Sebastian Korda’s Blueprint vs Carlos Alcaraz

Alvin Owusu (00:00.27)
And welcome to another episode of the best three podcast. I'm Alvin that's Pat par and that we had we had plans on talking about some other stuff today, but when one Sebastian quarter Korda brings his His mark filipusas to the table and takes down Carlos Ocarra's first week of Miami open We then pivot just a bit. So we're gonna talk about that But before we get into it first and foremost, how are you doing, man?

Patrick (00:28.636)
Doing well, doing well. I'm enjoying these Masters Series. I mean, it's weird. There is definitely a difference between the Indian Wells vibe and the Miami vibe, even though they're so close to each other. It just feels almost like not just two different tournaments, but two completely different mentalities. I guess I enjoyed Indian Wells a lot. And I'm trying to work my way into the Miami tournament, but I do feel that for some of the players

Alvin Owusu (00:41.016)
Yeah.

Patrick (00:58.78)
there might be a bit a sense of a letdown that inevitable letdown that occurs like maybe something that it's not that the tournament is worse in any way it's just that there there's fatigue I can only imagine playing that many matches if you go late in Indian Wells and then you go over to Miami and you have to do it all over again that must be tough so I'm just enjoying yeah

Alvin Owusu (01:21.875)
Yeah, it's interesting that you pull that out because I was thinking about this as I, I guess particularly yesterday. So today is Sunday, men's third round-ish. I think maybe, I don't know what round was yesterday, if it was second round or the other half of the third round draw. But there were some matches that just didn't go the way you thought they were gonna go.

And I get this vibe from players and I'm gonna be on site tomorrow. So I'm excited about that. Yeah, I've got a nice little, got a nice little set up there. I'm gonna be on grandstand during the day, stadium at night, centers playing, mute and I've got like six rows back in the corner court level. Yeah, I'm pretty, I'm pretty pumped about it. But, but this tournament is interesting because, you know, this is the end of the opening portion of the heart, like the early,

Patrick (01:52.016)
So cool.

Alvin Owusu (02:16.652)
be your hardcore swing, right? We often talk about the hardcore swing in the summer, but we are in a true hardcore swing right now, but it starts with a major and ends with a 1,000. The women have played, this is their fourth 1,000 in a row, right? And that's wild. Usually it's like if we look at the clay court and you look at grass and you look at even summer hardcore swing, we're working up to the slam. Here we start the slam and then we just kind of like.

Patrick (02:29.87)
Yeah, yeah, that's insane. That's insane. Yeah.

Patrick (02:43.142)
That's right.

Alvin Owusu (02:44.906)
mad dash all over the place and try to pick up these points. But yeah, so it seems like, okay, if you lose a little earlier than expected here, any player, right? It's like, we're going, let's go to Europe. We're gonna play ClickCourt now.

Patrick (02:58.598)
That's it, that's it, right? I feel like in the back of their mind, all those players, lose early, they're like, okay, we'll take this as an advantage, head over to Europe, pick up some points there. Should we talk about Corda and Alcáez or?

Alvin Owusu (03:13.262)
Yeah, I'm gonna, and I'm gonna, you're the guest, I'm gonna cede the floor to you first because I have some very concrete thoughts about not just this match but what I've started to see as a trend. But I'll cede the floor to you first. What was your take? What'd

Patrick (03:27.57)
What?

Yeah, I've been watching quarter for years. My God. And I what I saw out of him with Alcora's was steadiness and I think his coach Ryan Harrison, right? So Harrison. Yeah, I mean what he's done for quarter is just almost miraculous. I feel it's just I like he said in an interview something about stacking good days on top of each other. I mean, I thought that that is such

Alvin Owusu (03:42.572)
Yeah!

Alvin Owusu (03:57.422)
I love it, I love it, yeah.

Patrick (03:59.94)
good way because when I look at Korda and I watch him play I think a lot about melancholy. I know that sounds a bit odd but he's got that Raphaelian type look when he like almost like a Greek hero when he's suffering out there he's just he has this maybe it's the hairstyle or something but he has this he has this vibe of just like suffering on a level

Alvin Owusu (04:07.831)
Say more, no continue, continue, give it to me.

Alvin Owusu (04:22.23)
I see what you mean.

Patrick (04:27.394)
very dramatic to me but it's not too overstated right and when I when I was watching him with Alcaraz of course he started I could tell in it in that one service game in the second set I thought wow he's thinking he's thinking about the outcome you know he's thinking about this this is about to happen I'm about them I'm not only about to beat Alcaraz and Straits you know I'm beating him in Miami where I'm you know where I'm supposed to be supported even though the crowd wanted

more tennis at that point and then turned on him a bit.

The magnitude of the moment came up and then he had a hiccup, which I think is inevitable, but God, when he hits the ball, it's just, it's pure. It's so pure. And Cordo was hitting the ball so deep into Alcáez off of his serve, I thought he had a game plan that I thought worked really well. Hard to emulate for other players, I think, but that was my initial thoughts on it.

Alvin Owusu (05:29.217)
very much so.

Yeah, I agree with you. you know, Sebastian, I've been out on him, you know, as of late, probably over the last six months, only because he's not, he hasn't been playing as consistently as you would like. And so as exciting as he, his prospects as a player are, it's like, well, if you're not available, then, you know, you're not available. So, but when he's on the court, I mean, he quarterfinaled this event last year. I remember this was probably 2017, I want to say, maybe 2016.

Patrick (05:32.66)
you

Alvin Owusu (06:01.911)
I first saw Sebastian at an ITF event in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was there for, I was there for, some collegiate event and actually Tori happened to be there at that event with one of his players, Trent Bride, who ended up playing at Georgia. And Sebastian was there with, Eric Nunez, I think, and they were training together, traveling together. So I was on the court with, the four of them, two players, two coaches, and Trent Bride just kept, kept on saying like every time Sebastian would do something.

He would say, that's that pro blood right there, that's that pro blood. Always talking about the genetics. yeah, mean, Sebi's smooth as silk. I think the thing that he, and Ryan is a, I'm gonna say he's a friend of the pod, but know Ryan from some years ago back in Austin. And Ryan's a very cerebral player as well, but he has really brought in the constraints of like, what does Sebi do well?

Patrick (06:34.866)
That's it.

Patrick (06:53.906)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (07:00.235)
And how does that match up, especially against a player like Carlos? And I, what I noticed was I've seen this tactic before against Carlos and I've seen it work against Carlos. And even when you go all the way back to the beginning of the year, and we talked about like, what is the, you know, the evolution of tennis players? What is the, you know, what is the next version of the best tennis player look like? It's like, well, he's going to have to be about as big as Zverev.

Patrick (07:09.424)
Mmm. Yeah.

Patrick (07:25.842)
Right.

Patrick (07:29.351)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (07:29.773)
but willing to go through people. Effectively, if I bullet down what it looked like. And when you watch Carlos play against Sebi, Sebi's just like, I'm not backing up. He's got the hands to handle a heavy ball on the rise. And when you serve 12 aces and no double faults, that helps a lot too.

Patrick (07:32.678)
That's it.

Patrick (07:44.892)
Yeah.

Patrick (07:50.855)
Wow.

Yeah, that's true. What a stat there. When I was watching the match and I saw Alcaraz, it did feel like he was maybe a quarter step slow off of his serve. I think he is he preoccupied with the way he's serving the form right now. I've been hearing things about him thinking it's in flux a bit. You know, he's taking that Djokovic form, but the way way Korda neutralized

outgrass right after that serve put him back you know that I think that was probably the key to it you're saying the next evolution of flair has to hit through yeah absolutely but you got to neutralize that guy so they don't have an angle I feel that because if you if you hit a return to out right off the deuce into the deuce court for outgrass I mean that's

Alvin Owusu (08:23.468)
Yeah.

Patrick (08:44.83)
that's a playground shot for him. He could go anything he wants. Drop shot, cross court, then start stretching you and stuff like that. But I love how quarter just constructed his points on there, he's...

