Ep. 68: BONUS EPISODE: Seeing Carlos Alcaraz Live — Pat Parr on Presence, Boredom, and Brilliance

Alvin Owusu (00:01.051)
And welcome to another episode of the best three podcast. I'm still Alvin and we are joined once again by Pat Parr, my friend Pat. How you doing, buddy?

Patrick Parr (00:09.406)
Doing well, doing well. Still recovering from that, what I just watched about a week or so ago, but happy to be here, happy to talk about it with you, unspooled at all. So very happy, very excited.

Alvin Owusu (00:21.652)
Yeah, mean, for those who are listening and not watching, can hardly contain his excitement. So it is, it's Sunday. We're actually in the middle of the Shanghai event, but Pat lives in Japan and had an opportunity to go to the Japan Open, the Tokyo Masters event. And he hit me up, you hit me up last week or during the tournament, you're like, I saw Carlos versus Casper and I need.

I need to talk to somebody about it. And I'm like, well, I got this little podcast here. You can talk to me about it and know, 700 of our closest friends. So I'm gonna get out of your way and let you just kind of, this is a safe space. Just pour out your tennis heart to me.

Patrick Parr (00:50.89)
You

Patrick Parr (00:56.03)
Yeah

Patrick Parr (01:01.066)
Dude.

Patrick Parr (01:07.4)
Okay.

Yeah, feel free to veer me back onto the road if I go off road a bit, but I'll try my best. Well, it was September 29th. I saw Carlos play Casper. was a Japan Open semifinal. And I'll just give away the score because it already happened. It's not like there's any sort of mystery. But Alcraz won 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

And this was a Monday night match. And when I went to the area where it was at, it's Adiakke Coliseum, I didn't have a ticket. Actually, I didn't think I was going to be able to get in. And I actually gave up. So I went to the Coliseum Park area where there's this big screen and there's all these lawn chairs and tables and so forth, all these games for the kids, know, to hit a

Alvin Owusu (01:49.25)
Ooh.

Alvin Owusu (02:06.06)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (02:06.717)
Foam tennis ball and all that. And so I was just standing there watching actually was Brooks be playing Fritz before Alcaraz and rude. So I was watching Brooks be do his voodoo against Fritz. But since Fritz knows Brooks be voodoo too well, he always beats Brooks be Brooks be is a side note on Brooks be is just watching him is fascinating because whenever he plays somebody

Alvin Owusu (02:22.829)
It doesn't work so well. Right, right.

Patrick Parr (02:35.529)
for the first time. It's it's advantage Brooksby for the first set all the time. He is... It does. I've got a few people who called me and said, I think Brooksby, you know, he reminds me of you the most.

Alvin Owusu (02:41.522)
it sounds familiar. So familiar, Pat.

Alvin Owusu (02:54.089)
Yeah, for the listeners, so Pat and I played, we played College Tennis together and I don't think there's any video that exists, but Patrick Parr, Handshake, Jensen Brooksby, the same guy, same guy, but continue.

Patrick Parr (03:03.215)
Thank God.

Patrick Parr (03:08.181)
I so. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I was watching Brooks be chop away at Fritz and trying to trying his best with a two handed backhand at the net and all that. I guess while that was happening, there was this guy who was just putting his hand up and and I heard a ticket. You know, and I understood what he was saying that, I have tickets. And I thought, is this just some sort of scalper who would pay?

Alvin Owusu (03:14.678)
Exactly.

Patrick Parr (03:36.002)
who wants to offload his tickets for like 500, 600 bucks or something. So I went over to him and I said, you have tickets? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he directed me to the ticket area and they had five tickets that had been unclaimed and canceled. And there was just this one row available in the entire stadium. The whole thing was sold out beyond. And after Fritz beat Brooksby, there was a little pause and

Everybody was still in that stadium just camped out ready for Alcaraz and rude. And they said, yeah, go ahead. It would cost me about 70 bucks. So yeah, it was incredible. And the seats, they were right in the middle. I was, if you go a straight line behind the umpire up on the second section area. I was able to look both.

Alvin Owusu (04:16.33)
man, nice.

Patrick Parr (04:34.203)
at Alcares and Rood simultaneously on the middle side. that was, I went in and I was sitting with nobody at first, because the road was empty. And then a couple, this one Filipino guy came up next to me on my left. And we looked at each other like, is this real? mean, are we really here? Like, did we get these tickets? So I'm just gobsmacked.

Alvin Owusu (04:55.469)
Is this real?

Patrick Parr (05:03.933)
the whole time and Alcares comes out and I immediately like he already had the crowd like rude comes in and he's okay rude yeah three time finalist great you know that's that's respect to him and so forth but then Alcares just came out and it was just an explosion of applause of course and I just kind of soaked it in at first the first couple games that I just

wanted to watch one. I didn't take any pictures. didn't do anything. I just wanted to see how he moved and all and I'd read so many articles and listen to you guys. You and Tori about Alcarez and so forth and I just thought, okay, I need to see him objectively because I had seen Federer live. You've seen Federer live.

Alvin Owusu (05:53.262)
Yep. I saw FedLive and I'll show you in 2015. Yep.

Patrick Parr (05:58.47)
Okay, yeah, what a place to see him. When I watched Fed, I remembered, wow, I don't hear his feet. Like when he moves, it's almost as if he's floating. There's this element to his game when I watch him, it's just, it's so effortless and light. It's hard to, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. No, he's not Jesus or anything, right? But he's...

Alvin Owusu (06:01.911)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (06:20.589)
tap dancing on water kind of feel. Yeah.

Patrick Parr (06:28.169)
He played the game as if there were no blemishes and I always was in awe of that. I did see the doll briefly live, more practice, so I was at the open. I remember when I watched the doll and when he moved his feet, was like some of the court might come up with his movements, know, like the way he dug in and would hit. And Djokovic I watched as well.

Alvin Owusu (06:49.856)
Right, yeah.

Patrick Parr (06:58.081)
and he had this elasticity to his game and it felt like he was just a rubber band and no one would ever pass him. So I'm watching Alcraz but it's weird. I was expecting to be underwhelmed or to think, God, he's got a long way to go. he reminded me immediately and this is so weird. He reminded me of 87 MJ.

Alvin Owusu (07:28.195)
wow. wow. Wow. No, that's, that's yeah. Okay. Okay.

Patrick Parr (07:28.482)
I'm sorry I'm jump I'm sorry I'm jumping sports but he

So I'm from Cleveland, near Cleveland, and I've loved the Cavaliers since I was six years old. And I remember MJ when he was averaging 37.1, 35 points a game, and he would just have the game completely in the palm of his hand the entire time. It was one versus five, but he was fine with that. And there was this way that MJ could even work the crowd, as in like just take...

Alvin Owusu (07:46.925)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick Parr (08:03.091)
take the air out of the whole arena whenever he needed when he was playing away games. But when I watched Alcaraz, I thought he has absolute command of this match and more so than anyone I had ever seen since maybe Federer. But what makes him very different than Federer is the way that he handles the crowd. I've never seen someone have the crowd as well as Alcaraz.

It's almost another web.

Alvin Owusu (08:34.4)
Okay, interesting, interesting.

Patrick Parr (08:35.837)
That was my quick take on it.

