Sinner Isn’t Hot… He’s Inevitable. | Paris Masters Recap + WTA Finals Check-In | Ep. 74

Alvin Owusu (00:01.58)
And welcome to another edition of the Best of Three podcast. I am still Alvin, that's still Tory. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about ATP Paris, maybe touch a little bit on women's WTA Tour finals. And as the men start working their way towards Turin, it's a good time for us to take a snapshot.

Torrey Hawkins (00:04.387)
No, Yep.

Alvin Owusu (00:26.542)
But first make sure you subscribe like follow all that stuff. Okay, we've gotten past the business stuff th The business the business end in the beginning th. How you doing?

Torrey Hawkins (00:32.765)
The business end of things. Yeah. I'm good Alvin, I'm good. Like you man, it's been a great week of tennis there in Paris. I have been thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed watching. I have to give a shout out to a player that when I was on the tour with Sco, hit with this player several times. Who I just heard retired this past month, Nicholas Mahoot.

Alvin Owusu (00:41.335)
Aw yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00.186)
And I wanted to give my main man Mahoot the other half, the unfortunate side of the world record, longest match of all time at Wembee. it's been a great career and he has obviously over the last, a lot of years probably been kind of on other side of the best side of his career, but was a solid, solid professional, always a good guy and-

Alvin Owusu (01:08.989)
yep, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28.722)
You know, it's hard to say he'll be missed in the terms of, you know, it's not like he's died or anything. He's just retiring, moving on to his next chapter. But certainly a player that I enjoyed watching, obviously a fighter and a very, very, very savvy competitor. And you don't play for three days straight, Alvin, in a match that goes, wasn't it 72 to 70 or something like that in that last game? Something ridiculous, 70, 68.

Alvin Owusu (01:35.118)
He's just retiring. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:52.895)
I,

Torrey Hawkins (01:54.138)
something like that. You don't play a three day match and go that long in the fifth and not be a fighter and a competitor. You know what mean? If one match were to sell up your career, that's a pretty good one.

Alvin Owusu (02:04.663)
Hats off to Nicholas Mahoot and I think everyone has their memories of where they were at any given point of that match. I remember I was in grad school and it was also during, I think the World Cup was also happening at the same time. So it was a lot going on. But yeah, he hung it up, a French fighter for the Federation for quite some years and hung it up in his final doubles match in Paris this week. So yeah, salute to Nicholas Mahoot.

Torrey Hawkins (02:09.861)
I got it. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (02:16.594)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (02:24.485)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (02:34.413)
But also, salute to Mr. Yannick Sinner. Yeah, I mean, at this point, yeah, I think that's an understatement. I think at this point, it's kind of hard to find new ways to heap praise upon Mr. Sinner. Yeah, exactly, but I mean, he took out Felix Ojeali's scene today in the final, beats Varev on his way there, beat, who else did he beat? Did he beat Bublik as well? I mean, he beats.

Torrey Hawkins (02:39.48)
Yeah, that was a good ball.

Torrey Hawkins (02:48.62)
But new support will it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (03:02.406)
Zareh B. Bublik, I think. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (03:03.841)
that's right, yeah, you're right. Yeah, actually pretty good match there too. But yeah, center, mean he looks good. I mean, I think compared to anyone that's not, that's right, he beat Bill on Friday.

Torrey Hawkins (03:11.653)
Beat Ben, beat Ben on Friday and then I think it was, who else did he beat on?

Throw under the law. Throw under the law. Yep, yep.

Alvin Owusu (03:21.643)
Okay, that's a pretty standard run for him, like, Sarandolo, Shelton, Zverev, and then Oje Aleasim in the final. It's really hard to, I mean, at this point, he looks great against everyone that isn't Carlos, right? And even against Carlos, sometimes he looks great. So it's...

Torrey Hawkins (03:36.123)
He's, he's the one playing the world album. I mean, I think we understand that and everything that that means. want to take a quick, this is a odd comment for me. Zverev, hats off to you for not withdrawing. I I was going to say it. He was, you could tell he was a little dinged up. You could tell he was not his self. It's very difficult to take the O and one, the old bagel and hot dog on the way out.

Alvin Owusu (03:47.383)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (03:51.629)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (04:03.448)
in front of millions, especially TV land in a tournament like this. But the the values of this young man was not that young anymore. Right. To to still I say that to not pull out. OK, I'm talking about his his appreciation. That's a better word of the fans who pay to be there. And he had to take his butt whooping to and to a larger extent because of it.

Alvin Owusu (04:13.259)
Hey, I don't know about his values. Okay, fair. Okay, fair.

Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (04:30.852)
because I'm not wanting to pull out and I feel like he's made that comment before that and I, you can just see if it had been anybody else, right? He would have, they would have tapped out at after the first and maybe even before the bagel even happened, just out of pride and with no regard for the fans that paid the money. It was, it was an O and one that looked closer, but

Never in threat of like you actually surprised that he actually won the game. It's kind of, I know it sounds like a weird statement. I watched a good chunk of it just to see what was going on. And I realized obviously he's about a step slow. I just want to make that one comment. I don't want to get too deep on the match because it wasn't much to see. I just say it to say hats off to you for not withdrawing. I think there's been too many withdrawals, withdrawals in this year and big matches and.

Alvin Owusu (05:05.805)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (05:24.28)
respect the fact that he at least finished the match for the fans sake. And that's where my compliment will stop and my comment on this will stop.

Alvin Owusu (05:32.984)
Okay, that's, I think it's fair. mean, let's take it back to the last two weeks then, because prior to playing in Paris, making the semifinals, losing to Center, he made it to the finals of Vienna where he lost to Center as well. He played a, I didn't have any plans on talking about that match in tournament, because we've already missed it, but fantastic match. He came out in that first set.

Torrey Hawkins (05:56.41)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (05:58.72)
actually did something that Center doesn't allow a lot of players to do, which he took it to him early and got Center rocked a little bit in that first set. know, obviously Center got back on his A game there in the second set and then they played a highly competitive third set with Center winning that one 7-5 in the third. Again, this is the final of Vienna, but he played some really good tennis to get there and I remember watching that match going, man, this reminds me of like,

the Australian Open, Zverev, when he kind of went through Carlos a little bit. I think it was in the quarterfinals, I it was of 16. But every once in a while, Zverev will show up and show you why he is the number three to four five player in the world, right? When he's serving big, when he is simply just adjusting his court position just enough, just enough to get within three feet of the baseline as opposed to five feet behind the baseline.