I know he just seems in a really good zone. So I like him to I don't know. There's also the thing about Alcaraz playing Fonseca the previous round and having that rowdy crowd and then was and I as I've said on this pot a lot, I feel Alcaraz in the crowd. There's a synchronicity there. And to my in my mind was Alcaraz up for Corda.

Alvin Owusu (09:14.156)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (09:21.581)
Sure. Yep.

Patrick (09:27.738)
Of course, but I do feel like there was kind of he was trying to motivate himself to a level that he was at with Fonseca, but maybe couldn't reach it.

Alvin Owusu (09:39.148)
Yeah, he did come into the Fonseca match. Somebody and I were texting back and forth about this is the worst second round match for both of them. Obviously, Fonseca is trying to build himself a career. He wants to string together some events where he can get into the second week or get into the third, fourth round of these Masters pretty consistently. you get, he's right outside of the seating and then he pulls.

Carlos in the first match like our second match part of me. Okay, that's not that's not ideal. But then for Carlos, it's like well, you don't want to play the number 39 right player in the world in your very first match of a Masters 1000 especially one who comes with all this fanfare but as opposed to that being a hindrance It was perfect for him because he was ready to go. He was very focused the the atmosphere was perfect. I mean, yeah, that was that was a

Patrick (10:30.396)
That's it.

Alvin Owusu (10:34.401)
I think that was a, well the match itself was probably inconsequential like that. That moment will matter I think later on. But in this match, yeah, it's like a match you think like no one expects Sebastian Korda from what we've seen thus far to be able to beat Carlos Aguirrez. But yet when you look at his skill set and what he does well or what he can do well, tall player, great hands, can use leverage.

Patrick (10:56.476)
Hmm. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (11:02.263)
to stay on top of Carlos and bully him a little bit. Okay, then that's about right.

Patrick (11:04.016)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's.

And hard chord too. mean, I think a clay chord with Alcáez and Corda. I think Alcáez would have a lot more time to do some different shots and disrupt Corda to a point where he gets into either into his own head or just confused. But overall, that was that was good. That was a match that I thought Alcáez will probably win, no doubt, in about two years. I when I watched Alcáez today, I thought

It was a delay on my side, but when I watched him today, thought, yeah, dude, you're still young. You are still so young.

Alvin Owusu (11:48.013)
So you're chalking that up a little bit to where he is in his career as well, like trying to finish out this part of the season and maybe having his eyes towards like, I don't need this so much.

Patrick (12:04.178)
Yeah, well, yeah, I do think that. And also, I know I can imagine listeners are thinking, he's one of a bunch of grand slams. You noticed that, right? He's at the peak, da da da da, but at the same time, motivation is...

Alvin Owusu (12:15.626)
Right, right, right,

Patrick (12:23.064)
is always the hardest thing to push up a mountain, you know? mean, you can't continuously do it in a way that you did in the past. It has to be reinvented, has to be recreated and made anew. And with Carlos, I think he has to find different ways of motivating himself, but that seems very difficult in a tennis season, that's what, 11 months. And with Korda, after beating Fonseca,

with a rowdy crowd, how do you challenge yourself in a way that is healthy for your own mindset, but also gets the result you want? So.

For him, it's an ongoing process. think Torrey may have brought up the effect of Ferreira, right? Not having Juan Carlos, but I don't know if it's that. I think it's more just for himself. He's on his own sojourn right now. I think, Corder got him. He got him at a good place, but Corder played lights out, I felt. Corder can play lights out. He can play lights out almost all the time if he wants, you know?

Alvin Owusu (13:35.84)
That's, yeah. He's almost mercurial in that way. Yeah, it's.

Patrick (13:36.132)
That's the thing about his shots Yeah It is so utterly frustrating sometimes to watch I watched quarter play Michael Zhang in the Australian Open, you know Zhang on that Cinderella run and I thought God Corda, I mean you could you could destroy this guy right now, but there was just something holding him back himself probably and

for him to be in that way and then just now beat Alcaraz shows you just how fluctuating his talent is, I guess.

Alvin Owusu (14:16.146)
Yeah, I don't have it in front of me, but I know he was out for a good bit. I maybe, you think starting this year was him coming back somewhat in earnest. And I have this like working theory of like, okay, when a player comes back from injury or time off, they need, it's not a matter of how many tournaments they need. It's how many matches do they need? And it's about, it's about 10, 10 seems like the right amount of matches to get your, like to get back to your, more or less your, your former self or looking and feeling somewhat.

comfortable and reliable and I think he's about there right now. Which is, you know, that's fantastic. But you also have to go back a couple years. Like, didn't he beat Medvedev, like Medvedev nationally in open in the first round like two years ago? Was that two years ago? Like at 24?

Patrick (14:59.014)
Right, right. He's got... Right.

think so, yes. But I know he's got quality wins all over. I think he's got that set of skills where he, I sound like Taken and Liam Neeson or somebody. He's got that set of skills where he, yeah. He's got that skill set that I feel when he plays somebody who is, everybody thinks, oh well, Courtney, you're gonna lose. You're gonna lose to that guy.

Alvin Owusu (15:14.956)
He's got a certain set of skills.

Patrick (15:33.986)
his best element is when he goes in there and he's like, I'm just going to swing and not worry about expectations or anything like that. And I think that's where Harrison comes in and he's telling him control what you can control. Don't get too high. Don't get too low. I know that's maybe a common mentality, but

I think for Korda right now, he's got to follow that to the tee. mean, especially now that he's beaten Alcaraes and everybody's watching him. I mean, just don't care about that stuff. I mean, just be in that middle zone for yourself. he does seem like, eyes of Korda, my God. mean, he's the way he, it's like that, it's not aloof, but he has...

He has this distance in his eyes when he plays. I've never seen that in another player. He doesn't remind me of anybody. And I hope he can think of himself as Sebastian Korda and not Peter Korda, number two ranked Australian Open. I mean, that's great that there's that connection, but it's time for him to individualize, be himself, because he's a completely different human, of course.

Alvin Owusu (16:33.814)
Sure, sure.

Alvin Owusu (16:46.356)
And the game is like, the game's always been there. Like the game is, I don't think the game's ever been in question. The only thing that I've personally questioned is like, I mean, you can't win matches from like your recovery bed. Like you gotta stay healthy. So like, I think that's still to be seen, right? Like will he stay healthy? We don't know, but it's one match. It's one match. And the match shows that on any given day, if you have the right game plan and you bring the right level,

that you too can, I mean, you too can beat Carla's soccer as, or, or if you don't bring the right level, if you're off a little bit, like as Carlos might've been not the best version of himself today, like someone will, someone 30 in the world will beat you too. Like, so, I mean, not as bad as the go-fond situation last year, but I think Carlos played better. I also think that I'll, I'll, I'll reiterate 12 basis, zero double faults.

Patrick (17:19.91)
You too, yeah, that's right.

Patrick (17:29.106)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (17:45.822)
And he had the balls in his hands to serve it out and out Galkoraz, three and four. Right? Like, so it was like, that would have been a comprehensive beating, as opposed to what ends up looking by scoreline is a, you know, a heroic victory. Again, one match, these things happen. I don't change my opinion about either player, quite honestly, but it was, it was good. I don't want to see anyone running away from the, from the tour. I want to see people.

Patrick (17:51.282)
Yeah, it's in.

Patrick (17:55.311)
Mm, mm.

Patrick (18:14.288)
This is it.

Alvin Owusu (18:15.749)
yanking Carlos back. I wanna see someone pulling Center back. I don't think it's gonna be Mutay tomorrow night. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun.

Patrick (18:22.414)
Nah, you're gonna get some great shots. mean my god, Mutay is just... Yeah. I wanna put an over under on how many underarm serves he's gonna hit. No over under up.

Alvin Owusu (18:34.475)
It could get, it could get, it could get cheeky. It could get cheeky, it's gonna have to. Like, I mean, I don't think Cortana's gonna be able to just like take center down from the baseline, so you're gonna have to try to do something else. Would love to see some underhand serves. Would love to see some like short slices out wide and come in behind it, weird stuff.