Alvin Owusu (08:38.732)
So yeah, I'm gonna dig in on that. So I've never seen Nadal play a match. I've seen him practice at the open as well. Actually the same day, like right after I watched Carlos practice and Louis Armstrong, I was, you you go down there, this is a couple years ago, but you get really close, five, six rows back, and I'm just watching him go at it. I'm like, wow, this is unreal. Like this is unreal. And then,

Nadal the same thing, but it's kind of tricky because you're getting snippets at times during practice. And then I've seen Djokovic from first row right behind him in Miami on the practice courts, but then I've also seen him play a few matches in Miami as well. I'm with you on the elasticity part. It's just like he's playing pong and it's not getting, you're not gonna get by him. It feels like he's seven foot tall with these long arms, but he's not that big.

Patrick Parr (09:25.096)
Yeah.

That's it. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (09:38.181)
the Alcaraz comp to 87 Jordan and I'm having a difficult time putting words to it but it's so good because that's like physical, that's almost like physical peak Jordan but he hadn't quite, obviously they didn't win a championship until 91 but he had all the stuff just oozing out of him at the time and then Carlos is a little more accomplished at this point but still physically he's like

Patrick Parr (09:39.113)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (09:44.731)
Sorry.

Patrick Parr (09:50.985)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (10:06.602)
Unreal.

Patrick Parr (10:07.897)
That's it. That's it. Yeah, I when I watched him play rude I thought he has another level he does he does have one more level to get to and That's how I did feel about MJ to in 87 even when I was just a kid and I was watching him and he was destroying my team I thought You know, he's he's not there yet because people forget sorry to get basketball. I'll come back to

Alvin Owusu (10:36.618)
No, we talk basketball a lot around here. So yeah, let it it let it fly.

Patrick Parr (10:39.837)
But people forget that how bad Jordan was at the three three ball early in his career like he was nine I checked it earlier. He was 19 for a hundred and nineteen in those two seasons when he was thirty he was averaging thirty seven and thirty five the next year in 87 88 he was still he shot a hundred and nineteen threes and only made 19

He just didn't have a three, three at the time. So with Alcara as it's different, there is one weakness I saw with him when he was playing Rude and Rude got it immediately. Rude is, he is so smart, such a smart player. He knows exactly what he can do and unfortunately what he can't do. I watched after the match, was so.

Alvin Owusu (11:23.861)
Right.

Patrick Parr (11:28.873)
so hyped up. watched the 2022 final with Alcáez and and I wanted to see, you know, has Rude fallen? Like what happened there? And I just, I think Rude has only lost maybe a quarter of a step of his quickness and that's it. But his shots are pretty...

Alvin Owusu (11:32.887)
okay, yeah.

Patrick Parr (11:52.49)
refined at this point. So his forehand is pinpoint. But I think his backhand, his backhand, no matter how much spin he tries to put on it, there's like this, the way the ball bounces.

is just perfect for Alcaraz's forehand. It's just, and I think for a lot of people who are 6'2 and higher, Rude's backhand is just, please give me that backhand. I'm going to mutilate it. And I don't know how he can change to, for that, but yeah.

Alvin Owusu (12:11.392)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (12:22.689)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (12:28.652)
Well, I mean, like you said before, like he's made three Grand Slam finals and if he's lost a step, it's minuscule and it's probably less him losing at this point. It's more like the players that are good enough to pass him like center, like Carlos have usurped him, but there's not that many players like he did when a Masters 1000 like in Madrid this year. So he's there, he's still around.

Patrick Parr (12:32.264)
right.

Patrick Parr (12:45.576)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (12:52.925)
This is true. Right. Well, it's clay. mean, for him, I think he has to hang in on clay. anyway, but yeah, right. Right. Yeah. I just I don't see that. That's that's

Alvin Owusu (13:00.596)
Indoor hard is gonna be tough. Yeah.

Patrick Parr (13:06.075)
I would love to play just one game with Rude so I could have that backhand. Not that my backhand was good, mine was terrible. okay, but yeah, going back to Alcraz, the weakness, was, he lost the first set, so maybe people who are listening, they're like, well, Rude looked like he almost had him, but there is a...

Alvin Owusu (13:11.754)
Hahaha

Patrick Parr (13:29.415)
You guys, you and Tori have talked about this. There's this moment in almost every match where Alcraz just, he checks out. It's like he goes to a different place. I was watching him, it was near the end of the first set and there were critical points and Alcraz was just like staring at his finger for like an inordinate amount of time, like his left pinky. I'm like, know, Rude's about to serve and then,

He's like, oh, okay. And then he comes in and so not ready for rude serve. And like two, three points in a row, rude wins. And suddenly that's it. The first set's over. And I think, why did it, what happened there? Like, it just focus? Was it boredom? And I watched him a lot that night.

It's Algoraz has like this existential boredom about him. I think he's bored. I think he's really bored.

Alvin Owusu (14:29.93)
Yeah, well, there's this combination of like, I mean, we're at this point now where maybe I've lost track. He's made eight or nine straight finals, like going back to maybe Barcelona, I don't know, sometime before the French Open, right? And so he's kind of shaken off that stigma of him being an up and down player, right? Super, you know.

Patrick Parr (14:45.353)
Right, right, yeah.

Patrick Parr (14:56.361)
Yeah, true, true.

Alvin Owusu (14:58.526)
atmospheric highs and then sometimes these weird lows within tournaments or within the season. Now he's kind of gotten it down to like it might happen in like a couple games here, maybe a set, but even his worst level of tennis is going to get him to the finals of an event. to him being bored, does seem like there's kind of two things at play, I think, and I'm gonna get your thought on this. Like one, I don't think he.

Patrick Parr (15:03.411)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (15:25.084)
actually cares if he wins or loses. He's gotten to this point now where he knows he's better generally than the person on the other side of the net. And if he wins the match or the tournament, great. If he doesn't, this particular match or whatever it is, it's fine because at the macro, he's gonna be all right. It's fine. He makes a lot of money, he wins a lot of tournaments. Any individual match outside of Grand Slam is just like, whatever.

Patrick Parr (15:54.438)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (15:55.008)
But so there's that. And then two, yeah, I think he does get a little bored because it's not even like the number three or number four play in the world challenges him. It's just him in center living in this like fever dream that no one else is invited to. So everything else is kind of boring.

Patrick Parr (16:16.585)
I like that. I like fever dream. That is spot on. Yeah, I think he's just waiting for Sinner and Sinner is just waiting for Alcara's at this point. Yeah, I think that's it. Thank God they got each other because I mean, it would be really weird because one thing I was going to say about Alcara's is just he...

That boredom sits in, I think, when he even feels that the audience itself is expecting something. everybody thought, okay, Alcrest is gonna win this match. And then we were getting near the first set and it was so clear, but.

You know, I think there was an instinctual feeling that he felt, this wouldn't really be that special if I win this set. You know, maybe, I don't know if he processes it or breaks it down that much in that moment, but there is a really deep connection that he has between himself and the crowd. Like, if you go back and watch the final against Fritz, which maybe I don't recommend because it was a...

Alvin Owusu (17:26.603)
I watched it. I watched the set in half. That was enough. Poor Taylor. Yeah.

