich came on our show earlier this year. He's the tournament director for the Dallas Open. That event is a week long, right? And they spend their entire year preparing for that one event.

Torrey (36:53.491)
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (37:05.064)
and that's the way our tour works, right? These players go from event to event, but these events sit in place and wait for these players to come by once a year, right? And then Peter is juxtaposed against Richard Krychek, right? Who's running Rotterdam at the exact same time. Very, very different tournaments, but they're both 500 levels, okay. And then you have the fans, right? Who are paying the money that make this thing, kind of make this thing go. What do the fans, when a fan buys a ticket to an event,

Torrey (37:07.012)
Yep. Exactly. Yep.

Torrey (37:30.118)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (37:34.737)
and I put on my fan hat from time to time and I go to these events, I'm hoping that the ticket that I'm holding on that particular day is gonna let me see the player that I wanna see, right? And that is why I think this, maybe this tournament format is actually our problem right now. Because the players, some players play the tournament to help progress their career.

Torrey (37:54.739)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (38:03.568)
in within this season, some players, and we're talking about probably two on the men's side, maybe four, three on the women's side, who don't necessarily, like their place in this game is pretty solid. And now they're trying to make this thing last longer. So Carlos, like ideally, you know who would benefit if Carlos and Janik were

guaranteed to play four matches over seven or eight days in maybe a round robin format? I'm sure the fans would love it. I'm sure the tournament organizers would love it because they can charge out the wazoo for those tickets, right? And Carlos and Yannick are like, I just gotta show up and play tennis. Like, I'm gonna play four matches. I know what I'm gonna play. I know who I'm gonna play. Okay, cool. That's a 16 person round robin of some sorts. Would that suck?

Torrey (38:59.987)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (39:02.46)
Would that be horrible? Like does who wins the tournament like outside the Grand Slams is does the person the person with the tournament doesn't matter. Does it actually still matter when we're talking about these players? Or do we just want to watch them play?

Torrey (39:17.434)
I think for the historical impact we want to know who

Alvin Owusu (39:20.936)
Uh, does it? Yeah, yeah, that's the answer. That's answer.

Torrey (39:24.37)
Right. think for everything that it is meant to be and is it we're progressing to I think every tournament right from the Final Four to the NBA to football to everything you would call it playoffs in football. isn't it really just a draw? Isn't it really just you know the way things go? I like where you're going with it and I agree with you. I would even tell you I think it actually would impact it even

Alvin Owusu (39:42.716)
Yeah, it's a tournament, small tournament.

Torrey (39:53.528)
simpler in my opinion if you limited the number of weeks that each player can play you take the four slams out that is or whatever the number you want to make it and whatever tournament you want to don as the sixth or seventh slam which to me are unfortunately at this point optional with the way things are but let's assume you had just for simple whatever it is whatever it isn't let's just say even round eight the four slams and four extras whatever including their end of the year championships right

You can put whatever other tour event you want in there as number five, six, seven, including Miami, including Palms, I see Palms Springs, Whatever you want to put in there, I'll let the fans and the tour promoters and directors do all that. The rest of it is you can only, let's flip it on its head. You can only play this many.

Alvin Owusu (40:33.841)
Andy Wells.

Torrey (40:49.763)
And now you're Turing ranking, you're seeding at set slams and everything else comes into this mix. I'm sorry Novak, you cannot be number whatever, whatever in the world unless you play so many tournaments because you only chose to play eight tournaments. Now you want to get through on the wild card and apply. We'd be happy to give you one because we know how big of a draw you are, but you're going to go in there seated. Yes, that's correct. This number. Now I got to think the points from the slams will get him.

But getting him up pretty high. But I'm not so sure if he can do that now. And that's not to pick at Novak. Novak's great. And he's in the twilight years of his career in general. Now you put a little more stake on the players playing X number. Because let's be honest, Alvin. There's 100 players in the top 100 that we don't even get to see because there's too many matches to be played early. But to your point,

Alvin Owusu (41:20.06)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (41:48.069)
What if we made every draw a 64? Terms are smaller, maybe even dare I say it, a 32. And now you are pretty much guaranteed having one of those top guys somewhere else. I think that's how they're doing it, but they're doing it backwards. They're doing it and saying everybody play as much as you can and we'll make more tournaments for you to get into. Not saying we're gonna make, we're gonna have smaller draws. Same number of tournaments everywhere. Smaller draws.