He can really, he does have the overall ball speed and ball quality to really impact opponents. And I saw it. Sure, yeah, I mean that goes without saying, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (07:03.695)
And the back end is the back end is all day. I mean, it is just, but the problem I saw in this match and I, and I did not see that in Vienna. Maybe the hurt, maybe his undisclosed injury or whatever it was, was a, you know, the old standard ad poll or something, which just wouldn't allow him to do anything more than what he did. He served bigger in that match. He had, when he's very serving well.

very much three in the world. mean, he's, he's a history in the world all day when he's not serving well, his foreign is not big enough to get freebies on its own. And his forehand is literally a reset ball occasionally and a down the lines. can bring it back to my back end. It's, so routine. And what I hated watching about in the match was his patterns are so limited off the forehand side because he wants you to come back to the back end and without a serve.

Alvin Owusu (07:34.743)
Stuff out.

Torrey Hawkins (08:04.3)
He is a very tall, very impressive looking, and there isn't much else there. When he's serving bigger and coming forward, he's actually got underrated volleys and he actually has enough, and he's six foot six, darn near six foot seven. So that, so he's not short. So he comes forward and imposes well, he looks actually really good. And I feel like he should have done more of that over his career, let alone in the second, third set of that match in Vienna.

Alvin Owusu (08:20.46)
Yeah, that helps. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (08:33.731)
I just wanted to say, I feel like if he has a shot of breaking in to that truly staying top three and maybe just maybe being a threat to either Carlos or De'Anik, there needs to more of that coming down the pipeline. If not, he is in my opinion, going to be a very routine three, three and two or however the service things break down, even if, if.

Alvin Owusu (08:58.944)
Yeah, yeah, think right now the idea of catching Yannick or Carlos, especially as they're still getting better and he is, well he's much older than both of them, much older. He's significantly older than Carlos, he's a little older than Yannick, kind of in the or tail end peak of his career. I think his battle is, like you said, can he hold on to number three? Can he keep?

Taylor Fritz at Bay who I would say over the last 18 months, Taylor has added a little bit, a little bit to his game that allows him to now kind of beat Zerub fairly regularly where they used to go back and forth and earlier in their career when Zerub owned that matchup. So in the next let's say six, seven months between now and the end of Wimbledon and if it's open, can he tap into that space that

we haven't seen him tap into regularly, right? And I think it's if he's serving well, is he hunting for that first ball strike? Because I think what he lacks is like, obviously he lacks the foot speed and the fast twitch kind of muscles to like create, I like kind of create offense off of those middle balls that don't scream, tag this and come in. Like his default is kind of reset, kind of step back, kind of take a full swing. And I think it takes a little more to.

Torrey Hawkins (10:19.223)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (10:23.614)
shorten that up and take a more aggressive swing with less time.

Torrey Hawkins (10:26.702)
It takes a lot of and it takes a lot and I feel like his whole all his tactics are confused. He is a big guy that takes the ball early that doesn't go through you. So you've got this. It's like he's played on carpet so much that he is playing an on the rise defending game and the very concept of both are morons. So the he's certainly taking away time, but when he gets ran off taking away time, he can't

keep up in the foot speed race. So he's hitting a ball speed that is X and he's and he's as the foot speed of a Y. So if he does have that deeper trench right in the court, he runs himself because now his on the rise backhand is getting around to the forehand side. He can't hurt you off the on the forehand. And so at some point you got to think to yourself, well then why are you doing it? You know what mean? If it ain't working, right? Then then why are we doing it? So anyway, I wanted to say that speaking of holding on to number three.

Alvin Owusu (10:57.045)
Yeah, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (11:24.705)
Taylor fritz of course has made a slight improvement in this game overall, but and I know you were going to talk about it at some point here pretty soon. Felix is playing the best ball of his life right now. Alvin. mean the guy is just he's playing the type of tennis I had always hoped to see from Felix from when he first came on tour when you saw his tools. He is that guy now and I am so happy to see it. I read a good book that

sports psychologist, friends, one of my members, shout out to Renee Lopez. And the book is entitled It Takes What It Takes. and I have from that I have coined a handful of other things. It takes as long as it takes, right? It takes as much as it takes, it takes what it takes. And I feel like when Renee hit me up to this book, it made such a profound effect on me to help me understand.

Alvin Owusu (12:00.51)
It takes what it takes.

Torrey Hawkins (12:19.745)
There's no timetable. We'd like for there to be one, but let's be honest. If it takes what it takes, we keep measuring people off of the Carlos Alcares and the Yannick Center timetable, right? Yow, Fonseca, okay, why come they didn't get it done when they were 18? Well, I'm sorry. All of us aren't quite that gifted to do so and appreciate the good ones that can. However,

Alvin Owusu (12:33.782)
Sure, sure.

Torrey Hawkins (12:46.092)
Right. And we've had three phenomenal ones the last 20 years that we've unfortunately had to kind of bring our kind of re refocus our vision and our and recalibrate our expectations, right. To what was phenomenal. We would just we just been treated to. So I'm really happy to see Felix go through this. I keep talking about my handful of words, right. He's playing well right now. He is playing very well right now, Alvin. And I wanted to find out your thoughts.

Because even this match with Yannick, was it today, yesterday, whatever day, whatever it was, was pretty tough sledding for Yannick. had Yannick had let up, I thought he was nipping at his heels enough to be able to actually take that third. That's the love. He actually continued to play stronger and more consistently in deepened points than he did. I thought he played better. I thought the boot match was a good match.

Alvin Owusu (13:19.968)
That's today, that's today, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (13:43.945)
He played better in the loss to Yannick than he did in the win against Bublik. And obviously had to, but I just, I'm curious to get your thoughts.

Alvin Owusu (13:53.068)
Yeah, so like you, like I remember I was in, this is Miami, Miami Open 2019, I wanna say. I was watching Felix and I was asked, I texted you and I was like, what does he do so well? Like how is he at that time, you weren't that far removed from working with Sco. I was like, how is he that much better? Like what does he have that, you know, like someone like a Sco didn't have? And you're like, well, pretty much everything. He does everything better.

And as I've watched him kind of, you know, mature and somewhat say stagnate over the last few years, maybe even in backtrack a little bit, you know, in the last two years as a center and Alcara has kind of, you know, take the mantle of the sport, if you will. He's still the same guy, I think. I don't think technically much has changed. I feel like he's, you he moves very well. He's strong.