Patrick Parr (17:27.527)
Yeah, yeah, Fred anyway, for free and then he gets absolutely exhausted in Shanghai against para card, right? But but anyway, so Alcraz is up, I think for one or something in the second and it's almost as if Alcraz is thinking this wasn't enough tennis for this crowd. This wasn't enough.

You know, I think I'm just going to play with my shots a bit, see what goes in, see what doesn't. Kind of just go from there. that play, can easily, see Alvarez can't really fake well, I think. I don't want to say tanking because that's a too loaded of a word. I'm not saying he tanks.

Alvin Owusu (17:54.269)
Yeah, yeah.

Patrick Parr (18:19.047)
But when he experiments, it's very obvious when he's going, he's choosing shots that you're thinking, why? What was that? But it's just because he's so damn good at that top level that you're like, okay, so he's having fun now. He's just having fun.

Alvin Owusu (18:38.453)
Right.

Patrick Parr (18:38.769)
So that's what I noticed when I watched was with Rude, he knew in the entire time how the audience was feeling. And I got a few interesting things about a changeovers that probably are only for people who listen to this pod. It's a little...

Alvin Owusu (18:54.847)
Like changeovers like the actual changeovers or changeover the book changeover? Okay.

Patrick Parr (18:59.423)
no, no, no, not the book, which is a great book, but I know that just when they're changing over like on the on the odd game. So I never want you know, it goes to commercial when we're watching it or or goes away from someone or fan cams or whatnot. I watched the Roots change over process and and then I watched Alcaraz's and it was fascinating to watch how they sit in their process of getting through those 90 seconds.

I don't know if this is boring or not, but I'll give it a shot. Alright, alright, alright, my bad, my bad. So, alright, so with Rude, he would, alright, he'd take his left hand in a water bottle and he would pour like a couple drops right on the top, like back.

Alvin Owusu (19:29.331)
No, I'm like, I'm waiting for you to tell me what you saw. I want to know. I'm invested here.

Patrick Parr (19:49.466)
center of his head just enough is the same amount each time and then he'd do like this bit of a shimmy with his to get it down into the rest of his hair I guess but he did that every single and then he put a one of those ice rope towel thing I don't know what they're called but

Alvin Owusu (20:07.285)
Yep. They call them like ice sausages now. Like it's like, yeah, I recently learned that. Yeah, ice sausages.

Patrick Parr (20:10.249)
How are they? Okay. Ice sausages. Yeah, I wanted to know. I wrote that a few times. I'm like, what is that thing? And I go ice rope towel. Yeah. But all right. Yeah, that's better. I saw it. But yeah, he puts that around his neck. And he's just he's in a perfect stasis of recovery. He's thinking, okay, I'll stay this way. And then I'm just thinking about the next game plan. So he's so focused. Then I look over at Alcares. He's just sitting down. He's doing nothing.

He's just staring around, looking a little bit at the crowd, just taking little sips of water. His team of four are...

a cross room to his right in the first row and there you know a couple I don't think Juan Carlos was there but the one four of them you know one guy was like his hype guy like come on you know you can do this and I think another guy was his mixer so he this guy had this not mixer like a a DJ or anything but the drink mixer and yeah it have been yeah it would have

Alvin Owusu (21:13.291)
God, DJ would have been cool if he had his own DJ. That'd be awesome.

Patrick Parr (21:18.537)
So, Alcares, he's he doesn't do it much of anything. He has no none of those meticulous Nadal processes, you know where they but he was just wrist flicking his water bottle trying to get it into his bag without moving his body. It was just kind of a he's like sip sip and then like

Alvin Owusu (21:27.466)
Right.

Patrick Parr (21:39.246)
Just this little wrist flick type thing. And I thought this guy is bored out of his mind because he knows he totally has Rude in his pocket. And he's just enjoying the crowd. He's enjoying where he's at. This match was so fascinating.

Alvin Owusu (21:55.669)
But it's so positive though because I think Alka has this one of these, he's one of these people that like it's all about being in flow for him where it's like it's not, he's not too focused, he's not too spaced out, he's just in this right like kind of homeostasis of like a little bit of planning and like the right mix of spontaneity at all times. like that and that's what makes him, that's what allows him to be so light at times and we saw you know that.

of this year 2025 to 2024, especially from like Paris Olympics onto the US Open, he was not in that place. was very, he was wound up, all kinds of wound up. getting out of that, say March of this year, which is also part of his maturation process, he's growing up, like he's not yet 23, 22, he's still young. But allowing himself to remain.

Patrick Parr (22:31.72)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (22:36.402)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (22:41.607)
Yeah, that's about right.

Patrick Parr (22:47.529)
still yeah

Alvin Owusu (22:51.856)
light and unencumbered allows him to play the kind of tennis that he wants to play and almost has to play. Like he can't do what other people do because he will get bored. He will probably space a little bit. So.

Patrick Parr (23:01.553)
That's it.

I think maybe that won't go away. I don't know but I Know and I know tennis is it's the longest season of all the sports, right? I mean, it's it's just exhausting mentally to To have to travel the world for all that time. And of course, it sounds charmed and privileged but we know you and I know how the money really works in tennis and but and and all the jet lag and so forth, but

Alvin Owusu (23:28.852)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (23:34.218)
I think though with Alcares, if he doesn't have the crowd, I think he loses and it's pretty quick. this is a, I don't know, what is this, a hot take or something? I don't, he, when he doesn't have the crowd, there is something that is.

Alvin Owusu (23:50.676)
Serve it, serve that hot take.

Patrick Parr (23:58.942)
he can't really get out of. He can't get out of disappointing the crowd. And I think when Djokovic and Alcrest played at the Olympics, he did not have the crowd that day. there was that loss, I think to him was devastating, not just because he wanted to win a gold medal for his country and so forth, but I think it was more, he felt they loved Djokovic that day more than him. They wanted Djokovic to have that gold.

Alvin Owusu (24:09.556)
Hmm

Patrick Parr (24:28.875)
I don't think he's had many of those moments where he lost the crowd and the match. That's something that I haven't seen much.

Alvin Owusu (24:37.822)
Yeah, the idea of him not having the crowd feels foreign. Everybody loves Carlos and watching Carlos play tennis is a bit of an experience to it in itself. I'm extremely jealous and happy for you that you got a chance to see him live, play a match live. I haven't seen him play a match live so I keep missing him in Miami. I go down there and he's either playing on the day I'm not there or like,

Patrick Parr (24:42.845)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (24:46.281)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (25:07.262)
Last year he lost early, it was weird. But someone asked me just two weeks ago, who's your favorite player on tour right now? And I was like, I'll stop whatever I'm doing to watch Carlos Sácaras play, regardless of what round it is, what tournament it is. If I can, I will, because he makes you feel things. His tennis makes you feel, embodies what it means to be a fan of a sport.

Patrick Parr (25:20.233)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (25:31.145)
That's right.

Alvin Owusu (25:35.402)
like the feeling you get behind it. and I think that's whether or not he's your favorite player, if you're a Djokovic guy, if you're a center guy, whatever, I feel like people like kind of universally feel that way about him.