Patrick (18:44.23)
Yeah.

Patrick (18:48.768)
I get...

I think he's gonna, that's what he's thinking when he's gonna go on to the court against center. He's thinking, all right, this guy's gonna blast me out of the park. So I think I'm just gonna, I'm gonna muck it up a bit. I would think if I'm Mute, I would say I need to give this guy something he's never seen before, maybe, or maybe he just needs to, who knows? Who knows what will happen on that? But yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (19:17.451)
Who knows, who knows? I wanna kinda switch gears a little bit and not talk about, not talk about Carl's Soccer Eyes anymore or the Miami Open, because when this tournament ends, will, somewhere on this channel, we will do a proper recap of the, not necessarily just the event, but like take a pause and talk about where we are in tennis after a full quarter of the season has been completed. But I think what I would like to talk about is what you and I were texting about, kind of, we have these very,

Patrick (19:21.458)
All right.

Sure.

Alvin Owusu (19:47.752)
If you are a regular visitor of this channel or patron of this show, you know that we do come at things from a very analytical, almost I would say coaching first perspective. And then when Pat shows up, we go hard left into the space of, what if? And today's conversation is a little more around like, you know, what I'm gonna say like, when we're looking at how the game has been evolving.

Patrick (19:50.79)
Yeah.

Patrick (20:02.684)
You

Alvin Owusu (20:17.451)
Like at some point do we get to a point where this breaks? Like where does tennis break? Like if you've seen how the game has evolved, not just in the last 10 years, but we're talking in the last 50, 75 years of tennis to where we are now, thinking about, okay, well then if change is constant, where do we go from here? And you gave me a set of things to think about and it really made me first kind of think about, well, what do I love about tennis? What is tennis to me?

And I think at the essence of the game, it is like Agassi said, it's like boxing at 90 feet, right? It is the thing, we are battling against each other and we are trying to find the slimmest of space, the slimmest amount of opportunity to get the ball to bounce twice and then they push it aside before they touch it, right? And we do this over and over and over and over, hundreds of points over the course of a match. But I think,

the essence of tennis is proving something to yourself and proving something to the other person time and time again over the course of a match, point after point, game after game, set after set. And that is kind of the prism through which I thought of all the things that you, all the thoughts that you had. So I can get back to you. What do you love about tennis? What is the essence of tennis for you?

Patrick (21:23.762)
Yeah.

Patrick (21:42.704)
Well, yeah, thought, thank you for...

for entertaining those ridiculous questions I said. But let me give maybe some background before I answer that question. A couple weeks ago, I live in Japan. I'm in Japan right now. So there's this tennis museum here because in 1874, it's a Yamate tennis museum. It's really small. It's just one room, one big room with a bunch of equipment.

Alvin Owusu (21:56.906)
Okay.

Patrick (22:15.472)
and some charts that document the evolution of the tennis racket and the ball and everything. I went down there for a few hours and it just made me think about tennis far more on

Alvin Owusu (22:30.336)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick (22:30.476)
And it's something we think about tennis, we think usually open era is most of the people listening to this, right? Like 1968, that's where pros and amateurs could play, that's what made it open. But then when I went to this museum, I kept thinking, yeah, that's why we say gut. That's why we say gut because it's sheep intestine, or it came from cow intestine or sheep.

know, we don't think about these things. And then when we think about the racket, which you popped up here, you know, this museum's telling me it comes from the Arabic with which is Raha. it's, know, tennis, you could say is over 1000 years old. So I was, yeah, so this museum just put me on this time loop. And I took a picture of this. This is a image of the evolution of how the racket developed and they go

from what would some people would just say is handball but it goes if you're looking at this image it goes from the on the left side the top down and then you go back up and then that's how it goes from each side yeah that's right yeah so and it did make me think if

Alvin Owusu (23:43.999)
Gotcha, okay. So literally the hand all the way down that column, moving over to the next column, yeah.

Patrick (23:54.93)
It made me think about other sports, about their own evolution. you see that it's pretty crazy that for the racket.

I remember playing when I was at my peak with a vocal and I had a leather grip that was maybe heavier than the racket itself when I think about it. was just, it just didn't really make my sense. But, and you know, now we have Wilson shifts, we have these rackets that are almost, it's not that they're hitting the shot for you at all. I'm not saying that I know it takes a massive amount of skill to manipulate a ball and so forth, but it did make

me think, well it made me re-imagine something that I've always wanted which is that the ATP put on a tournament that would have wooden rackets.

Alvin Owusu (24:50.527)
like a wooden bat classic version of like that baseball does sometimes for college players, but do it with a wooden racket.

Patrick (24:56.164)
Right, yeah, but completely commit to it. You don't have to wear the attire or anything like that from the back of the day or something like that, but just the racket itself, a wooden racket, and the ball could be maybe a little bit closer to back then as well. So I wondered, would I like tennis more if the racket technology had been stopped?

And that's where I, maybe what I was talking about with the questions to you.

Alvin Owusu (25:27.06)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (25:33.899)
Yeah, and that's an interesting one. Technology is a, we, removing that restraint, if we were to take that off the table, let's say rackets hadn't come as far as they've come. feel like tennis rackets, it's interesting, because I'm gonna go past rackets in a second here, but rackets and string, I think, have neutralized differences in size.

Patrick (25:46.684)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (26:02.504)
Right, smaller players now can do things that big players could do, but still be fast. Right, getting the ball to go a little, you can hit the ball bigger than your size, right, with the advanced technology, both the racket and the strings, but now we've, so we've kind of leveled that playing field there. It's, know, little guys can do things too. It's a great thing.

Patrick (26:11.09)
Sure.

Patrick (26:16.316)
Mm.

Patrick (26:29.778)
True. True.

Alvin Owusu (26:31.432)
But I wanted to go past the technology piece, not just the rackets that are having the impact, you mentioned the balls. We're talking about the courts, right? Courts of, obviously the size of the court has not changed. But the way that each individual surface plays has changed a lot. That has also had an impact on our sport. But I go a little bit further, strength and conditioning has also had a major impact.

Patrick (26:50.78)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (26:58.87)
on the high end, the professional levels of the tours. So that is also part of the technology that has moved forward in that specific space also has an impact on how players are able to perform. I also feel like it's, are we getting to the, okay, if you are big, you're supposed to be not as mobile, right? Big people are not as mobile, small people are not as tall, but they're much more mobile, right?

But we've gotten to this point where because of the advancements in training, right? Where big people, six-six, get to be mobile. And that is like, that's kind of, that's the thing that I think makes tennis now very, very difficult when you add in the other parts of like, okay, these guys are hitting with these rackets that they can really get moving through the air. The strings are extremely responsive.

Patrick (27:32.518)
Yeah. Yeah.

Patrick (27:45.532)
Yes, no doubt.

Alvin Owusu (27:55.263)
the court surfaces are kind of all neutralized. again, go back to my point about the court size has not changed. So, you know, I am not six foot tall. So for me to get out and hit a forehand, it's gonna take me, you know, split, cross one, open stance, the three steps. But like, if I'm six, four, that's two steps. You're not getting past that. That's a bigger pong piece, right? So, like that is the part that not necessarily worries me, but that's the part that...

Patrick (28:15.77)
That's it. That's right.

Alvin Owusu (28:24.298)
when I think about like, where do we go from here? I'm like, maybe we should make the chord bigger. Like this is getting, this is getting bad.

Patrick (28:31.708)
Yeah, that, I...

You're bringing up so many thoughts. I'm trying to deliver them with some coherence. was playing this one. But I was playing this one guy Alexander Grubb. I don't know where he is now or anything, but it was a tournament and I was playing so good that for those few weeks and then he there he's six foot. He was six about six four, but I would just crush this for you and as hard as I thought I could and then it's like he took two little steps over and he

Alvin Owusu (28:39.454)
I don't have coherence around here.