The limitations are still the same. Like that backhand is, it's barbecue chicken sometimes. he can, for him a good day is when he's not missing it. But he can't create any offense over there. And I think what we're starting to see like right now, especially since the US Open, and I wanna kinda talk about his season a little bit. Like since the US Open, he's kind of found that place where he's like, I'm in control of all the things that I can do.

Like he's been patiently aggressive with the forehand, which is how he likes to create offense, Serving well, returning well, returning so well. Has been returning well since Cincinnati, right? And I think that is the best version of him. And I think it's less about, it's less about Janek and it's, mean, less about Felix and it's more about Janek in this situation. Like I was watching the match today very intently and I'm like, the man made two mistakes all match.

Torrey Hawkins (15:22.42)
Yup. Yup. Yup. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (15:49.272)
And one was in his first service game. And then the next one was when he was serving at two, three in the breaker. It's like, that's it. that's Yannick gives you no room to breathe. Like he's kind of like, he's kind of like E guy. I see a lot of like the way that they both start matches and come at you and very quickly show you like, I'm already playing at the highest level right now. There's no work. You can't work into this match. I'm ready to go. And if you get down an early break, there will be no slip ups.

Torrey Hawkins (15:55.624)
Right. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (16:16.474)
and there'll be no slip ups, know, right? No mental lapses, no slip ups. So any mistake you make just puts you further down, you know, further under the tidal wave that is me. You know what mean? 100%.

Alvin Owusu (16:18.963)
Yeah, you can you need to

Alvin Owusu (16:31.113)
Right, yeah. And Felix, because of his lack of ability to dictate off of the ad wing, right? Like that's the limitation. That's the limitation. And you saw Yannick just go into it, go into it, go into it, pull him off, pull him off, pull him off. And because he's hitting that, he can't get the pop he needs on that backhand side, it allowed Yannick to step in and find the angle on the backhand side. Like Yannick hit so many angle backhand winners coming off the service box. Like I was like, yeah, that ball's not, it's sitting on a plate for him.

Torrey Hawkins (16:43.144)
Yep, over and over again.

Torrey Hawkins (16:48.905)
Yup. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (17:00.175)
And I was actually really excited to get in here talk to you about that specifically. is there something technically that you see off of Felix's backhand that is not allowing him to really let that left side throw through?

Torrey Hawkins (17:13.29)
It takes too many backends on the rise. His back end so short that if he is a tad early, it's already going to be shorter due to less backswing. In most cases, when you have that bit of, I'm going to use the term, push versus slot. When you have less backswing, you're relying on timing. You're relying on weight transfer. You're relying on legs.

Alvin Owusu (17:15.819)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (17:42.014)
to just get under enough to give you enough depth off of the absorb pace and return pace situation. The problem, Alvin comes into as a back hand itself. The problem comes into there's not enough room in the backswing to get the elbow behind the pocket and then be able to drop in his case, right-handed drop the right wrist enough to be able to slot.

And most good backhands, yannick center's got a phenomenal one. Carlos has a very underrated backhand by the way. He's he's he's back. He's gotten a ton better than the last couple of years. And then of course, obviously one of the best backhands of all time being Mr. Novak Djokovic. They had the ability to take a what looks to be shorter, but it's actually if you watch it Alvin, it's actually starts the backspin starts before they even

Alvin Owusu (18:18.175)
He's really shorted up lately. Like he's tightened that thing up. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (18:40.595)
take that first left foot step, right? So I'm going to my left, their racket's already in prep or unit turn. By the time they get that right foot down, it's as if there were two backswings. There's the prep and then there's the backswing where in most cases on the forehand, as we all know, we can almost turn and hold the racket there. Be on the right foot. I'm already in the, I can drop and buggy, I can drop and load and go big.

Alvin Owusu (19:02.367)
Right, already in you're already in the,

Torrey Hawkins (19:09.587)
But that's open stance. That's forehand side. The best backhands have a slightly bigger, let me change the word, slightly longer backswing, which allows them to then drop it back. So by the time that the feet step in, the racquet's in sync with the legs. The racquet's dropped, legs are dropped. I'm stepping in crushing it, but I'm bringing momentum with me. What I find, and this is one of the problems I see in top juniors today as well.

Players have good on the rise backhands because they run around a lot of forehands. They take the ball early in the backhand, big forehand run around, take it early by time on the forehand, take it early by time on the forehand. The best backhands have actually big back swings and they actually power power like Zverev and they power through the backhand. Now, why does that make a big deal? I'll tell you why. Because by the time they have a little bit of momentum to come through the ball,

Alvin Owusu (19:56.555)
Thanks very much.

Torrey Hawkins (20:09.904)
Vareb does it extremely well. Amanda Lisa Mova, while we're talking about some of the best backhands, has a pretty sizable backswing. That backhand is, by the time she makes contact, it's through you. Now look at hers versus Ega's. Ega's backswing is so short, probably need to say, but now you look at players that have a little slightly bigger backswing. Arena's backswing is a little bit bigger. Rebecca has backhand, quiet as it's kept, very solid backhand and can rip, just.

Alvin Owusu (20:26.453)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (20:38.92)
because there's a backswing. If you have both, you are world class at that side.

Alvin Owusu (20:45.651)
If you have both, as in big backswing and you can take it early? Yeah, that's hard.

Torrey Hawkins (20:49.616)
And go and know and know the difference. Most players don't. Felix has the on the rise. That's why he takes so many backhands early and bumps and he tries to defend half can open buggy whatever he can do on that side, which he's got, but she's an athlete. he, and that's, did a lot against public. Public is very similar by the way. Public has a good on the rise backhand. He bumps it. He runs it maybe a little bit more feel, but hits that backhand, right?

Alvin Owusu (21:17.396)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (21:19.323)
but hits that backhand pretty short. can, he can link them at times, but it's by no means it's very backhand, but he's savvy enough, cagey enough to do what he wants to do. He does not have the full on big backswing, take you down the line, go through you, which a lot of players that have really, really good backhands do. I want to say this out because it's not, it's, it's, it's a little bit overrated in my opinion. Most people don't realize how hard that is to do to have both, right?

Alvin Owusu (21:45.963)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (21:46.482)
to have the on the rise defending backhand and to have the actual big, the true strike backhand. Because in most cases, if you have a bigger backswing, that by definition makes you a little bit, puts you further back in the court, right? Because you need time, right? And if you have the on the rise, well, typically most players don't mind that because the foreign's weapon anyway. And so I feel guys like Taylor Fritz, guys like, you know, even guys like Francis, know, guys, guys that just run around a lot, you know, obviously all the counterpunishers like D'Mannor and Tommy Paul.