Patrick Parr (25:37.544)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (25:48.254)
That's right. Yeah. I think with Alcares, the crowd, it feels like it means more to him when it's that way. When the crowd is with him, he rewards the crowd as much as he possibly can. I guess you call him a pleaser in that way. He's somebody who... And I feel the opponent...

can't stand that. think about Sinner a lot in this situation. know, whenever Alcares hit a forehand against Rude when I was watching, the crowd, a Japanese crowd...

I'm in Japan, I should say something about that crowd. They're very disciplined. It's almost like a faux Wimbledon, I think. there aren't many people who are like, blah, blah, blah, blah, know, shouting at them like that or something. But they're just very buttoned down. But whenever Alcraz hit a forehand, you know, off of Root's beautifully set up backhand,

Alvin Owusu (26:38.772)
Okay.

Patrick Parr (26:55.625)
The crowd, there would be a tremor or this rumble that goes through the crowd. Like, like something like that. they, it wasn't just getting out of their seat a bit. then that, and there were sometimes some sharp gasps. Like he had a couple forehands that had to have been over a hundred miles an hour. I...

When he hit one, was, And there were hundred other people who had this sharp gasp. And I thought, you know who notices those sharp gasps? The opponent.

Alvin Owusu (27:25.001)
Right.

Patrick Parr (27:30.558)
The opponent knows right? We know that we when we play if if I'm playing you and you blast a shot, you blast a forehand past me and I hear that gasp and the force of that forehand. That is really hard for me to take because number one, I don't have the crowd now. Number two, I'm on I'm backpedaling off of off of your shot. There's just so much tremendous force with having the crowd in the palm of your hand as well as having an incredible forehand, of course, as well.

That to me with Sinner, he knows every time he plays Alcraz, he's like, I'll never have the crowd. I'll never have them.

Alvin Owusu (28:09.499)
Yeah, I mean, guess short of like, well, they played in the final of Rome, which was obviously Yannick's first tournament back after suspension. And he is the home guy there. But that one's hard to judge because of, know, he didn't really have his sea legs under him quite yet. But I'd be curious to see as we roll back, same time next year, like what does that look like? Sinner has a home Masters event. Carlos has a couple of events in Spain as well. If he plays Madrid anymore, I don't.

Patrick Parr (28:15.251)
Rome, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (28:39.081)
I don't know if you will, but even Barcelona or Monte Carlo's a little strange. I mean, it's not in Spain, it's in France, technically, or it's in Monaco, technically. But yeah, that's an interesting perspective. Like even in the US, like when he comes to the States and he plays against American players, still doesn't feel like, I mean, American crowds get behind Americans, like especially at the US Open, full bore. But say for the asterisk of like,

Patrick Parr (28:40.252)
True.

Patrick Parr (28:45.033)
Yeah, right.

Right, right, right.

Mmm.

Patrick Parr (29:00.136)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (29:09.085)
Carlos Sácaras. That guy's the, he's the real show.

Patrick Parr (29:10.633)
That's it. That's it. think maybe I can only think of really forced moments like maybe Ben Shelton in a semi at the US Open against Alcaraz. When Shelton's perfectly like if Shelton can get there without having any pain, I think and Shelton can work the crowd really well, especially in the United States and we have.

Alvin Owusu (29:24.796)
Yeah

Alvin Owusu (29:35.39)
They love him. They love him. I saw him play at the US Open indoors. They had the roof shut. And there were people, we were in Louis Armstrong, and there were people sitting on the stairs. The whole mezzanine area where you walk around was packed. And I was like, wow, people love Ben Shelton. And I've seen it on smaller scales, but at the US Open, he's the guy. He's the guy.

Patrick Parr (29:42.477)
wow.

Patrick Parr (29:55.038)
Mm.

Patrick Parr (30:02.085)
Right, I can see that too. I think with Shelton, I'm curious, you saw him, so can I ask, I want to ask how his serve looked. I mean, were you, were the angle that you were at or?

Alvin Owusu (30:16.795)
Yeah, so I was in the corner, maybe the first or second row of the second tier in Louis Armstrong. So yeah, I was right there. And I also watched him practice a little bit. I saw him in DC when I was there. So I've seen Ben, Jesus, I sat on the court basically in Dallas when I was there for that event. And he was actually practicing right next to Caspar Roode, go figure.

Yeah, Ben's serves got a lot of, know, Torrey and I talk about him a lot, like with all that he can do, you almost want him to simplify and do less, but basically go for that first serve a little bit more. He does like to, I mean, obviously he can hit it big, right? But his maturation process is about hitting it big to spots, you know, when it matters. That's kind of his next, his evolution as a tennis player.

Patrick Parr (30:59.977)
I see.

Patrick Parr (31:04.615)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (31:11.143)
Hmm. I see. You don't think he's going to become more and more of a volleyer, I guess? Or you think he's more of a... he hits that serve to set up his forehand? Just no matter what?

Alvin Owusu (31:15.451)
as a server specifically.

Alvin Owusu (31:25.897)
I would like to say, I'm a little critical of Ben, probably overly critical of Ben, but I'm often reminded that he's still young, and even if he gets like half a percent better, he's still young, and he's still raw, and he's a top 10 player already. So with that being said, he still has improvement ahead of him, and he's super young. If you normalize some things out, he's projecting to be, you

Patrick Parr (31:41.448)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:53.716)
top five in the world at some point here soon, which is wild to say when I look at him play and I'm like, he still, cause he still has so much like potential left to fill. But like, Willie, do I feel like coming in is gonna be on his like, on his menu? absolutely, absolutely. Like he, he has the want to come in and while it doesn't look as refined as it could, like I think the want to come in is number one. And he's always looking for opportunities.

Patrick Parr (32:08.841)
Mm.

Patrick Parr (32:20.552)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (32:22.097)
and he covers the net pretty well. And he's a big dude, he's hard to pass. So, sure, sure.

Patrick Parr (32:26.311)
That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think his best, his best setup would be Wimbledon, wouldn't it? I mean, if they, if they start to vary the court services, by the new controversy, which I feel so bad for Zverev, you know, Federer on served with a Radek, right? Federer brings it up first. He's like, I'm guilty. You know, I do the same thing. And then he's like, but yeah, they should change the services. And then Zverev says,

Alvin Owusu (32:37.001)
If.

Alvin Owusu (32:45.97)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (32:54.939)
almost the exact same thing, but just name drops, Sinner and Alcrest, everyone's like, boo!

Alvin Owusu (33:02.045)
Yeah, Alex always looking for an excuse, Jesus.

Patrick Parr (33:06.057)
I know, I know. But he has a point though on the services though. He didn't need to bring up the fact that, they just want center and Alcraz in the final. I mean he shouldn't have said anything like that. I do, it's not that the services are playing the same, but Wimbledon needs to be fast. It needs to stay fast I think. I don't know how you feel about that.

Alvin Owusu (33:08.103)
Okay

Alvin Owusu (33:27.977)
Yeah, I I watched this video on Vox Sports, think. Vox, not Fox, Vox. And they were talking about how when the grass changed in either 2000, 2001, it was drastically slower that year. Federer, think, he won a Wimbledon serving and volleying almost exclusively, and then won a Wimbledon without serving and volleying. It happened overnight.

Patrick Parr (33:33.179)
Okay.