Patrick (29:04.148)
like, yeah, let's just knock that back. You know, let's just let Patrick, you know, just hit absolutely absurd speed forehands, weren't, you know, either they go in or not. I was just hitting into the middle of the court, just trying to have power, but he was just, yeah, okay, yeah, I'll just go right, go left. I thought that's next gen in my back then. I thought that this guy is the next generation. then I think about Wemba Nyama in basketball even.

When I'm watching him play and how he just he creates I mean the gravity that he creates just how the court just becomes this sort of collapsing force around him, you know

Alvin Owusu (29:36.532)
Yeah.

Patrick (29:45.858)
And tennis, it's inevitable that we're going to get a seven foot serve bot soon, you know, but who has the same sort of dexterity and agile quickness like a Medvedev, somebody who can be five inches taller and have this perfect technology, technological racket style that he hits 150s, yet he can still drop you right off the next shot. So that does feel like it's

coming and that worries me quite a bit because you think about a player who's just, you know, even six foot is short, it feels at this point. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (30:26.09)
Carlos is six foot and he can get bullied by guys who are six five. But I do think there is an upper limit to this though, right? Because even if you think about that person who is six or seven foot tall, The time it takes for you to, like, but how you get the full extension and you actually make contact with that serve? The faster you hit it, if it is going to come back, you are then reducing your own time to land.

Patrick (30:30.716)
Good, right?

Alvin Owusu (30:55.444)
collect yourself and then hit another shot that's worth a damn. I do think at some point we start to hit diminishing returns with that power to size ratio.

Patrick (31:07.812)
I see, see, yeah. Perhaps, yeah, but at the same time, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:12.714)
And like, does that look like? Like, what does agility look like for someone who is like, we look at basketball players, someone like Wimbenyama, is, hey, Wimbenyama. Or even someone like, yeah, Wimby. Like, someone like Wimby, but even like somebody like John Isner, right? John was a pretty decent basketball player. I don't remember how tall he was when he was 6'10". But like, he moved, like when we talk about like 6'10", seven foot, seven foot, three guys who move well, in parentheses.

Patrick (31:23.347)
We'll call him Wemby, Yeah. Yeah.

Patrick (31:33.414)
Yeah.

Patrick (31:40.465)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (31:41.78)
for their size, right? We're also comparing them to players who are all like 6'4", 6'5", in basketball in a lot of space where they don't have to do things in like very rapid succession. all like, it still takes some time on a basketball court. Whereas in tennis, there's no time. Now that person is a very, very big person filling up that box that we talked about. That court is not getting any bigger. There's no time.

Patrick (32:01.446)
Yeah, true.

Alvin Owusu (32:11.571)
So I do think that there is an upper limit for someone, I think it's like 6'6", to be both tall for our sport and still be able to be agile. I think Medvedev and Zverev are the two examples of like these guys are pretty, Medvedev's pretty agile, truly agile. But any taller than that, you start getting into the Opelkas and even Korda. Korda's pretty tall too, so like.

Patrick (32:22.268)
Mm.

Patrick (32:26.257)
Zverev.

Alvin Owusu (32:40.041)
He's still fairly, he's still agile, but like you get taller than that into the Opelcas and the, even a pair of car, yeah, exactly. Like he's not, he doesn't move like Medvedev does, if you put it that way. Yeah.

Patrick (32:46.418)
Parrot card, guess too. I mean, he's 6'7", but yeah.

Patrick (32:53.82)
Hmm. Right, right, absolutely. But I'm still wondering about just the technology itself. I do. I'm not I'm not anti tech for tennis. I don't want to. I don't want listeners to think, Patrick, just as he's being Kent tankerous and all, just, why? Why can't we go back to wooden rackets or something? But I am thinking.

Would their points not be more, I want to say more dynamic? Would we not have to be more?

not almost experimental in the way we approach a point. Like the rallies would be ridiculously long at this point. Like if you're playing with technology that is the same on both sides. So I guess I'm going around, I'm orbiting around the same idea, but and I'm not trying to argue anything, but I'm just worried about tennis's future when we're talking, how we're talking here, you know?

Alvin Owusu (33:59.186)
Yeah, okay, so that's fair. Maybe we move the conversation forward a little bit and we talk about tennis as future, right? you had a question around like, know, some of the, does tennis have room to grow? Right? Like, do we have room to grow or are we destined to kind of stay in this, I think the term you might have used is like club sport.

Patrick (34:14.928)
Yeah, yeah, that was it.

Patrick (34:27.676)
That's right. yeah.

Alvin Owusu (34:28.009)
I want you to give me a little more on that one here because I did go down a bit of a rabbit hole thinking about this and I got to a place that I was happy with and then I came back out and I was like, I know, I'm actually curious what the hell Pat was talking about because I didn't really ask for follow up.

Patrick (34:34.194)
Be sure.

Patrick (34:41.97)
Alright, about the one for the club sport? Okay, yeah. Alright, so...

Alvin Owusu (34:45.5)
Yeah!

Patrick (34:48.434)
This is a big personal one for me actually. when I was growing up, I didn't really have enough money to really join a club when I was a kid. really, the fees were insane around us. So I would hit off a wall like a mad man. If anybody asks me how did I develop my game, I would say well I hit off a wall for about two hours a day, six days a week from like single digit age to

about 12. You know, that's why I, because I just love to hit shots as much as possible. that's where my kind of ridiculous form kind of went into fruition was through a wall. it was if the fees for the club were lower in that way. And then I thought about this again, when I was at the museum in Japan here, and then I thought, you know, tennis history, you know, it's Kings and Queens stuff, right? Shakespeare mentions tennis.

Alvin Owusu (35:42.249)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick (35:48.26)
in seven of his plays, you know, and I keep thinking, it because of its roots that it is this sort of restricted sport in a way? Is it doomed to have this hierarchical quality where you are, can I join that world? I, I mean, as long as I give an arm and a leg, then I can go join that world. And...

So when I think about it, when I say club sport, think a club sport, in order to get into that club requires not just expenses, but also, well, a little bit of privilege, I guess, in a way that you can get the best form possible.

For me, tennis, if you don't start at a young age, can you become a great player? The greatest of players. So that's where I was going with club sports. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (36:53.967)
Yeah, yeah. So like, mean, even going backwards here, like, yeah, can you become, like tennis is very technical by nature. And I think that's why, if you're going to become one of the great ones, I'm not saying you need to be playing, you know, international junior tournaments at age eight, but you definitely need to know how to play by that point in time. You need to learn the technique early. And there is a significant, you know, barrier to entry there from a cost standpoint of learning how to play tennis.

technically, with a technical proficiency that will allow you to do what you want to do on a tennis court. I think that's what technique allows you to do, to do what you want to do consistently on a tennis court, right? And it's really a, it's an access and economic constraint issue, but if you think about exclusivity within sports, right? Golf being probably one of the most exclusive sports.

and then tennis versus something like basketball, which is very easy to get into. Like you got 10 people on a court, variations of that by size. And the amount of players per square foot of the playing surface, I think starts to show you how exclusive a sport is and how hard it is to get into. And if there's two tennis players on the tennis court, you're up a lot of space. Because it's not just the court that we need, we need all the space around it as well.

Patrick (38:00.827)
Bye.

Alvin Owusu (38:22.761)
It becomes a very, it is exclusive by nature. the other, we can put the same amount of people, we can put 10 players, like 10 basketball players on a basketball court that is roughly the size of what you need for one tennis court. And that is, that's, and if you're playing pickup, like in the hour and half takes us to play a tennis match, how many pickup games, how many players could play basketball in that same amount of time on that same court, right? It is inherently,

Patrick (38:23.036)
This is true.

Patrick (38:45.775)
Mm, mm.

Alvin Owusu (38:52.059)
exclusive from the very structure of the game. Like you can't play tennis in the street with your friends. You have to go to a place that has been built for you to play tennis. Like, and if you don't have access to that, then you are not going to be playing tennis. And that is, that is the, you know, I think tennis is where tennis wants to be. And that is a, especially here in the States, we continue to strive for, you know, equity and accessibility for all people.

Patrick (39:09.106)
put.