Alvin Owusu (21:59.36)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:16.135)
Even my main man, Caspar Root, you know, they have good backhands, great backhands, but they don't have both. They may have one of the two. They may be able to get out of some jams here and there, but they don't have the rifle and they don't have the quick, you know, what I'm going to call the, you know, the on the rise dagger. And I think you got to have both at the highest level because now if you don't, you basically carry that burden to the forehand side.

Alvin Owusu (22:43.882)
And that's the, you know, that's an interesting thing, like, as I think about like where, where the game is right now, like kind of how the game is played. And then I also started thinking about like my own game, like as someone who grew up hitting a pretty good back end and I felt like I could actually do both, um, on the rise, like kind of the, you know, I'm left handed. So like take that, take that, you know, a righty's forehand cross court, cut it off, bump it line, and then wait and sit and kind of camp out, wait for the forehand, which is kind of a lefty, a lefty go to, um, it's the, is the, it is a, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:55.462)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (23:02.97)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (23:08.24)
Right. Powder. Yep, let's do powder.

Alvin Owusu (23:11.914)
The doll would flop it, right? He would back up, sit on that right leg, flop the backhand down the line, slide over to the deuce court, and then start working the forehand there. But it's a, it is a, there's like three things happening at the same time, right? It's like, are you reading the ball coming in well enough on that side? know, Felix's case on the left side. And then,

are your calculations on point? Like can I afford to step up and take this ball on the rise knowing that my trade off is going to be pace, right? If I back up, what is gonna happen to the other side? Because I can see Felix though, we saw that cross court, know, ad court rally so often today. Like if Felix did back up, Yannick was already sliding over hitting forehands anyways. Like he did it on match point too. Match point was a quintessential like this is how this match went.

Torrey Hawkins (23:40.857)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (23:46.352)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (24:00.102)
Exactly. Exactly.

Alvin Owusu (24:05.128)
Cross, cross, cross, cross. Left Felix feathered one a little bit thin. Yannick slides over. Yannick slides over inside out. Next ball inside in for about four feet from inside the sideline. You're not even taking a step over there. But yeah, you don't really have the time to back up, because if you back up, you gotta hit it so well, so well.

Torrey Hawkins (24:05.295)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (24:09.702)
Just a little, just a little, just give them a little bit of time. Yup, inside out. Done. Yup.

Torrey Hawkins (24:29.606)
It's gotta be worth the risk, doesn't it? It's gotta pay dividends. And that's the problem to me at this high level of the game that these guys are not forcing everyone else to play. You've gotta be able to crunch the backhand. You mentioned the calculations. I think it's actually even more. The risk reward. Is the risk worth the reward? If I take a bigger backswing, I'm gonna have a good enough backhand to take this risk and get something from it. If I am no back,

Alvin Owusu (24:47.274)
You

Torrey Hawkins (24:58.598)
I can't back anywhere I want period period. Even right now. He still has one of the best backhands on tour. Look at some of the better backhands over the course of time. Andre Agassi and I say for recent memory, right? Andre Agassi, one of the best backhands to date at that point in time. Arguably as good as if not better than his form because he had the ability to go line on anybody at any time. Return off the ground, cross or line.

It got so big that I think Gil Reyes or somebody else mentioned, you better start getting a couple of shots like a drop shot just to be able to take advantage of how big that ball is. Marty Fish, one of the, I thought maybe was one of the quintessential phenomenal backhands back in the day. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the, for one second, I just lost his name.

Alvin Owusu (25:38.568)
Ooh, ooh, good one.

Torrey Hawkins (25:52.559)
God bless it. I'm killing myself. South America, best backhand all day long. I'm looking at his name. No, not in real. Real's had a good backhand. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. God bless it. I'm about forget this guy's name. Three in the world. Got to be Argentinian. Phenomenal backhand. Like not even good. Like, no, don't have a good backhand. his performance massive. No, no, no, no. Older, older. I'm talking late 90s or the 2000s.

Alvin Owusu (25:54.698)
Where's he from? Where's he from? Where's he from?

Marcelo Rios, you're not going to Rios are you? Come on man, come on.

Alvin Owusu (26:13.608)
Delpo. Okay. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (26:21.77)
We'll come back to it.

Torrey Hawkins (26:22.789)
They'll come back to you. The, the, the ability to hit a clean backhand line neutralizes the inside outer, right? Novak made a killing on that in his first 10 years. He just knew. And it's what really hurt him again. What made him so much better than Roger. Roger needed to hit an inside out or an inside in to take offense. Novak never let him. He pinned the backhand so much in the cross court that he was going to match with the match.

He's going to match up match up on that side. And as soon as Roger even thought about moving Novak's down the line crushed it. Period. Even if it wasn't that good, it was deep enough and penetrating enough that Roger couldn't take that risk. You now take. And there you go.

Alvin Owusu (27:05.766)
And the same thing with Rafa's forehand cross court. Like that's the same thing that Novek would do to him. Same thing.

Torrey Hawkins (27:11.375)
So this is the matchup that if you don't have that penetrating deep backhand and you're that player, you won't get that ball. You take away that oven. That's sometimes 60 % of a person's patterns is off that inside out, inside in wing. So if you take away that option to do it, not only do you force as the person who doesn't have the option anymore, you run the risk of giving this person downline backends all day. What I saw ironically,

In spite of that, Felix still kept the score close off of that side. And that's what I was so impressed with. I felt like every time the points went long or ish, they were all going to favor Yannick. But the fact that they still had, there was still some parity just shows to me how much better Felix is playing right now. I'm just so excited to see him playing this way because I feel like the top

need people to continue to come after them and they need that level of being tested. Otherwise, not only is it bad for you and me, the fan, but it's also those two start to get bored. You know what I mean? And at the end of the day, they want the challenge as well as we want to see a challenge.

Alvin Owusu (28:28.138)
Yeah, yeah, and it's an interesting matchup because Felix has all of the tools, but we just spent a better part of the last 10 minutes talking about that one thing, that one thing that is gonna keep him, yeah, and he also doesn't return well enough. He didn't create a break point at all today. mean, Yannick did serve, right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (28:39.374)
Yep. That he doesn't have. yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (28:48.324)
backhand returns too short. It's too basic. It sits up in the middle of court. He takes it early, but he takes it early at his own peril. And that's something that Bublik wasn't able to expose and yet Bublik tried. I felt like both players, ironically, when Bublik played Felix the day before, had this early backhand return on the deuce that sits literally about a foot, maybe two behind the service line.