Patrick Parr (33:42.27)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (33:50.985)
Hmm.

That's right.

Alvin Owusu (33:55.986)
And so like a lot of the hard courts are slowing down, normalizing to a predictable, kind of predictable pace across all of them. So like, I do feel like that's one of the advantages of our sport that allows, like we have these different surfaces, which is another dimension to adjust to, which should allow for players with different game styles to, know, where they're not strong on grass, they could be a lot stronger on clay and vice versa, and kind of everyone should be

Patrick Parr (33:59.561)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (34:04.627)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (34:12.457)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (34:26.089)
somewhat in the same space on hard, but I'm with you. I do kind of miss that variation. But with that being said, these tournaments are trying to survive. They are trying to survive, right?

Patrick Parr (34:33.543)
Yeah, yeah.

That's right. Yeah, I understand. Well, to me Wimbledon has that. They don't need to be like on the baseline, just clay. I mean, to me Wimbledon on the baseline right now, especially the quarter semis and finals. It's clay. It's just clay. anyway.

I wanted to bring up one more thing that I noticed strategically during Alcaraz and Rude. It kind of goes to a bunch of other times. You ever watch Mehdi when he plays and he's way back? I used to think, that's because Mehdi can just get any ball. That way, that allows him to get any serve that comes his way. when I watched Rude do it,

Alvin Owusu (35:13.107)
Yep.

Patrick Parr (35:25.009)
It was different. When I watched it live and he did it to not so that he could get Alcraz's ball, he did it for timing. And I now see like when Rude was hitting a forehand way back right next to the ball girl, it's longer and it disrupts Alcraz's...

timing when he hits his forehand and that was really interesting because rude yeah, I think that I think the players go way back not so much for the serve itself, but to to disrupt a player from moving in the way or hitting at the time that they want so Right. Yeah

Alvin Owusu (35:51.369)
Huh.

Alvin Owusu (36:06.342)
Yeah, throws off the rhythm a little bit. Like there's somewhat of a cadence between serve, return, first ball. But if you can elongate that space between serve, return, first ball, yeah, yeah. Play off just a little bit.

Patrick Parr (36:18.109)
Yeah. Yeah.

Patrick Parr (36:22.791)
Yeah, that to me was really, really fascinating. And I guess it also.

leads to people like Bublik who do underarm stuff, it's people who are, you know, because they're so far back, but they're doing that. They're doing that because that server has to wait one extra second to get in their right place. Alcraze mishit both shots when Ru did that. was fascinating. Yeah. So I just wanted to bring that little tick up.

Alvin Owusu (36:35.462)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (36:48.528)
Interesting. Okay.

Well, let me ask you this though, outside of the match itself, what was the, what's the, you mentioned that the Japanese crowd is very reserved, faux Wimbledon-esque. What's it like in the stadium besides the hush? I imagine, unlike a lot of other indoor events, there's no DJ, I assume. There was a DJ! Okay, I love a DJ.

Patrick Parr (36:58.217)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (37:14.681)
Actually, there was a DJ there was a DJ. Yes But that that DJ got taken over a couple times with classical music I don't know why suddenly there was just as like Vivaldi's playing and I'm thinking what you know, okay Can you let that guy spin? I mean you paid him let him so I I didn't Anyway, the DJ did have some chances but you know, they played during the third set when

Alvin Owusu (37:35.112)
Peace.

Patrick Parr (37:42.664)
Casper goes out he's Casper got a third set bag by the way. It was interesting It's a little mini bag that he takes he goes up he goes off court where his outgrads just again just just sitting there like Yeah, and then he goes over to his team and one one of his team They start they were playing one more time, which I think might qualify as most overplayed song of all time It's like our generation's celebration. I feel

Alvin Owusu (37:46.664)
Okay, little mini bag.

Alvin Owusu (37:53.032)
Yeah

Alvin Owusu (38:11.035)
yeah, very similar sounding too.

Patrick Parr (38:13.225)
Yeah, So it's it's exhausting. yeah, Alcares was. Yeah. So there was music and it was lively. But I would say Japan has a

The crowd I would say and this is from experience the last three Japan opens they they are maddeningly Neutral they want to be neutral as much as possible. They are at least look like they are they they weren't I mean Everybody will want it out grass at the whole time, but there were there were these let's go You know like let's go Casper and one guy would shout that and you know and then turn turn to and then I'm always thinking how is this Japan now someone's gonna feel like

Alvin Owusu (38:39.016)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (38:56.593)
no, Carlos is is ignored. So then someone goes let's go And then it goes to Casper then it goes back to it's it's and I thought come on guys, this is a Just just cheer for whoever you want, but there were at least 20 Spanish flags three Norwegian flags I counted them I get a little obsessed with that stuff, but

Alvin Owusu (39:05.106)
Okay

Alvin Owusu (39:19.368)
Okay. No, that's super interesting. But at the event itself, are you able, do they have practice courts on site? Can you go watch practice or? Okay.

Patrick Parr (39:28.617)
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that's where the real joy is. I saw Shelton, that's I brought it up with you about Shelton, is I did see Shelton practice a year, two years ago when he won it here. yeah, watching the practice courts is probably where the crowds get really obsessed.

Alvin Owusu (39:39.624)
Okay. Yeah.

Patrick Parr (39:51.786)
I know this podcast is a PG, but I want to bring up or not.

Alvin Owusu (39:56.202)
there's an E tag on it. I think we're safe here.

Patrick Parr (40:00.751)
Okay, yeah, well at the end of the match, this whole, all these cameras were swarming around Alcares and I guess this is the time when he takes off his shirt, you know, and so he was pulled off his shirt and there was this one woman who had filled in next to me and she had not reacted at all to the match for two hours. She had just been so still.

And I wondered like, does she know what's going on? And then when Alcraz took off his shirt, she just leaned in and she was like, she's like studying every single part of his body. then I think she was, I think she was with her boyfriend. And then the boyfriend was like, he muttered something. I couldn't hear it, but yeah. And then she, she was like, like, leave me alone. This is my moment. I thought you brought me here.

Alvin Owusu (40:47.511)
It's like you brought me here. You're gonna let me enjoy this how I wouldn't enjoy this.

Patrick Parr (40:51.845)
Exactly, yeah. I think that was pretty funny.

Alvin Owusu (40:56.168)
That's, yeah, I'm always interested in indoor tennis in itself. Probably not my favorite. to a handful of indoor events and it just feels, I don't know, I can only stay inside and watch tennis for so long. It feels like a time warp. But I feel like going to see one or two matches is the sweet spot and it's good that the energy was good. Yeah.

Patrick Parr (41:15.976)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (41:20.049)
It was, yeah. I think with Alcares, Japan has warmed up to him to such a point where he's as loved as maybe even Federer was back in his prime. I think it's pretty close. think this is the first time. Yeah, so it was monstrous, the crowds. And I think...

Alvin Owusu (41:34.672)
Okay. And last year he didn't play the event last year, right? He was in Beijing last year, this first time. Okay, yeah.

Patrick Parr (41:50.078)
Yeah, when there was one thing about mixing drinks, did did you have a what did you drink when you when you were like, like, was there something you had to drink? Or did you like you mixed because

I watched Alcraz, he had just broken rude and he had finished his bottle and he's shaking it at one of his guys. The guy told you he had like this massive mixer right to his left. And he guy put his thumb up and then he starts just making this.