Alvin Owusu (42:09.605)
Well, yeah, I mean...

Torrey (42:17.797)
And you can only play so many. Go rest up, go heal up and be ready to play the tournament you thought you could. And now the sustainability factor, because you chose your schedule. You chose to play 11 events in a row. Hey, good for you. But don't blame anything else but your own schedule and your own money grab, which is great. And the reason I say it is Alvin, is that I feel like now you incentivize the players to pick and choose and now you've got just as good a chance.

at seeing somebody really good playing in a tournament somewhere else because now schedules matter. And now I think you have the right kind of mix. You have available players and you have the tournaments themselves can now equally fight for the rest of the draw for that big name player. And maybe that's the tournament that player not only has to play, but he has to win it to get the points he needs to maintain said ranking if he didn't win the previous slam. That's where I'm going.

Alvin Owusu (43:13.873)
So I think we're getting along the lines of like, some of this is in place, right? You say players can play a maximum, but the tours have kind of put in maximums in that like, we're only gonna take your top X amount of tournaments. So now it's on the players, like you wanna play more than this, like have at it, but we're only taking your top X amount of tournaments, right? And I say X because I'm not looking at the numbers right now. had no intentions of going down this path tonight, but here we are.

Torrey (43:29.168)
16 mic.

Torrey (43:39.012)
Right. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, we are.

Alvin Owusu (43:43.612)
I think this past week with Center and Alcara splitting locations in Beijing and Tokyo, that's what makes the 500s kind of the sweet spot in tennis. Because you got one of the two, they're not always in the same place, right? And then you have kind of a split with the rest of the players and now you have a healthy draw in both places. There are 64 draws, maybe a bye in the first round, but get to the business, two out of three.

And you know, we get this thing done in five to seven days and call it good. I like that, I like that. But now that pushes us into the conversation of like, now you start talking about the lower ranked players, like where's their opportunity to make a living? And this is where I start to get real, like real grandstandy.

I don't, how many players should be making a living as an entertainer?

Torrey (44:40.421)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (44:42.951)
playing tennis.

Torrey (44:44.784)
Me is not our question to answer. It's how many choose to and how many put in the work. don't... And you know I get that. But that's largely due to the Grand Slam's base. Their marketing base, their sponsor base, their legitimacy over decades of time. And that slam, as you know Alvin, first round losers are making 35 to 40 thousand dollars.

Alvin Owusu (44:49.723)
Well, there is a number, there's a number, there's a cap. Like if you're not top 100, you're not making money.

Torrey (45:14.989)
which is more than they will make in other tournaments combined leading up into that event, let alone if they get into the second week of the business end of the tournament. So what I'm getting at is that's, and that will be the case regardless of any changes or not. If they get in, they'll get in. I am trying to propose a max, not a max counts for your ranking. I see what you're saying. It's already going in that direction. I'm saying this is all you can play. Maximize your 16 weeks. That's what you got.

Alvin Owusu (45:44.615)
Mmm. Mmm.

Torrey (45:45.519)
You got 16 plus the eight, that's it. You cannot play anymore. And now what you start getting is you start seeing a little, now you get a little more between that 30 through 80 has to really pick and choose and play or not play. And people are gonna start being a little bit fresher, a little bit, a little more ready to go. You're gonna have that guy who's fresh and ready, but not tournament, not match savvy. And the guy who's a veteran.

A little chiseled, a little more facial hair. They're trying to get out there and grind, but they're dialed in. Body's a little dinged up, but they're playing okay. They're actually playing well. And then you had that kind of push and pull. But if you only had the 16 and you know your ranking and everything at the end, it kind of depends on it. Now you're going to literally go through that schedule with a fine tooth comb and pick certain bits to go to. You might go to Kastad.

versus going to another tournament because that tournament has historically been here or I like to come or you know what, I'm good here or you know what, it's close to where I'm trying to go for my schedule this year, which is to your point, maybe the way it is now. But now my results count more because I only get to play 16 of these. So I'm gonna really pick and do well. I'm not gonna take prize money and bounce. I need this term, I only get 16. And I think what you then you turn the whole conversation on its head about

playing too much and the tours this and then the third no no no the tour didn't do anything except give you more chances to play I think the problem with that is is you ended up allowing the you allowed the cart to run the to lead the horse and not the other way around now you end up losing those top players at the bigger events which is really the point and let the smaller the 500s of thousands lead into the slams and they have

Alvin Owusu (47:16.037)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (47:36.967)
Sure, sure, sure.