Depending on level of pace and height, it's a very user friendly ball. And if somebody ever describes your ball as user friendly, like the newest iPhone, it's probably not a good thing. You want to not have any shot be user friendly. And Alvin, I watched pretty much all the match with Felix and Alexander. I did not see a backhand return off the deuce that went past that mark, period. I'll be the player.

Alvin Owusu (29:21.706)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (29:45.441)
The inside outs were phenomenal both. I saw some very crafty drop shots. I saw some very athletic moves and I was very, we forget how athletic Felix is, but there was even a drop shot he didn't get to that he almost fell and he athletically spun out of it without falling. And I'm like, anybody else would have twisted an ankle or busted their head right wide open on side. He came out of like a cat. I'm like, God, this guy's athletic and he's tall. So anyway, I say that to say I saw more out of Felix.

Alvin Owusu (30:06.449)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (30:14.837)
in that match and his ability to trust his forehand and go with that big inside out. But if he's going to have a second part of his career, he had better get a better backhand return that can actually put one of these guys backward because nobody takes the ball earlier than Yannick Center. And if you can't at least push him deep enough, he's a second coming of Novak Djokovic on that side. His footwork is too good.

His back can penetrate, he can take it anywhere he wants, and he has better footwork than anyone else on tour. So if your ball isn't deep enough, his footwork alone will smother you. Even if he doesn't choose to take it to you yet, his footwork alone will take away your time.

Alvin Owusu (30:59.081)
You know, two different things. wanted to kind of go, you got me on, my brain spinning here. Kind of two paths here. I wanted to talk about center and you you mentioned he takes the ball early. I think that one of the really cool things about this particular event is the camera angle that they use is one of those, they will sometimes go into this lower baseline, know, baseline camera angle where you can kind of see like what type of actual shape these guys are getting on the ball, right? And it also makes, it makes the game look a little more simple than it does when you have your standard angle, but.

Torrey Hawkins (31:22.626)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (31:28.541)
You know, one of the things that always impresses me so much about Yannick center and I was telling my brother this the other day, like there are two people that if I watch them play within an hour before me going on the court, I'm going to hit the ball so much better because you have that visual in your mind. One, especially, especially on the backhand side. One is Andy Murray and two Yannick. Right. And the other one is Yannick center. And, and for, different reasons, think Andy Murray's back is his backswing on his, on his backhand is just so.

Torrey Hawkins (31:42.178)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (31:46.678)
Yep. And my head are phenomenal backhand.

Alvin Owusu (31:56.796)
economical, right? Like it's efficient. He gets that shoulder turned very quickly and then just kind of uses his legs to make that ball go where he wants to go. Again, he's one of those guys who could do it on the rise, right? Like while hugging close to the baseline. Janik gets his base so wide and so low on both forehand and backhand wing, the amount of ground force he can create with very little time is a joke. It's a

I'm getting goosebumps right now just thinking about like how low and wide he gets and like especially when he's like hitting an out wide on like open stance backhand. It's like Like what it looks like a lefty's forehand like he's just throwing that thing because he gets so low and I so it makes me think about Felix was the other part of it

Torrey Hawkins (32:26.966)
Yeah.

No.

Alvin Owusu (32:45.321)
Is it technique? Like if you were in his camp, right? There's probably like two things you wanna look at, technique. But could you also, he uses an old school Babylon Pure Arrow VS Tour. Like that thing is, like I got one upstairs in my office. That thing's a, it's a big boy. Very thin frame, not very forgiving. Is that something also worth looking at? Like to allow him to have a little more play.

on that side of the, he's playing that close to the bassline.

Torrey Hawkins (33:18.721)
I'll take your first one first. You're talking about...

Alvin Owusu (33:20.147)
Take the first one first.

Torrey Hawkins (33:25.249)
At least I'm understanding you to say you're talking about taking it versus thinner. Let's, let's break that down into two small subcategories. It's doing well with everybody else. Let's, let's, let's, let's understand that. Number one. Now we're talking about what he has to do against. Center is a type of player that unless you play your ball in the back.

Alvin Owusu (33:38.217)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (33:53.505)
feet of the court and you are a striker and I mean a ball a pure ball striker you have to have the ability to hit the ball that deep just to keep him from not building in the you know and and the great shout out to the great Nick Saviano who who made me understand this these four terms and and the two that we use all the time

defense, neutral, building offense. Everyone thinks it's offensive defense. In reality, those two rarely happen. Neutral is not Alvin. Neutral, as I've mentioned you numerous times over the course of our coaching, both sides of the basket. Neutral is your ability to neutralize your opponent, not in between offensive defense. And of course, building is your

Alvin Owusu (34:26.205)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (34:51.691)
trying to dictate slash set up your point. Now with that said, if you want to neutralize Yannick center, your ball better be in the back five feet of the court. I would even sit on a good day indoors back three foot of the court because otherwise you're not happy. It's not happening. Let me tell you what my main man Carlos Alcaraz figured out. The harder you hit, the better Yannick center is.

Alvin Owusu (34:54.067)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (35:06.345)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (35:19.925)
What he showed me at the open was the ability to roll the ball higher out of the strike zone, still deep and not give Carlos, not give Yannick any power. What do you do with that on the rise ball? You bring it back cross court because you have to, you already committed to your court position. Then Carlos says, gotcha. I didn't give you any pace to hurt me with and I still kept you deep. I figured out the Rubik's cube.

Alvin Owusu (35:24.969)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (35:49.884)
And now...

And now I will run you to the forehand side, which no on the rise player likes to get ran. They don't get ran often. They don't have to. And then he can start to work his magic going back behind you as you do against most quick players. And now the morph. The morph is the ability to be two players at once. And the counterpunisher, he aggressed the baseline all at once. He did that to Yannick. So let's go back to Felix.

Alvin Owusu (36:11.08)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (36:20.86)
If Felix were to hit this ball deeper, he would have had a chance and maybe a chance in this match to go three. But I don't think his odds would have improved a whole lot because at some point he might actually be giving Yannick more pace to work with. Now let's talk about the racket. I personally think the racket was helping him. I think that shape on that forehand has actually gotten a lot better. I think he's found a way to flatten out, perform a little bit better. Serve looked really good this whole time. It's been looking good.

for the last few terms, I thought he looked good. Quite frankly, in the open, I he looked very solid on the hard court. I don't think that's where the change should be made. Possibly string intention, maybe. But let's face it, Alvin, the guy's hitting the ball pretty clean, pretty big. His backhand just needs more length against those handful of top players. I can say the same thing, honestly, about Taylor Fritz. I don't think Taylor's backhand is that great. And the fact of the matter is, it doesn't need to be, because it's serving for him and it's so clean.