Alvin Owusu (39:20.989)
to be able to get into the sport. And the USDA wants to grow its membership base from whatever it is now, like 23 million to 30 million, something like that. It's like, as the economic divide in this country keeps growing, tennis doesn't really seem to be the thing that's gonna, you know, for the people who are, yeah, exactly, exactly. I don't think this really isn't the sport for that. But I also think there are some, tennis is really hard to appreciate.

Patrick (39:29.489)
Yeah.

Patrick (39:39.814)
Knock it down.

Alvin Owusu (39:50.409)
you know, look at the juxtaposed to the other sports in this country that are very popular, football, basketball, and even to a lesser extent these days, baseball, maybe even going in that order. Tennis, when you look at the scoreboard for a football game, you can tell pretty clearly how close this game was, and if, especially in basketball, right, if it's 68 to 65, whoo, that was a close game. These two teams are pretty evenly matched.

If it's 120 to 40, you can tell that this team is a lot better than this team. But in a tennis match, like tennis is so nuanced that in a six-four, six-four match, there could be a difference of three points total won for the winner versus the loser. And that is, that's hard to conceptualize how someone can win a match four and four. You call it fairly routine. Yet the score was, I don't know, 12 games to eight, two sets to love.

But, well, how is this guy so much better than that guy?

Patrick (40:48.398)
Right, true, true.

Yeah, well done being an outsider, even though you have this massive knowledge of the... That was well done, how you put yourself out. Okay, what's this tennis thing about? I love that. I love that. But that is just this little quick tangent. mean, I think all of these have been tangents so far, the... Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (41:04.072)
I'm a man of the people. I'm the man of the people.

Alvin Owusu (41:13.83)
Welcome to the Tangent.

Patrick (41:16.518)
That's why I love the French Open so much. still feel the French Open is my absolute favorite term. when I, my wife who, she loves tennis. mean, we've been married a long time. So she's just been hearing about it constantly. So now she, knows about it, but we love the French Open because there is this idea that you, the server can be broken. There is a chance, right? Because that, there's,

such a better chance to be broken on a clay court than than than on other surfaces I feel right so that adds to unpredictability of all the points at French Open and also also this is why I love really love the French Open is the players are suffering and it's so clear like they they are exhausted so when I when I played on clay court

Alvin Owusu (41:50.151)
Okay.

Yes, yes, it is true.

Patrick (42:16.428)
You can speak to this too, but when I'm playing on clay courts and it's just you know 20-shot rally I'm I am gassed, you know, I am so gassed and I got this dirt all over me, you know And I just there's this the visual suffering of people while playing on clay, especially for me the French open when I'm watching it It's just that is unparalleled and that I think Creates access to new fans. I think whereas Wimbledon would you know now I am I arguing again?

Alvin Owusu (42:25.202)
Yeah?

Patrick (42:46.228)
against my own self with Wimbledon's traditions and all, but with Wimbledon, it does feel a bit stiff, rigid, and like you said, there's an exclusivity to it, a little bit like a golf's masters, right? So, sorry.

Alvin Owusu (42:57.948)
Absolutely.

Yeah, so I want to I want to dig into this a little bit and probably not where you think I'm gonna go French opens really your favorite tournament

Patrick (43:08.994)
I've decided that, yeah. think the friend, well, I mean, my favorite Grand Slam by far, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (43:14.17)
Okay, that's fair, okay, that is fair. would, okay, okay. So I'm with you on all that clay court does for our sport, it reveals of us as players. You can't just rely, going back to how technology has sped up the game, clay inherently slows it back down to really bring in all of the elements.

Patrick (43:42.352)
Yes, yes, yes.

Alvin Owusu (43:42.457)
of being a tennis player, not just power. It doesn't over index on power the way that Wimbledon traditionally, grass court traditionally does, or a fast hard court can. It requires you to think differently about how you construct points. It requires you to be in the utmost of physical condition. It requires technical proficiency because the points are so much longer. There's a lot of running involved, right?

Patrick (44:07.398)
Absolutely.

There's a lot, a lot.

Alvin Owusu (44:11.706)
It's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot. Free points don't come so free on clay. My only retort would be like my favorite version of a tennis tournament. If I had to think of like the elements that are my favorite of a tennis tournament, it is not five set tennis, that's one. It has both, it is on clay court though, we're close. It has both men and women and you're getting all of the top players there.

Patrick (44:35.986)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (44:40.604)
So best of three format on clay men and women, is, but it has to be the right clay courts. They're never getting down to like Madrid versus Rome and it's Rome. It is Rome for me. So we're close. We're close here. We're close, but yeah, it's Rome for me.

Patrick (44:48.868)
Okay, Rome, yeah, perhaps,

That's one of my, that's in my top, it's in my top five, I would say, terms. I think for me, Madrid, Madrid is pretty awesome, like you said. So, but yeah, you're making really good points because whereas it's a best of three, know, so they're in that way, the matches can be a bit more digestible, right? So, but God, I mean, the stakes of the French Open, maybe I...

Alvin Owusu (45:24.07)
Yeah, yeah.

Patrick (45:29.798)
guess that French Open would be my my favorite tournament just because when you I mean talk about the psychological stamina necessary for a five-set match you know on that's the thing I mean is that not the ultimate heavyweight mentality in tennis I feel is like winning a five-set like I think that's why the Alcares Center match that happened last year that's that's why all of us were just

Alvin Owusu (45:40.988)
on clay.

Patrick (45:59.68)
mean, our minds were scrambled after that, you know, and the French opened, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:05.451)
I can't even believe we actually, I haven't thought about that match in little while and I'm just like when you bring it up I go, I can't believe that happened, that was real. That was, that was crazy.

Patrick (46:13.136)
Right? Yeah. Yeah. And the fan reactions, I just watched it about a couple weeks ago. I think it was after I went to the museum and everything. And then I watched that and I thought, whoa, that is tennis right there. I mean, the fans just...

with those great seats that they had watching, watching Alcares slowly, slowly break down Sinner to a point where you almost felt like Sinner, a gasket was leaking or something where it just, he was overheating, right? There was, but yeah, to me, for tennis, the suffering is, this sounds so, so rough, but the suffering is the art. The suffering is the art. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:57.575)
I'm with ya, I'm with ya. I've never been to Roland Garros, I'm going this year. My wife and I are going, I think we've talked about this before, but yeah, I'm pretty excited about it. And yeah, we shall see. It's interesting, when we talk about the, we've been talking now for about 45 minutes and everything we've talked about has been centered around singles. I, so.

Patrick (47:06.278)
That's fantastic. Yeah, yeah.

Patrick (47:21.882)
Yeah. yes.

Alvin Owusu (47:23.975)
We never really talk about doubles. I would say I can count on one hand. I don't even need all five fingers to talk about to count how many times we talked about doubles on this podcast and the, hundreds of episodes that we've done. And I think it's because you asked me this, what's does doubles like it does doubles have a, I'm going to call it like a product identity issue. And I think about doubles.

Patrick (47:50.384)
Mmm.

Alvin Owusu (47:53.83)
in a couple of different ways, right? There is playing doubles versus watching doubles. And when you're watching doubles, there's men's doubles versus women's doubles, right? And so I feel like all the things that I talked about that I love in tennis, right, do most, primarily speak to that one-on-one mono-imono version of tennis, and that applies to both men and women, right? Doubles is a game of, I feel like, repeated,

Patrick (48:03.217)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (48:23.107)
execution under stressful, under a stressful environment on every single point. Like you have to make first serves and you have to make returns on every single point. And then like the other person, if my partner makes first serve, I need to go make that cut across, cut off that first volley. Or if my partner makes that first return low cross court, I then need to put pressure on the net. Like

Patrick (48:30.066)
Mm.

Patrick (48:44.37)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (48:52.001)
Every single ball, there is pressure on everyone to do something very specific and you have to do it over and over and over the you have to execute. There's there's not a lot of trickery involved in doubles. Now. That's from a playing standpoint, because I like I enjoy playing doubles. I haven't played much lately, but when I played in college, I enjoyed playing in college.