Torrey (47:37.856)
Impact and again, I'm not saying that my answer is bulletproof I'm only saying there's a way to do this with the current structure that allows the tournament to your point which could could or could not be the problem I see the size and the number being the problem and the bigger the tournament the longer term it is and then the openness of playing anything you want You know, when is the last time Alvin that you know the league any league? allowed the all the players

Alvin Owusu (47:54.822)
Yeah.

Torrey (48:06.446)
to choose or not choose. Right? And that to me, that's where I'm getting at. I'm like, well, but the NBA, NFL, MLB, they set that for you, right? That's what you're playing. There's only, what's it, 17 games in the NBA? There's only, sorry, there's age of games, all right? Age of games. In NBA, NFL, for 16, 17 weeks? Well, I think it's 16. know, this is your schedule. That's all you got. And playoffs, and put up or shut up, even if you wanna talk soccer.

Alvin Owusu (48:08.56)
Well, that's the- I think that's the problem though, because you said-

Alvin Owusu (48:20.87)
82, yeah.

Torrey (48:35.692)
You know, and the tables and the score matter. That's why you play the game.

Alvin Owusu (48:40.038)
Yeah, but the difference is those players get paid whether they win or lose or they don't play the game or not. They're under contract with the teams. It's just...

Torrey (48:47.374)
understand the dynamics are different for sure and there's a league and there's unions. I get all that too. It's big problem, but you're still getting an entertainment factor slash business return based off knowns. Do you think that last tournament director of the year is happy with the decision of Yanuk and Carlos maybe opting out of their event when they were hoping to bring those two top names for billing purposes?

Alvin Owusu (48:52.656)
But that's the problem.

Torrey (49:16.501)
for that event. You think they're happy about that because the player can choose or not choose to play?

Alvin Owusu (49:22.63)
It's a unique situation because it's a masters event. You have to participate until the player goes, no I don't, I don't need it. I don't need it. $1.1 million to the winner, the winner of Shanghai. Saudi six teams, 1.5 million for the six guys just to show up. Just to show, so they're playing different games. And just to your previous point about with the current structure, I think there's no way of

Torrey (49:29.483)
about.

Torrey (49:42.412)
Mmm.

Alvin Owusu (49:52.647)
of really adjusting the current structure. We would have to start over with professional tennis and start thinking about what, we're trying to cut this pie in too many pieces. There are too many people that are making money off of any given tournament. The tour needs something, the tournament needs something, the players want something. It's like we need to, if we were gonna do this in a different way, a lot fewer players would be considered professional tennis players.

Torrey (50:13.803)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (50:21.206)
and we would be starting from scratch. Starting from scratch. But I don't even know if that was our, that's not why we got together to that.

Torrey (50:27.563)
What was it? Right, right. But it's a good academic debate, all the same. bottom line, I'm looking forward to watching a few more of these events, Shanghai and the other terms coming up. I think you said, what's come up after this, Beijing, after this?

Alvin Owusu (50:44.582)
So they go to Shanghai, men go to Shanghai, women go to Wuhan, have they gone to Wuhan? And then something, something, men go to Paris at some point, probably end of this month, and then Turin at the end of, after that. So we're getting towards the back end of it. Speaking of getting towards the back end, I wanna make sure we talk about this before we get outta here. Gail Monfise.

Torrey (51:09.748)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (51:12.208)
who's come up a lot on this podcast. Gail Monfils has announced that he's calling it a career. And I say not a moment too soon, not a moment too late. I've enjoyed watching him in the twilight years, because he's still been competitive. won an event this year. He's still pushing players. Hell, he beat Carlos a year ago in Cincinnati. Never quite beat Novak, but gave us a lot of really cool memories.

Torrey (51:34.208)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (51:41.806)
as the ultimate showman on tour for the last almost 20 years.

Torrey (51:43.116)
on the first.

And one of the most, not just fun players to watch, but one of the most engaging people that I had the pleasure of meeting even from the younger years, wore his feelings on his sleeve and played his butt off almost every time he stepped on that tennis court. I have fond memories when I think of Gael Monfils and it's a...

told a few stories, few war stories on this podcast about Gale. will be, he will be missed and yet he will, he has left an impact, which I think is what was what his whole goal was. And I don't, you know, he has been a, an absolute legend in every, in every part of the word. And I feel like he is one of the players that helped the tour become what it is today due to

The tour is better for having him, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And I think that's one of the biggest compliments you can give to a player who may not be in that grand slam conversation of list, but he made the tour better. Everybody who went to watch him, all you can do is shake your head sometimes with some of the shots that Gale would hit and the whole entertainment value that he brought to a tournament, let alone to a match. so I'm sure he and...