Most players that doesn't, it isn't needed, but we're dealing now with, you know, I forget what, latest update I have on my iPhone, you know, update 14, 17, iPhone 17. Now I've got such updates that a lot of people are still operating on the old OS and that's, I just need a weapon and no weakness, maybe two weapons and no weakness. These guys are now saying, Oh, we've got three cameras now. We, you need three weapons and, and the weakness.

Alvin Owusu (37:18.035)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (37:47.699)
weakness, you need three weapons and a closet strength now. And now you're dealing with a guy with one, maybe two cameras and a little slow operating operating system. you're like, it's not, it's not technically on the same page. And that's where I feel like we're at with guys like the tailors, like the Felix's as good as they're playing. They're operating on the older OS.

Alvin Owusu (38:14.214)
Yeah, you know, I actually had a colleague mentioned to me, he said, he had this phrase the other day, said, let's not build a faster horse, right? And like when we're talking about true innovation and truly making that next step, it's not about iterating on what you've got, it's almost actively not thinking about what you have and thinking about what's ideal. Let's not build a horse, let's build a car. Like let's stop, build something else.

Torrey Hawkins (38:34.888)
Right, building a different horse. I was gonna say, build something else. Don't think horse. Right. Don't think horse or horsepower. I'm with you, 100%.

Alvin Owusu (38:42.662)
Don't think horse, don't think horse. like, it's, maybe even it's like, okay, like Felix gets in trouble against Yannick when they get stuck in that ad court, you know, that ad court cross court rally. It's like, well, what does, you think about some of the things you mentioned it with Carlos, like what does Carlos do that allows him to kind of like throw all these marbles up in the air and really get Yannick kind of out of sorts? well, he makes him hit not that same ball that he comfortably wants to hit. Like, yeah.

he'll take it up, which if you can see, if you can turn, speaking of, mean, Marcelo Rios, if you can get him, if you can get Yannick into that hitch kick backhand where he's trying to like, you know, not back up and still maintain position.

Torrey Hawkins (39:22.302)
Right. Right. Leverage, leverage, leverage contact point for time. Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (39:28.484)
Yeah, like that's a that's a he's not he's not hitting that ball with that much pace, right? That's just I'm gonna hit the shot because I don't want to back up and I like this is where I want to be It's like okay make him hit that ball. Okay. What else Carlos make him do Carlos? I'll make him hit the slice like he'll he'll he'll slice that backhand down make make Yannick hit up with the slice or get down low and bring that back and make him roll it The third option is the the kamikaze option that we talked about all the time hit the damn thing down the line Like let's just get weird

Torrey Hawkins (39:56.158)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (39:56.839)
Let's like I don't I don't like going three backhands cross court with you because with each ball I get further and further behind you start sliding over a little bit a little bit further into the Into the ad court the hell with it throw that thing down the line and let's let's flip the table here

Torrey Hawkins (40:08.925)
Right. Put the table strong and have a forehand with the ability to hurt you when I do it. I've got to have speed and then risky for another side for you to risk because otherwise I'm just going back cross court, which we saw with with Sasha Zverev. It just doesn't work because you know there's no problem that side. So you're 100 % right. Carlos brings up very different options off that side. I think Felix is playing some great ball. I don't want to take that away from him. We

You just have to understand it. And my comment about the operating system is, is in my opinion, probably the best way to understand Carlos and, and, and, and, and Yannick right now, Yannick much more surgical. think Carlos is still an artist out there trying to figure it out and trying to play a little bit of Sting-tual. But I do feel that most of the other players are playing.

older operating system, older mentality of what can be done. And there's nothing wrong with that. But if I'm a coach now working with a young player who I think has the goods to go deeper, I would have to your point about not building a faster horse, I would have them.

They have to have something different than what the current world offers. And they had got to have the short of sounding pessimistic, everything. And they have to have my opinion, a net game that is beyond solid and a return game that is lawlessly aggressive. And I know that's extremely difficult to hear. If there's one thing

If there's one thing both players don't necessarily do that, that, that might be an opening. They don't have ultra aggressive returns. have very good returns. They have very deep returns and they look to build a point from there. Andre was probably one of the last players we saw that was, think they coined the term the return ACE because of him. He was one of the few players that had the return ACE that I don't think many players have used.

Alvin Owusu (42:10.92)
Hmm heard that one in a while

Torrey Hawkins (42:18.781)
look at other players who've done, Murray you mentioned was a great one. By the way, my player I was thinking was David now Bandian. Who had a, you know, I was thinking Argentine, I was thinking backhand, and I'm like, it's gotta be, it's David, I just couldn't get up with it. Very Murrayist backhand in his own era, right? So bottom line, and I said, it probably was early, you know, probably early to mid 90s, not even late 90s. But my point being, you've gotta have a backhand.

Alvin Owusu (42:25.409)
yeah!

Alvin Owusu (42:31.494)
very very Murray-esque backhand like lay that thing down yeah yeah

Torrey Hawkins (42:48.441)
You know what Murray did well? One of my favorite backhands from Andy Murray was the deuce side inside in you call it skinny cross backhand down the line on the deuce. Nobody could handle that ball Alvin and everybody kicks T on the deuce on the second or even the first of sometimes Murray would take that backhand inside in deep. What do you do Alvin as a right-handed player? You can't go inside out or in because the ball is too deep.

Alvin Owusu (42:59.528)
Mmm.

Torrey Hawkins (43:18.032)
You just landed on your left foot. You, you just landed your balls coming at you deep landing about five feet from the baseline deep, not even corner. You got a backup. You're going to this next ball. And now here comes Mr. Murray with his old sunken wrist, forehand with a 20 pound racket. Just, just coming through you when the cross court, but what did he do? Well, what he really did was he took away all first strikes.

Alvin Owusu (43:18.192)
It's, it's, yeah. You just landed. You just landed.

Alvin Owusu (43:40.082)
Whippin' that thing across court.