Patrick (48:59.632)
Hmm.

Patrick (49:11.568)
Okay, yeah, yeah.

Patrick (49:17.084)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (49:19.911)
Set a record or two in my day in college play doubles, but that's a whole different. That's a whole different That's a different podcast not this podcast and no one will listen to that podcast but Watching doubles. I think it comes back to your point about technology It's hard to really tease out the nuance of doubles when everyone is serving big and then about a big serve doesn't always get rewarded because players can can also rip returns

Patrick (49:22.364)
You dead? You dead?

All right, gotcha.

Patrick (49:37.65)
Mmm.

Patrick (49:46.61)
True, Yeah, you're bringing up some really good stuff with doubles and I, you're making a good point that I agree with about set combinations in doubles that they have to have. You hit that serve, you gotta hit that return in this direction and so forth. Although, know, Shei Su Wei, you know, she breaks all rules. you know, on the women's side, right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (50:09.073)
Well, it's also on the women's side, there's a power is a little less of a factor, so there is some more, that's why I'm saying women's doubles is actually a lot more fun to watch than men's doubles in my opinion.

Patrick (50:14.896)
Right. Boom.

Agreed, agreed. 100 % on that. This came up because I was watching Djokovic play with Sissipas. And I think part of my argument always for doubles to be more meaningful was that, we've got to get the top players to play. But then when I watched...

Alvin Owusu (50:27.312)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick (50:38.802)
the top players, the top names, guess, play, actually realized, no, that's not the issue at all, because they don't need doubles. They don't need it. We already know Novak Djokovic, we know Sissipas. They've made the finals of the singles tournaments, they've established their identities. Yeah, now they're playing together, but they're having a laugh a bit. It seems as if,

that was a great shot. Yeah, it's just like the stakes of doubles to me. I thought, wow, I mean, that that is the problem is is not so much. Yeah, big names, but more the stakes were where can doubles go? And you bring up a really good point about the technology. Could doubles have already reached that that barrier where?

You know, we...

Alvin Owusu (51:37.768)
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. That's a really good point. That's probably where doubles has, men's doubles is kind of broken. And there's another part about this doubles issue. Tennis is an entertainment product, right? The tennis that we're watching on television is an entertainment product. Not the tennis we play on the, you know, that we got and play. But tennis on television at the highest end is an entertainment product. And for that,

Patrick (51:41.298)
Yeah.

Patrick (51:47.41)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (52:07.281)
to be entertaining, we need that gladiator aspect. We need the best players with stakes. Best players with stakes equals entertainment. When I'm watching doubles and you're watching the best players, the Novak and Sitsipas, but with no stakes, that's not very fun. If I'm watching high stakes doubles with two guys I don't know,

Patrick (52:17.286)
Yes. Yes.

Patrick (52:26.652)
Yeah. Great.

Alvin Owusu (52:35.053)
And I know they're not the best players of tennis, of tennis. We all know that doubles players are not the best players of tennis, because if they were, they'd be playing singles. And if being the best doubles players was a completely different skill than being the best singles players, then they would also be compensated in the same way. But they are not, because they are not, right? And that's the...

Patrick (53:01.5)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (53:02.735)
And that's the jig, right? That's the jig is that we all know that we're not watching the best players. And that is inherently the problem, I think, in the entertainment space. It's also like why, like players 200 in the world don't get the, like, don't get the love they deserve. Like a guy who's 200, 250 in the world, in singles, is so good, so good. And yet they're not, it doesn't matter. They don't matter.

Patrick (53:12.946)
There it is, yeah.

So.

Patrick (53:27.972)
I know. Yeah.

Patrick (53:32.774)
Bye.

Austin Krychek would stomp me, would utterly stomp me. His skill level is so insane. when we think about Austin Krychek playing doubles, am I going to watch that if I'm at a tournament compared to say number 70 playing number 60 in a singles match? I'm probably going to go over to the singles match and see, is that guy going to, is he going to be able to move his ranking up or something like that?

You're making a really good point about how doubles has this paradoxical situation, this dilemma, right? Can doubles survive? It keeps getting chopped down. We've got no ad scoring going on in tournaments now, right? We have super tiebreakers instead of third sets, which when that happened years ago, I thought, my God, just throw doubles off the schedule already.

exhibition it fell. I don't want that to happen. I like doubles, but is it just simply the fact that playing doubles with a friend is the most enjoyable way to experience doubles is to just play doubles with a friend against other friends in a social environment. Can doubles reach that stakes level? Can it? Can it?

be brought to an audience and have that gladiatorial, like you said, that gladiatorial flavor. I don't know. When Djokovic and Sispas were playing together, right, who did they lose to? I can't remember who they lost to, actually, but I do remember that the teams beating those top players had stakes because their money is in doubles. So...

Alvin Owusu (55:26.084)
Right, right. As opposed to what Djokovic in Sits Fast and got paid just to play the doubles. Like, by the tournament.

Patrick (55:33.808)
That's it. Right? The tournament's like, please make doubles relevant. Right. So.

Alvin Owusu (55:40.679)
Yeah, it's like that. I mean, I remember watching a doubles match at Miami a couple of years ago, a night match, and the Sitsipass brothers were playing together. No, that's not right. Sitsipass was playing with Feliciano Lopez. Yeah, he's the tournament director at Madrid, is that right? With the Madrid event? think he is, yeah. But yeah, it's like, that was, it was packed. It was packed.

Patrick (55:56.53)
Okay, okay, yeah.

Patrick (56:03.036)
think so, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (56:10.148)
Why? Because Synthepass is playing. The singles player, Synthepass, known for his singles, made two Grand Slam finals in singles, beat Roger Federer in singles, attracts people to come watch him play doubles because of what he did in singles, not necessarily the other way around. And I would even double down on your point about what is the best version of doubles.

Patrick (56:10.552)
Mmm. Right.

Patrick (56:15.9)
Yeah.

Patrick (56:28.892)
This is it.

Patrick (56:36.39)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (56:36.398)
being with friends, think doubles is probably for most of us playing tennis, is the best version of tennis actually. Because it's the one that we can best express who we are as tennis players because we don't have as much space to cover. Because of the way this technology has impacted our movement as aging tennis players. Yeah, and I think that's also why pickleball is taken off because it's taken doubles.

Patrick (56:59.58)
That's it. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (57:06.63)
killed the pace, made it smaller. Now that's, now anyone can play. that's, I always say, pick a ball as a tennis that you think you're gonna be playing when you start playing tennis. It's that.

Patrick (57:09.489)
Right.

Patrick (57:16.796)
Well, very quick pickleball tangent, great way to bring that in. I'm a rookie when it comes to pickleball. They're playing with very similar technology, think, right? I mean, the paddles, like those rackets that they're hitting with it. I don't think somebody has this advantage. It feels very egalitarian pickleball. It just feels...

Alvin Owusu (57:41.071)
Yes, I think it is. mean, I'm sure there are slight nuances in the paddles themselves. I don't know enough to be corrected, but when I watch people play pickleball, like I see them play at the place that I play tennis indoors during the week, it's like, no, it's all the same. It's all the same. The ball doesn't move that, whatever they call it, doesn't move that fast. So like that's the, it slows down. And then there's also a, you you can't go to certain parts of the court and the court's small. it's, yeah, it's...

Patrick (57:45.424)
Okay, right.

Patrick (58:01.287)
Right.

Patrick (58:07.782)
Hmm. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (58:10.982)
It gets, yay, pickleball has its place. Let's not, because I'll get in trouble.

Patrick (58:11.314)
Okay.

Well, let me, yeah, yeah, no problem. I have two points. So I did ask you one more question about what needs to change about tennis in the next 10 years. And I will say that that question.

did come out of doubles to me in my opinion. I felt doubles was one of the things that needed to be addressed. I feel the Bryan brothers are like the babe will end up being the babe Ruth of doubles. People will remember doubles. I'll think Bryan brothers just because of how

I guess synchronous they were when they played together and how, you know, the chest bump and everything is that all of that was that was that was so much fun to watch because how intense they were and how much they they wanted doubles to matter. But that was one of my things about the the next thing. and one very quick thing when I was at that museum, one more thing about that museum was those old pictures. They weren't showing singles.