I had this cocktail. I don't know what it was. I wish I had binoculars because I wanted to know everything he was putting in that drink. And that guy was just shaking it like this, like a a margarita or a daiquiri or something. I don't know. But anyway, he's just he and then the ball girl took it from the guy and brought it over to Alcaraz. I I wondered what the hell is in that drink? What is he doing? And I would love to know maybe on a future pod.

Alvin Owusu (42:39.239)
Hahaha

Patrick Parr (42:57.547)
I'll check out and see what what people drink what what do people drink and the professional level like what because when I would almost sometimes this is outing me I would have like a coca-cola during the changeover Just but not because I wanted the coke, but I wanted the other player to know how Unserious I'm taking that person. It's like

Alvin Owusu (43:21.137)
my god, this all makes so much sense now.

I mean, know that they're, so they're actively replacing what they're losing, right? So it's some combination of, and obviously I don't know the right calibration of this, but it's some combination of proteins and carbohydrates and electrolytes, and you wanna be taking it in regularly with these, every changeover you're taking in about the same amount. And it's pretty dialed in.

Patrick Parr (43:29.255)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (43:51.12)
So, but yeah, I mean, feel like this is knowable. I actually have a buddy who, he played at Auburn and he's a, I think he has a Masters in Sports Science and Nutrition. He often talked about, could get a lot of the benefits as opposed to a tailor-made drink like that. Actually drinking a Coca-Cola, a sip of it on each changeover, you can get a lot of those things that you're...

Patrick Parr (44:18.032)
really?

Alvin Owusu (44:18.661)
that you're losing, was just, I'll have to have them maybe come on and it'd be good to catch up with them anyways, but kind of talk about the nutrition aspect. I'm gonna write that down with a little note there.

Patrick Parr (44:24.647)
Yeah,

Patrick Parr (44:28.809)
I only had one one more question for you and it was a it's a Who do you want the top eight to be?

Alvin Owusu (44:39.726)
in Turin.

Patrick Parr (44:41.255)
Yeah, who do you want the, who do you want the aid to? Sorry, this was, this was random.

Alvin Owusu (44:42.855)
Oh, this is, yeah, this is my sweet, no, I like it. This is my sweet spot, right? Because I went to the year in championships a couple years ago and I wanted more out of the feeling of being there. I want something at stake. I am on team, make Turin matter. And I would love nothing more than the top two players to come in and like,

Patrick Parr (44:54.871)
wow.

Patrick Parr (45:05.447)
Mmm, me too.

Alvin Owusu (45:12.775)
whoever wins this event becomes year and number, finishes the year number one. Like I want that so badly and I don't know if it's gonna happen this year, because we're starting to see some points roll off for center and Alcaraz has got nothing but green space in front of him. But to answer your question, I'm gonna kind of do this on the fly here. Obviously those top two are pretty set. And like, it looks like a wish list or like am I going off of like some combination of who is going to make it and then who I want.

Patrick Parr (45:28.371)
Mm.

Patrick Parr (45:32.231)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (45:42.065)
to sneak in and make it.

Patrick Parr (45:42.889)
Well, think we got four who, it's no doubt, right? mean, but, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (45:48.465)
So you got Alcaraz, Sinner, Joker, he's not gonna play, but let's put him in anyways. I would love to.

Patrick Parr (45:56.262)
Wait, did the Joker already bow out of that? He's not gonna... really?

Alvin Owusu (45:59.208)
He hasn't shown up for that event in a while. He's not gonna play. He's not gonna play. I'd love to see Taylor Harry Fritz in there. I would like to see Demonor in there. I just feel like he's gonna bring it indoors. Go ahead.

Patrick Parr (46:07.173)
Okay, yeah, this is a good year for him.

Patrick Parr (46:13.683)
Did you, did you watch him go with against Sinner recently? Like, yeah, that one, wow. You gotta watch those highlights. Just of Sinner and DiMinar went all out. I've never seen him hit the ball harder against somebody. he just, I think he went into that match and he says, I'm guns a blazing. Like, I don't care. Like, I...

Alvin Owusu (46:19.407)
No, I missed it. I was in Africa. I missed everything.

Alvin Owusu (46:25.328)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (46:38.151)
Well, I mean, he better he's like, and everything against him. like.

Patrick Parr (46:40.605)
That's it. That's it. I think either the coach said, look, look, dude, it's like what you're what you're doing is not working. Can you just blast the ball for two hours against this guy and see what happens? And yeah, I've never seen him hit that hard. It's so clear that he's trying. Yeah, he did. He did. He did get a set. And I think you after that, he was exhausted. yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:56.679)
And you got to set, so that's good. Okay, okay.

Alvin Owusu (47:03.291)
Yeah, 11 and 0, lifetime. Maybe I don't want Alex in the tournament.

Patrick Parr (47:10.578)
I like, I want to see him try one more time now that he understands what he has to do. But maybe, I don't know.

Alvin Owusu (47:18.535)
When we talk about Alex Demon or like he's 33 or something, dude's 26. Like he's got, him and Castor are both 26, they're young. Like these are, they're in their prime. They're entering their prime, which is wild, like wild. So back to your question though, yeah, those top three, they give me Taylor, give me Demon, that's five. I don't really wanna see Zverev there. He'll probably qualify, but I don't have to, in this world, I don't have to count him, right? I don't have to.

Patrick Parr (47:22.864)
I know.

Patrick Parr (47:29.831)
Mmm. Mmm.

Patrick Parr (47:40.187)
Okay.

Patrick Parr (47:47.37)
wow wow bubba king of the 250s

Alvin Owusu (47:47.909)
I want, I want booblick in there.

One, two, three. Exactly, and this is two out of three sets. A little round robin in the beginning. Indoor, I like it. I also want Big Bad Ben Shelton in there. One, two, three, four, five, six, That's seven. Who else do I actually want there? That.

Patrick Parr (48:03.165)
Yeah.

me too, me too.

Yeah.

Patrick Parr (48:13.865)
I don't want to say who, uh, cause you guys, you guys are giving him a hard time. Oh, no, no, not him. wasn't. It's a Lorenzo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:20.551)
I'm not gonna put Zverev in there. I don't want him there. I just don't want him there.

He's Italian, boom, Musetti, love it. Yes, my guy, my guy, Lorenzo. Yeah, she's, yeah, TH. I mean, Lorenzo's not helping himself out. He's pissing off the Chinese crowd and it's not a good look for him. But yeah, I'd like that. I like that lineup. I'm entertained by that lineup. I wanna be there, I wanna take it. I feel like Musetti versus like D-Menor.

Patrick Parr (48:33.629)
Just maybe don't tell Tori, yeah?

Patrick Parr (48:45.981)
Yeah, true, true.

Patrick Parr (48:51.443)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (48:56.291)
Indoors would be just a lot of fun like a lot of fun Yeah, I got no problem with that

Patrick Parr (48:56.827)
that'd be wonderful. Yeah, I like, I would pay to watch Shelton play Bublik. I would love that. That would be pretty cool. yeah, yeah, I think so. I think that that's guaranteed, I feel. But Bublik's out to make people feel angsty, isn't he? I feel that.