Torrey Hawkins (43:47.708)
There's no first strike. You better have a good backhand from behind you. And what he did was, he did it so well, was he took that ball and took you out of any possible offensive situation. Worst case, now you went back down the line, if you had that off your back foot. And then on the backhand side, he took the ball at you, but then about, I think of a three point circle, the top of the key off of a free throw line.

put that little five foot little mini rainbow at the baseline. That's where get the ball on that side. And if you took it early, he took as many wide short cross court service Fox corner as he took line when he was ready to really go through you. But now what did he return? Well, he aggressively returned and took the big server out of a lot of his things. Novak had his own way and Novak would always, especially early Novak was known to go down the line on you.

and just take your ball so early. knew you couldn't do anything else. But Murray to me actually had better returns and more aggressive returns. Although Novak's return or break of serve ratio is astronomical. I actually felt Andy had better return of serves tactically speaking. That being said.

Alvin Owusu (44:57.541)
Novak, Novak high rate of returns. He just didn't miss them and he neutralized very, very quickly. Like.

Torrey Hawkins (45:01.115)
did not miss them and broke you 60 % of the time. Andy, felt had better returns against you that broke your, he broke you from the inside. He knew you were like, God, blessed man. I'm hitting my best kick over there and they ain't working. So that in its sense broke you down from the inside. But I want to make sure I'm making the point. That's what the next player will have to have. They will have to have not just Novak like consistency, cause that's Novak. You're going to have to have Novak consistency with Murray return. You're going to have to have

Alvin Owusu (45:08.785)
Gotcha. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (45:31.199)
net game. You're have to have pretty much everything but you're have to have the ability to have a couple of different ways to play not one and if there's any hope

You better hope these guys retire first.

Alvin Owusu (45:45.832)
Yeah, I mean, and we start looking at the numbers in that match, Like not a single break point chance created by Felix. that's kind of it. Like he made four first serve returns. He made six second serve returns. like we're talking about that, I mean, that feels like a typo. I mean, it's not. It just didn't make a lot of returns. it's not, mean, luckily he served well, but you he kept himself in it, but that's not gonna.

Torrey Hawkins (46:11.599)
Yeah, and kept himself in it. Was it four and six? What was it? Four and six? Yeah. Yeah, I thought I had three and six. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:16.359)
Four and six, four and six, three and six, four and six, yep. So close match, and you could almost say maybe Yannick could have played better, he didn't really have to play that much better, because he was inside the singles lines the majority of the match, and he wasn't being challenged on the serve. So close on score, highly entertaining, but when you're really looking at it, you're like, damn, there's a level and half in between the two of them right now.

Torrey Hawkins (46:29.499)
Yeah, four and six. Right? Right.

Torrey Hawkins (46:35.513)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (46:40.606)
There, no, 1,000%. It was six and four with Bublik and Felix the other day. So just to your point. And I never felt like Bublik was threatening. I felt like Bublik was doing well to keep it close. And I felt the same way when I watched Felix today with Sinner. However, the main difference being, I was rooting for Felix a more. I was hoping Felix might have a chance. But when I really take a step back from it,

Alvin Owusu (47:00.757)
Heh.

Torrey Hawkins (47:07.544)
Yannick didn't give him much to work with and he didn't. And again, he takes no breaks. takes, there's no off game. There's no mental lapses. He's locked in. And so that's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a tough call. Happy to see Felix playing this well. to see Felix's offense. Happy to see Felix coming forward. Alvin, he's finally coming forward. And I feel like for a lot of these guys, been watching Carlos do this for the better part of the last six months of this career. Obviously he.

Alvin Owusu (47:21.605)
Yeah, I love it.

Torrey Hawkins (47:35.448)
this match with Cam Dory and all that. think either one part was look past him didn't really understand that the kind of tough matchup that Cam Dory can be slash maybe he maybe he's trying to save himself for the for the end of the tournament who knows but what I will say is is that I feel like Carlos the better half of this six month the last three four months of the year US Open in particular has found ways to come forward more. He's found ways to

expand his offensive arsenal. And I look forward to seeing him and Taryn seeing this whole thing come down to that to see what those two guys imagine those guys might present once again. But I was very, very excited to see Felix Aljaliaseem playing the level of tennis that I had always thought he was capable of playing. And very, very excited to see him playing this. This is now two tournaments back to back. I see too big. He's probably played more than that. But including the US Open, including

obviously here in Paris because it's looking like he is for real. Bublik had a look in his face when they were shaking hands, Alvin, like, you kidding me? Nice serve him, you know? And Bublik was like, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:46.747)
Yeah, was such a weird match. mean, Felix played a great first set, and then he kinda came apart a little bit for the first three, three and a half games of the second set. It looked like Bublik was, I Bublik might have been up five, four, one at some point. I misremember the exact score, but I thought Bublik, he was up a break and he was rolling, and then Felix just kinda shook out of it, and I was like, okay, I'm good, and then got himself, he kinda ran away with it towards the end.

Torrey Hawkins (48:55.876)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (49:07.106)
Right. I think it's three one. Yeah. Yep.

Yep. Yep. And, and to that point, when's the last time you've seen him serve his way out of some jams like that. He was hitting every serve he had on speed dial. And I was just, again, you have to, to be able to play at that, at that top of the level. So anyway, I was very happy to see it and I'm looking forward to, you know, the next year besides Torelli.

and end year. Look, all this bodes well for next Australian Open when we start seeing these guys coming into that tournament with what I call fresh axes. know what I mean? Go home and sharpen your axe before you start coming up trying to cut down some trees. know what mean? Sharpen your axe a little bit and then come out to Australia ready to go to

Alvin Owusu (49:50.299)
Yeah

Alvin Owusu (49:59.826)
So speaking of Australia, Felix had a very interesting year. So he started off the year, wins a 250 in Adelaide, does not necessarily perform well at Australian Open round of 64, but then picks up another 250 win in Montpellier, semifinal Doha, finals, mean semifinal Dubai, sorry, Doha, semi-Dubai final, good start to the year outside of that Australian Open showing. And then he kind of went into the

a little bit into the wilderness, like round of 64 at Miami, in, uh, 64 in the Wells, started 32 Miami and then like first round loss in, uh, Monte Carlo, first round loss in Madrid. Did well in Hamburg, but like he's been kind of all over the place. First round loss in Roland-Garros, second round at Wimbledon and then writes the ship Cincinnati quarterfinals, U.S. Open semifinals. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, okay. And then quarterfinal Shanghai, he wins. Uh, I think it was Brussels maybe right before.

Torrey Hawkins (50:31.186)
The Dole drums. Yeah. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (50:50.424)
And Simpies, right?