Alvin Owusu (58:57.595)
Yeah.

Patrick (59:19.922)
You know, when I say old pictures, I mean 1870s, 1880s. They showed doubles. People were playing doubles and it was a social sport in that way. So that goes back to like the idea that playing doubles just will perhaps always be a little bit more enjoyable than watching it. And especially with this crazy technology we have now where people are blasting shots and.

Alvin Owusu (59:24.771)
right.

Patrick (59:48.378)
right at people's faces, at the net, which was always my own phobia.

Alvin Owusu (59:50.787)
Yeah.

There's a league here called ALTA. It's the Atlanta Law and Tennis Association. And ALTA is a doubles only league. It's spring and fall, it's same gender, so all men's teams and all women's teams. And then in summer and winter, we play mixed doubles. But it's five lines and it's all levels from alpha number like C1, C2, C3, C4.

all the way up to AA1, which is the highest level. get a lot of ex-college D1 players and whatnot, but it's great. And it's that they like, people have teams out of their neighborhoods, like they're public parks, so many different levels. It's great, it's social, but it's also very competitive. Like you bring snacks and drinks and every Sunday, Saturday and Sunday in the fall and spring, it's everywhere, ALTA's everywhere. And it's so much so that ALTA is the second largest.

tennis organization in the world. Remember from a membership standpoint, it's second to only the USTA, my friend. It's, and it's only here in the, in the greater Atlanta area and it's all doubles. It's all, there's no singles. It's all doubles and people love it yet. Yet we don't have a professional tennis tournament in Atlanta anymore because people don't show up to watch it. They'd rather be out playing doubles than going to watch not the best.

Patrick (01:00:57.638)
Wow, I did not know.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:22.106)
That's my point. we move to the future though, as we move to the future, let's not talk about the past, let's move to the future before we get out of here. What do you, I'm gonna kick this right back to you, what do you think needs to be changed with tennis and what tennis hills are you willing to die on?

Patrick (01:01:22.194)
That's a big one. Yeah.

Patrick (01:01:31.858)
Sure.

Patrick (01:01:36.007)
Hmm.

Patrick (01:01:45.116)
I think tennis is apparently in a good spot. When we think about rivals, we, of course watching Albrez and Sinner, watching greatness, watching them push the boundaries of the game, those things are exciting to watch. But what hill do I want to die? I want to die on the one where...

junk ballers or people who are hitting shots that we haven't seen before but within the confines of the game. I love how tennis brings out everyone's personality. You brought up boxing earlier. mean that's what Agassi talked about and that is so what tennis is at its best level. No matter what kind of rackets we use or anything like that or just tennis.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:27.279)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick (01:02:40.016)
Tennis has this beauty to bring out our own psychological selves in a way that we didn't know. I think I am a better person because I played tennis so many years than if I had not played it at all.

Or if I you know instead of playing video games for 10 years or something like that that that type of thing to me tennis made me a better person So that has to I think that still remains to this point I don't know if I'm answering this question, but how can it change like what do I want to change about tennis?

Alvin Owusu (01:03:00.293)
You

Patrick (01:03:16.678)
Badly I want more personalities to get into tennis who are not so gifted the chance to get into the sport at an early age like I want people from all different backgrounds to have More of an equal opportunity to get into it. So to me the access is what has to change about tennis But I know that that's almost a pipe

dream because like we've talked about in this pod you know about form about technique that has to be set in a person very early the Williams sisters they their story King Richard is probably the only tennis film I've ever really liked I've hated almost all movies that bring up tennis I don't know why it just it just feels always feels unnatural yeah I think so but

Alvin Owusu (01:03:55.78)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:09.761)
It's, we're too close to it. We're too close to it.

Patrick (01:04:14.864)
The fact that they opted out of junior tournaments, that they played on public courts a lot of the time, and it's just, we need hundreds more of those stories so that the game can be a bit more enriched and feel less like, okay, I didn't start when I was four, it's over. That might be part of it. How about on your side? I'll push it back on you.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:36.367)
Okay, that's fair, that's fair. What needs to be changed? I didn't get as philosophical as you did, but I don't wanna let that go in that tennis is a, from a very young age we step onto the court and you close the gate behind you and you leave your parents and your friends and you gotta go deal with that other person and yourself. It's just the two of you.

Patrick (01:04:46.546)
Sorry.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:05.687)
And we, think we all have, we all have accounts of crying on the tennis court during matches while we're kids and, and it's hard, right? But it, the lessons to be learned in life, I think we learned them first on the tennis court, right? We grew up on the tennis court. We matured on the tennis court. And I think that is a beautiful, beautiful gift. Like, so whatever changes about tennis, don't change tennis. Tennis is great the way it is. It's not perfect.

Patrick (01:05:05.745)
it is.

Patrick (01:05:19.442)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:35.002)
But no, no sport is, but it's perfect for me. So no one changed tennis. Now how we sell tennis is where I'm willing to take some, take some liberties here. Right. If we are, if we go back to the idea that at the highest level, tennis is an entertainment product. And there's a couple of things that we have to do. One is easy. Can we get rid of these damn let's serves? Like nobody needs them. Like let's get weird. Like you see what happens like in a college.

Patrick (01:05:44.646)
Mmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:05.113)
doubles match when a let's serve happens, because they play let's in college, it's on like Donkey Kong. You see one sit up and everyone is moving. Like the guy that was at the net is now not at the net. He is scrambling to protect his family line. like it is, it's a whole, it brings an element of WTF to tennis that like, let's are dumb. Let's are so dumb, get rid of them. That's easy.

Patrick (01:06:18.908)
Right.

Patrick (01:06:22.962)
You

Alvin Owusu (01:06:34.669)
Right? The thing that I'm, the thing that I'm most bullish about changing is at non grand slams. And maybe even let's let's take, maybe the masters 1000. We take this out. I think we should have compass or spider or round Robin draws in professional tennis tournaments. Every, everyone benefits. Everyone benefits. There should be three opportunities.

Patrick (01:06:35.418)
I love it. I'm with you on that.

Patrick (01:06:56.284)
Whoa, whoa.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:04.025)
for sure to see Carlos Ocaraz in a tournament or in a Sabalenca or Cocoa Golf or Yannick Center. They should play a minimum of three matches, right? I think there should be pool play or maybe it's double elimination or a spider draw where you're moving different directions, all that kind of, whatever it is, I don't think a lot of tennis at this level, we talked about the players who are 60 and 70 in the world playing against each other.

Patrick (01:07:11.666)
Hmm.

Patrick (01:07:32.358)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:33.129)
I would actually argue that if that versus a top level doubles match is happening, I think the doubles match is going to be more crowded. Because if you're 60 or 70 in the world, because of how little extra attention there is for the fan, if you're not top 30, maybe even top 20, no one's paying attention. That doesn't mean you're not fantastic. It just means from an entertainment standpoint, it's hard to, because of Tenenst's nuance, it's hard to brand.

Patrick (01:07:43.879)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:01.868)
that many people and then make that many players matter. We cannot sustain that. So what is a fix? Let's have the best players playing all the time. Like, full sellout. Like, let's just call it what it is. There's money for everyone. There's money to be made for everybody. But let's still have the best players. Let's have the people who are carrying the brand just carry the brand. Like, just let them do it.

Patrick (01:08:03.442)
Hmm.

Patrick (01:08:27.538)
I love that. I had not heard that before and that is great. One thing I've always wanted was to have some tournaments, not all, but some tournaments not have seats. If we don't have...

Alvin Owusu (01:08:41.614)
Just put them in a hat, pull it out.

Patrick (01:08:43.952)
Well, I think the draw should be a bit more of a dramatic experience. So, you know, like almost like the NBA lottery, you know, when they're picking draft picks and all that draft slots. Like if you have a draw for let's say the Australian Open goes no seats, right? You they're like, and you got the ping pong balls and everything or something like that. And all right, we've got, you know, first round, we've got center against Tommy Paulson.