Alvin Owusu (49:11.399)
Especially if I got a little angsty.

Alvin Owusu (49:15.825)
That'd be even better.

I-

Alvin Owusu (49:23.023)
Yeah, hey, he's gonna wanna take it there. Ben is down to handle it for sure. He's about that life, but I think that actually would backfire against Buble, because I think that gives Ben just a little bit of that college atmosphere that he thrives in. So yeah, let's get nasty. I love it. What about you? Who am I? In the list that I gave you, who's not on your list?

Patrick Parr (49:26.441)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (49:29.937)
I think so. Yeah.

Patrick Parr (49:37.843)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick Parr (49:43.527)
Yeah, that's it.

Patrick Parr (49:52.264)
Well, let's see. I don't hate Fritz at all. In fact, I respect him quite a bit. I feel the way I feel about him, the way Todd Martin was in the past. okay. I feel Fritz whenever I watch him play.

Alvin Owusu (50:06.086)
Yeah, yeah, I feel like I've said that before. Like, yeah, Todd Martin, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Patrick Parr (50:17.425)
Mad respect for him, mad respect, but I always just want like a little bit more out of the box stuff. So I can't really put my finger on it, but Fritz, can, he'll make it, I'm sure. I know he's built his entire schedule around this accomplishment, I think, but I don't know. I miss.

I miss Mehdi, I really do. I miss Medvedev, but he's just so done, I think. I think he's just, he's had such a terrible year for, compared to his others, but I don't.

Alvin Owusu (50:50.798)
Yeah...

Alvin Owusu (50:54.598)
feel like someone like Mevedev, so he's like, he's out of the, he's currently sitting at 20 in the world, and I think, Tori made this comment a couple months ago about thinking, I can't remember what player he referenced, but he referenced a player like within a year or two being done. And that kind of hit me in a strange way, because I think I've been so used to these great players playing till they're 35 years old.

Patrick Parr (50:57.8)
Mm.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (51:25.35)
When you go back and look at like what historically has happened for the vast majority of players, like, yeah, 30, 31, they're about, they're about done. start, they start sliding, they lose a step or two. And then the younger players usurp them. And that is, that's what that's, that becomes normal. And I mean, outside of, you know, Jokovic, there's no player in the top 20 that is 30 years old yet. And you've got Hatchinov at 29 years old and then Talon, GreekSporer is 29 and

Patrick Parr (51:28.649)
Mm.

Patrick Parr (51:33.831)
Done, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (51:54.663)
And so is Medvedev, so when you look at it that way, it's like, yeah, that's about right. Like that's about right. He peaked between 26 and 28, and now he's on the other side of that without huge gifts and huge weapons to rely on. Yeah, that kind of should be it.

Patrick Parr (51:56.989)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (52:00.999)
He had his run. He had his run.

Patrick Parr (52:07.239)
Yeah, yeah.

Patrick Parr (52:17.115)
Well, I... Yeah. Well, I'm worried about that with Tommy Paul, who's probably my favorite American player. I love watching Tommy Paul play anybody because it's just how he constructs points, how the ball comes off his racket. Just to me, it's so... He has different...

Angles than other players and so I I think in my top eight I'd love to see Tommy Paul sneak in there maybe get past Lorenzo Apologies to my wife who loves Lorenzo Yeah, But I think yeah, I'd love Tommy Paul to me, but I wanted to go back to prime very real quick. Yeah this

Alvin Owusu (52:54.182)
A lot of the wives love Lorenzo.

Patrick Parr (53:08.489)
You had mentioned like, oh, Rude's in his prime and so forth. the way tennis is played now, don't you feel like the prime for a tennis player is now like 23, 24?

Alvin Owusu (53:21.862)
no, no, and I'll turn it back. I'll kick it back to you. Why do you feel that way?

Patrick Parr (53:24.765)
Nah, okay.

Sure. Okay. Well, I'm thinking back, know, Djokovic's season, you know, that season where he went from one great player to all time, I feel was about 2011, 2012. And he was 24 at that time. And now with Alcares younger and Sinner younger, I know that maybe they're outliers, maybe they're anomalies, and we can't really say that they would...

Alvin Owusu (53:43.27)
Okay. Yep.

Patrick Parr (53:58.034)
shape this prime idea, but I do think there is a fine line between being too experienced and being too experimental in a tennis player's life. And I think you got to be young enough to take risks.

Alvin Owusu (54:09.382)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (54:15.977)
in a match that gets you that grand slam. And I think 24 seems right to me. 24, 25, and then after that, there does seem to be a drop. And that's just my thought on that.

Alvin Owusu (54:32.794)
I think what we're getting into is the nuance, and this is the space for nuance. How do you define one's peak or their prime? I like to use this magical three-year window where you're going to amass your highest ranking and your best results, and that should happen somewhere.

Patrick Parr (54:37.789)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (55:00.038)
I mean, we can fudge it a little bit. Maybe it's not 26 to 28, maybe it's 25 to 27, whatever, whatever, 25 to 28. But that, I think that relies on there being a normal distribution of players' age that are actually in the top 100 at that time. like, let's even narrow it down to like a normal distribution of players that get to the round of 16 of a Grand Slam at any given point in time. And I think that's the part where we're starting to

Patrick Parr (55:17.758)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (55:30.614)
the math is off because there aren't a lot of players between Sinner's age and Djokovic's age. This is what the big three did. They swallowed up generations of champions. They took three whole generations of champions, would-be champions, and they never happened. So the Sitsipasses, the Zverevs,

Patrick Parr (55:38.697)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (55:47.421)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Patrick Parr (55:54.089)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (55:54.727)
like should, under normal circumstances, should be walking around with three, four Grand Slams in their pockets and be in the big dogs on tour, but they had to deal with those guys in that space where they were supposed to be breaking through at 21, 22, 23, and in their experimental phrase, and they never did. They never figured out what it was like to win a Grand Slam and then take that knowledge and then start to stack.

Grand Slams on top of it. The big three took that from them. And then you get these other two who have not been encumbered by that. They're just kind of free to do what players, like great players naturally do when there aren't these like Mount Rushmore players, like casting a shadow on the tour.

Patrick Parr (56:24.617)
Hmm

Patrick Parr (56:33.427)
Great.

Patrick Parr (56:47.485)
That's it. Yeah. And I think also you're bringing up a good point about the all timers, the ones who they get inside their own bubble and they have no choice but to adapt their game so that they stay above the other. And

There is inspiration, there's motivation in that, right? And they can keep going. I'm wondering how Alcaz can change his game when he can no longer capitalize on his athleticism.

Alvin Owusu (57:20.302)
Yeah, that's a great question because how far away are we from that? Like my guy's 22 years old. Like we got a good while before that's a problem. And I feel like it's even less, how is he gonna have to adapt to this game? It's like, is he gonna stay motivated?

Patrick Parr (57:24.457)
Great.

Patrick Parr (57:32.774)
Okay.

Patrick Parr (57:40.138)
That's the thing. Yeah, I don't know how he would stay motivated. To me, it's a three, going back to your three year window, I think that we're in the three year window of Alcares. And I think at 25, he's the guy's going to be sitting on probably nine to 10 grand slams at least. And there he is with 10. He's 25. He's a complete player. If center's not keeping up with him.