Zelena will be having some good times with little one and he will, wherever he tends to put, he wants to put his passion in next. I'll be looking forward to keeping up times with Gail and he will certainly be missed.

Alvin Owusu (53:21.51)
Yeah, absolutely. I have fond memories of 2015. I was in Australia for the Australian Open and I had tickets for I think maybe third round or something like that, third and fourth round. And I arrived in Melbourne the day before, or earlier the day before, and my buddy and I were like, well let's just walk down to the park, see if we can get a ticket, Twilight ticket. And we got a Twilight ticket, it's like 30 something bucks, because there's only a couple matches left on, we go in.

Torrey (53:32.427)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (53:50.543)
and I pop into, I can't remember what the second size stadium was, I pop in there and I see, yeah, I think it was Vodafone, I think it was Vodafone. there I see Monfee's playing against Jersey Janowich. And I just like, I remember this as clear as day, he's sliding around and the crowd's going crazy. it was just, you don't see a lot of players who aren't.

Torrey (53:56.351)
Well, it used to be called Vodafone.

Alvin Owusu (54:16.644)
you know, the Grand Slam winners who can get people on their feet and really make people like truly entertain people. Like I think we have to remember that tennis, professional tennis is a entertainment product. all pro sports, people buy tickets because they want to be entertained. And sometimes we're in awe of the players and their skill level. And sometimes we are moved by the players. And I think Gail Monfils is one of those players who can, you know, make you feel like you're on the bench with him.

Torrey (54:28.981)
Right. All close, right?

Torrey (54:42.719)
Be.

My God and moved and move you by his movement, right? And I just man so many great matches, so many great, great points. I still remember his semi of the US and there's just, I've just, it's taken me back because some of my best players were that same class, that same age with him and Murray and that whole class of those guys were that, and he has

Alvin Owusu (54:49.722)
Yeah.

Torrey (55:14.996)
continue to stay relevant, you know, even in his later years. So not a bad career, Alvin, not a bad career for young man from Cameroon slash France who, you know, as I said, I was there when he almost got cut from the whole French national team and came through strong. I remember the kid at 15, 16 losing out in the qualities of the US Open. Looked like he wanted to quit tennis. I remember seeing the kid, you know,

Alvin Owusu (55:41.549)
Yeah.

Torrey (55:44.562)
you know, win three slams, junior slams and sprinted inside the top hundred in the first part of that year in 2004. And so I was there again. I saw, I saw Gale 20 out of probably 30 weeks that year, we know was between hitting with him and playing with him and as I said, he Sco came a match short to meeting him in the finals of junior Wimbledon and it would have been the first all black final speaking of, would have been, actually, and guess who was rooting for it the most?

Alvin Owusu (56:10.318)
Hey there.

Torrey (56:14.772)
Gale Monfies. So that just shows you he's the one who told us about the stat, which I kind of assumed, but he's the one who's sitting next to me watching Sco's match saying, has to win this. This is history. Yeah, like he was into it and for all that it meant and that just shows you even then at 18 years old, he understood what was at stake and kind of what was going on. So that just gives you a little snippet, a little insight about Gale and what it was.

Alvin Owusu (56:27.237)
Hehehe

Torrey (56:42.792)
Just a great, to see that guy in cafeterias with all the players. mean, there was always a buzz around him. He was doing something stupid, dancing around, know, messing with somebody's Gatorade. mean, stupid stuff. I mean, just being a kid. I mean, was just a big kid. And those are some things I smile at and laugh at. He was as engaging as he was good and as athletic as he was thoughtful. So it was just kind of a, you know, he only continued to do more as he got older.

And again, I really felt like he took it personal. Hey, you came to watch me play, I'm gonna give you a show today. And to do that for almost 20 years in a game that can be pretty selfish, to have that kind of mentality and to give that much of your body for 20 years to play in the game, that says a lot by itself.

Alvin Owusu (57:32.546)
And I think Frank Sinatra said it best, Gale did it his way. And I think that's one to end on. We'll put a pin on it there. I'm Alvin, that's Tory, best of three, we are out.

Torrey (57:37.525)
this way.

Torrey (57:46.323)
Peace.