Paul. There's Tommy Paul just, I don't know if that would be, am I talking myself out of it while I bring it up here? I don't know, but.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:25.4)
What, you are then not going to get the best two, you will probably not get the best two players at the end of the tournament. I think that's, that's one of the beautiful things about tennis.

Patrick (01:09:32.336)
Well, think, right, that's true, right. I think it's my own affinity for the early rounds, which I've told you about. Like, I love early rounds. I love those small tournaments where you get these matchups. But, well, I love yours though. mean, a compass? Wow, yeah, true.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:41.632)
Sure. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:52.035)
Or even like we do in the year-end championships, Like let's call it, let's say there's 64 players, let's break it out into groups, right? You play your round robin, and then the top player from each group comes out into a 16 person draw, and we play it out. Fun. We got what we were looking for. We got a championship at the end. You got to see the top players three times at minimum, right?

Patrick (01:09:57.575)
Right.

Patrick (01:10:02.076)
Yeah.

Patrick (01:10:16.624)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:17.476)
And then maybe you can see them a few more times. So three rounds plus 16 quarter semis, 16 quarter semis, finals, okay, maybe we shorten it by a little bit. Like we start with the, we get eight groups and the top eight come out. Okay, fine. Now I got three matches plus three more. Boom, there's your Masters 1000. Call it.

Patrick (01:10:37.104)
That has to happen. Let's make that happen. Let's find a way to make that happen.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:41.48)
It's an idea. But now what would you, like what needs to be protected? As far as the needs change, I'll go first and then I'll let you finish. I might have gone back and forth on this, but tennis, because of the long history that you've talked about and the way that history truly does matter in our sport and the way that we, the reference we have for players based on what they did has a lot to do with the context in which they did it.

I'm talking specifically about the grand slams on the men's side. Best of five format. We have to keep it. We have to keep it and the women do not need to play it. They don't want to play it. We don't need more. If one has said this before this podcast, if one had to be changed, like men playing three in the grand slams or women playing five, let the men play three, right? I don't need more five set tennis, but.

What we have is the value of winning a Grand Slam. A lot of, have you ever played a best out of five set tennis match? Have you ever tried?

Patrick (01:11:45.97)
Yes, I have tried. have tried. I've played. I did in this one tournament in Switzerland. Well, in Switzerland, I played once and then not that it was a pro level tournament, but yeah, I played an exhibition and it didn't really, but I played two in a row. I played one and then the next day my legs were just, you know, gelatin at that point.

I didn't know where I was going on the second one, but yeah, I did try it, but it's...

Alvin Owusu (01:12:13.956)
Alright.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:17.412)
A buddy of mine a couple years ago, played, he's a very good player, and we go back and forth trading sets, but we played, we set out to play a best out of five set match on clay, right? We booked the court, we booked the court 7 p.m. and the park closed at 10. I'll go ahead give you the cat, we did not finish. Because, and something very, very weird happened. Like all my life I've been playing, you know.

Patrick (01:12:29.81)
That I haven't done.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:42.71)
either one set or best out of three sets, right? Which is, it's effectively, we are conditioned to do that. I won the first two sets and then got down a break in the third set. And mentally, I just had to downshift. I was like, I don't have, can't, and that was very, very interesting because there's never really time in a two or three set match to downshift, right? I almost just let the set go.

I was like, okay, well, I'm not gonna get this one. It's fine. I need to save my energy and come out firing in the fourth set. So if he's not gonna give me a service game back, I'm not pushing it. And that is a different way of thinking. It's a different form of managing your body.

Patrick (01:13:19.196)
Right.

Patrick (01:13:27.078)
Yeah, you feel like, but do you feel like that's a drawback to the tennis experience is to have that downshift or do you?

Alvin Owusu (01:13:35.42)
I don't judge it any way. just think it is playing best out of five, winning, have to win seven best out of five set matches over the course of two weeks. Like having to be in it for two weeks and be the victor seven times in those specific circumstances is unique. Not that it's bad, not that it's good. It is unique.

And I think if you change any of that, it becomes not a grand slam. A grand slam is, on the men's side, is these things. It's the culmination. To hoist that Wimbledon trophy with the Rolex on, you gotta, you had to do that thing that many, many before you had to do, which is manage yourself as a human being in the real world for two weeks.

and win seven best out of five set matches in circumstances where you have to make calculations about when to push and when to not push. And that is unique. So let that be unique. Let it be.

Patrick (01:14:40.636)
That is, yeah, seven matches, five sets, 35 sets in two weeks. I mean, that max length, right? We must keep that. To me, for a player, that has to be the Everest, right? I mean, we have to keep that as Everest. So, no, no, we cannot.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:48.804)
Could be, yeah, could be somewhere.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:04.42)
Yes, we can't change the height of Everest. If you change any of that, the Wimbledon one in 2030 is different than the Wimbledon one in 2024. They're different and they cannot, it's as cut as dry as the open era versus non-open era. Like it's over. This version of tennis is done if we change anything about the Grand Slam.

Patrick (01:15:25.542)
But,

Patrick (01:15:31.174)
But that is why I do want to push yet again for women to play five sets in a grand slam. I do think they should. Nobody wants, we don't know. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:39.642)
God, nobody wants it. Nobody wants it. The women don't, the women, the women, they've asked the women players, none of them want it. I don't, if they don't want it, I don't want it.

Patrick (01:15:51.91)
There it.

They're asking the wrong people because we asking the wrong people because I know the what do you mean? They're asking the players but they're asking first strike people. They're asking the athletes who are, you know, they hit that serve, they hit that first shot, point over, you know, the Osteopankos, the Sabalankos, Rubakuna even. mean, they want that the match could be over in 45 minutes with them, know, 45 minutes.

you

Alvin Owusu (01:16:22.915)
Yeah, but if the match is over in 45 minutes, like one and one, do we need more? Do I need a third set of that? Do I? I don't. That's pretty comp, it's pretty compulsory, I think.

Patrick (01:16:27.9)
Yeah.

Patrick (01:16:32.891)
I think.

Patrick (01:16:36.466)
But I think what you were saying earlier, you said you won the first two sets and then you went down a break, right? I don't know how, you know, torturous those first two sets were for you, but I'm thinking if Sabalenko or...

especially Ostapenko, sorry, if she has a downshift in mentality, suddenly the whole script is changed, right? And then we see that. I want to see women play longer matches so that we can understand them a bit more. That's where I was going. All right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:13.315)
That's a good point. don't just, no, no, no, that's a good point. Like it's the great what if, like, okay, but would we still have the same players being the best players if the Grand Slams were different than the rest of the tournaments for the women? I think that's a nice, that's an intriguing thought experiment. And I think we should, go ahead.

Patrick (01:17:41.394)
Well, I think the WTA needs to literally sit down with the top 200, 250 players and say, look, let's hash this out and let's vote. Let's have a vote to see if we want to change the history of women's tennis so that the time that you spend on the court could equal that of the time that men spend on the court. Of course there are scheduling concerns and things of that nature, but is it not worth

a test run again because this did happen in the past in history there were five set you know but I just think women need to

really consider this so that it doesn't... I went to a tournament the other... about last year and I went to a match and it was one and two and it was about 47 or 50 minutes the match and I said oh it's over okay all right so I just spent two hours commute to get to this tournament to watch this match that was shorter than my own commute so

So to me, they're not really giving themselves a chance. The awareness level is not there. So that's where I'm at with that.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:56.388)
Yeah, okay, well, I will continue to ponder, you continue to ponder, and we will also let the listeners continue to ponder, but I think that's a good place for us to stop. Another fantastic episode of The Best of Three. Please like, subscribe, all those things that I never remind people to do. Hit the bell, notification icons, all that kind of stuff. Anyways, I'm Alvin, Patrick, thank you as always. Best of Three, we are out.

Patrick (01:19:22.546)
Thank you.