Alvin Owusu (57:59.568)
Yeah.

Patrick Parr (58:07.337)
Does he continue to push forward? Can he adapt his game? Because I know there will be players who are 20, 21 who are more athletic than him, who excite the crowd a bit more because they're new. in my mind, we have this, and it's glorious, this glorious three-year window with Alcáez and Sinner.

But after that, it's up to them to have to adapt their games the way that Nadal and Djokovic and Federer did too. Fed never get, Fed gets of course tons of credit, but he never gets enough credit for his late career changes. He really tried. He really tried.

Alvin Owusu (58:46.021)
Yeah, mean, yeah, mean, 2017 to 2019 Fed was like, that was almost as amazing as like 06 to 08 Fed, like, because I think it was harder. It was harder.

Patrick Parr (59:00.967)
Yeah, there was that popular Curios clip where he says, Curios says that, yeah, Fed made me feel like embarrassed to be there or just not a, you know, he was the one who made me feel like I couldn't do anything. And then I was thinking, yeah dude, you played him when he was 34. He was 34, I think, with that match he's talking, I mean years old and he's doing that. And I, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (59:12.75)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (59:23.909)
God bless.

Alvin Owusu (59:28.837)
Well, here's the problem that I think, it's not a, I guess it is a bit of a problem, maybe an existential one. Like, Carlos being so young, like, if someone, I think we're all kind of on the same page with like no one who's ahead of him in age is the problem, right? They're not gonna, they're not, no one ahead of him in age is gonna be a problem. Like, this is, it's everyone behind him that you would have to consider. And of the players who are, you know, in the top,

Patrick Parr (59:39.4)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (59:58.982)
100 right now and younger than him. There's only six of them. There's only six players in top 100 younger than Carlos. So he's still really young. And some of them you know, It's the Fonseca and Jakub Bencik and Arthur Fies. Those are the ones that you are, yeah. Those are the guys, and even Lerner Tian, and I'm gonna talk about Lerner at some point before this year's over.

Patrick Parr (01:00:03.165)
Mm.

Patrick Parr (01:00:06.675)
Great.

Wow.

Patrick Parr (01:00:14.857)
Fonseca.

Feast I love watching feasts, but yeah, yeah

Patrick Parr (01:00:25.265)
Yeah, right, right.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:26.733)
and then Mickelson and Ethan Quinn's making a nice little run. And then he and Ben and Holger are the same age, but from what I've seen so far, if it's not one of those guys, which he's got a six-lam lead on all these guys, maybe one of them becomes the Djokovic of the group, maybe, the person that could push him is in juniors right now. He's getting their driver's license right now.

Patrick Parr (01:00:29.672)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (01:00:41.458)
Right

Patrick Parr (01:00:51.697)
Yeah. Wow. You're right.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:55.833)
We don't know them, which is that just kind of leads me to think like the runway is at least four or five years.

Patrick Parr (01:00:57.607)
No, we don't.

Hmm.

Patrick Parr (01:01:05.135)
okay. You're going to five,

Alvin Owusu (01:01:07.521)
Yeah, which is like for him that's 27, but for Yannick who's also more injury prone that's 29 and that's the guy that I'm actually worried about. I'm worried about Yannick like playing out to 30 at this level. I'm not necessarily worried about Carlos.

Patrick Parr (01:01:20.843)
huh.

You think Carlos can adapt his game more easily than Sinner? Is that what you're saying?

Alvin Owusu (01:01:31.557)
I think Carlos has all options available to him. All of them. Like all of them. What does he need to do? Like his server's gotten better. Yeah, exactly.

Patrick Parr (01:01:34.601)
Mmm.

Patrick Parr (01:01:38.791)
That's 87 MJ talk again, you that that was you watch you watched MJ in 87. You're like he can do anything he wants whatever he wants to do. You can do it.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:45.358)
Yeah, Carlos' version of MJ's three pointer was probably his serve and he's tightened that up this year too. So that will continue to get incrementally better. And he's also found his version of safety. So right now, Carlos is playing obviously the best tennis of his career and he's still adding things and he's enjoying the challenge that Yannick provides him.

Patrick Parr (01:01:51.783)
Yeah, yeah.

Patrick Parr (01:01:58.12)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:13.957)
I feel like he's there, it's Yannick's fitness that I worry about. It just keeps, it seems to keep happening to him. It's something, it's always, it's something. He's a little, he got sick in Cincinnati. Hell, Holger had him dead to rights in Australia too and he pulled a rabbit out of the hat. So I feel like that's the one I'm concerned about over the course of the next five years. How many times is Yannick gonna not be able to

Patrick Parr (01:02:21.513)
Yeah, the cramps, right, just happened, yes, right.

Patrick Parr (01:02:36.295)
too.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:44.207)
bring full force in a Grand Slam where Carlos is just a matter of like, he locked in? Is he in a good place? He can do it all. And someone's gonna have to, I honestly feel like, we've talked about Mincek, we've talked about Fonseca, I feel like Fies is the guy he just has some more work to do, could be a guy. But besides that, it's like,

Patrick Parr (01:02:54.375)
That's it. That's it.

Patrick Parr (01:03:02.771)
Hmm.

Patrick Parr (01:03:10.877)
You know, you bring up Mncig, I think I want to talk a lot more about him. I think he's there. I think he could be there. He's just, he's not showing it yet, but I haven't watched enough to really say that, but I remember seeing at least two of his matches start to finish. He might have some of the weapons, but I don't know if he can...

put it all together in a grand slam, he's maybe somebody I would think out of the young guns, I would say he's the guy. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:44.269)
Yeah, I've been impressed with him. He's got the tools. He's got the tools. I just don't know. Yeah, I've yet to see those tools in a best out of five set match. It seems like fitness is the next piece for him. He's gotta commit to getting in ridiculous shape, like ridiculous shape so that he can be a threat when it's hot and it's three out of five as opposed to.

Patrick Parr (01:03:54.621)
Mm.

Patrick Parr (01:04:00.221)
Yeah, that's that's the thing.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:12.665)
being a 500 and 250 champ. He did win a Masters event in Miami, but yeah, that's where we are right now. That's where we are. Yeah, think, no, I think this is good. This is good. I like when we get together and chat about these things, and especially, I love getting first person perspective. So we'll keep doing that. I think we got a lot of cool stuff that we can volley back and forth here over these.

Patrick Parr (01:04:18.311)
That's true. Yeah

Patrick Parr (01:04:24.041)
Well, thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:41.029)
or the doldrums of the tennis calendar, but it's for you. You're where it's at, baby. You're in the right time zone right now.

Patrick Parr (01:04:48.524)
I am, I am. This was incredible. I can't thank you enough. This has been boiling in my mind all week and I was just like, I gotta talk to Alvin. I gotta tell him. I gotta tell him about the changeovers and all this stuff. So yeah, yeah, much appreciated. This was a blast.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:57.955)
Hahaha!

Alvin Owusu (01:05:07.846)
Awesome, awesome. All right, we'll put a pin in it there. I'm still Alvin, Pat, thanks for joining me and we'll catch you guys on the next one. Best of three, we are out.