Alvin Owusu (50:59.003)
right before this event, can't remember what the, yeah, it was Brussels 250. So my man, three 250 wins in a year, 250 King, we could take a couple 500s here. as we started the year well, not so great on the natural surfaces, ending the year well, and Felix always does well in door hard courts, right? I think he, Touche, Touche, maybe that's it. That's it, that's it.

Torrey Hawkins (51:20.418)
He is from Canada.

Alvin Owusu (51:28.263)
It's that simple. He doesn't like playing outdoors. That's it is what it is. I too, know, him, the booblicks of the world, booblicks have had a really strong 2025, I think we'll say the booblick talk for our end of year wrap up. But yeah, it'd be interesting to see like, can he come out and, you know, start to build on what we've seen in the last two months, carry it forward, you know, down under. That would be exciting. But another thing that's exciting to me,

and you mentioned Turin, make year end championships matter. With Carlos kinda taking the dump in the first round against Cam, that's always unfortunate, because I like watching Carlos play, but that allowed, you know, Yannick kinda free run to get a, pick up all the points in this tournament, and now we run into Turin with, he's gonna retake number one tomorrow, or when you're listening to this, it's today, or now, but by the time they actually get to Turin the following week, those points from last year's,

Torrey Hawkins (52:07.574)
You too.

Torrey Hawkins (52:16.14)
Right. And we take the number one, right?

Alvin Owusu (52:27.76)
Turin fall off so he goes back to number two, whatever, whatever. Those boys are going into Turin and they are playing for year number one and that's what I'm here for. This is why I get up early in the morning and make that first cup of coffee. This is what I want out my tennis life. I want to make the year in championships matter so they're going for it. Felix making this run, kinda wanted him to win too because he's tussling over your boy, Lorenzo Masetti.

Torrey Hawkins (52:46.966)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (52:56.102)
for that last spot in the Turin. And so, Mercedes got to take the hard road now going out to Athens, playing a 250 to try to work his way back into performing at the year in championships in front of his home Italian crowd. But it's exciting. In this time where we come out of US Open, it's a little, we go over to Asia, time zones are off, we got football going on here in the States, you get a little distracted.

You know, we get these indoor tournaments in Europe. It's awesome. And now we're, I feel like I got, we're about to make that last kick. We're coming down the back stretch, a hundred meters left to go. One more big event. I'm pumped. Let's do it. Before we get out of here, want to touch a little bit on the WTA, year end championship for, so they're playing right now. They've played, I think each lady has played one match.

Torrey Hawkins (53:33.131)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (53:53.625)
So far there's been one good match. Pugula versus golf this afternoon was pretty entertaining. They tend to go back and forth. think Kuko won the last two as recently as maybe Wuhan I think she beat Jesse. But Jesse's like eight and one in her last nine matches that have gone three sets. Like she just like locks in. Yeah, locks in. The other three matches that I've seen were not worth.

Torrey Hawkins (54:13.751)
Locks in. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (54:21.41)
Nothing much to write home about. mean, Arena beat up on Paulini. The first match was Ega versus Madison. Madison hasn't played a match, a tour match since US Open. again, much like center, Ega came out like ready to go, like full lather sweat, ready to roll. And Madison looked like she was trying to play her way into like, you need a couple of challenge ladder matches before she starts playing against the other top eight women in the world.

Torrey Hawkins (54:47.063)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (54:51.75)
And then we're back in our back in a looks like she's really benefiting from, having played a pretty heavy schedule since us open, trying to get into this event place and playing some good ball. And she, she brought the house to, to Amanda and a some of a, served lights out, um, returned like a dream.

Torrey Hawkins (55:09.078)
as she is apt to do, Alvin, and that's what we talked about before. She's that lightning rod. If the sun, stars are aligned, Rebekah is all day. She is that Morat Safin of things in the match where you don't know which Rebekah is gonna show up. And buddy, if it's on that day, you know what I mean? It's tough to let, period. She will put it together. It'll be which Rebekah shows up. And I think that's...

Alvin Owusu (55:11.458)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (55:39.082)
That's why I'm happy she made the the tournament. I know we're still group stages. I do want to give a shout out to my main man, Mark Merklin. The other half of Mark Knowles is the coaching team for, you know, for JPEG. And you know I like about that Alvin is not only am I a Pagula fan as I've had been expressed that many times on this podcast. I like to see players continue to make changes that are going to maximize what they can do and maybe draw on different

things, different experiences with those two. know, Noah was a top doubles player and obviously Merklin was a good doubles player and a very, very top college player back in the day. And just the attitude and his approach to the game is all about energy and being positive. I just feel like that's the kind of voice you need to have a year. I talked to Merklin little bit up in the open and I'm just so excited to see her with a couple of good solid.

coaches like that in her box. And she's always had some good coaches in her box from, you know, obviously from Michael Joyce from back in the day and others. I just feel like there's so many good things. He has taken everything from each one of them and has continued to improve as a result. Stokie talked about her, you know, when he was on our podcast before and he, you know, with some hits he's had with her and whatnot. There's been so many good people in her, in her tennis life. I personally, you sent me a great article on Gavin McMillan, who's now obviously in Coco's team. I just feel like those,

Alvin Owusu (56:38.362)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (57:03.637)
They're only gonna get better. And I really like that. This is not a, you know, that rivalry to me with her and, and, but Gula and, and Coco is a tough one for me because I remember when they were first playing doubles together back in the day and you know, so I, I still go back to that. And so if anybody knows her game well, it's, it's Jessica, know what I mean? So that's going to be one that she's going to have to continue to deal with. I am looking forward to you other matches coming up.

Alvin Owusu (57:15.066)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (57:30.145)
I'm looking forward to, and I think the group stage, if I looked at it correctly, I think the next group stage match is, isn't it, doesn't Pagula, doesn't, I'm looking right now. Paulini, doesn't Paulini play Madison? If I'm not mistaken, I'm trying, I was trying to look ahead and see. I'm looking forward to the next match. The two players on the snide. Let me, let me cut to that. The two players on the snide are Paulini and Madison.

in my opinion. They're the two players that in my opinion, one for hasn't played great tennis in last nine months and one indoors clearly not her best surface with these Amazons, you know, walking around, you know, bringing bringing heat, you know, I don't think there's a lady under five eight and that might be Pagula and Eka, right? So you everybody else is darned at six feet in the bottom. So that being said, clearly

Alvin Owusu (58:00.579)
Right, okay, fair.

Torrey Hawkins (58:28.009)
Jasmine's got her work cut out for her and obviously Madison's got to of shake off some cobwebs and kind of get back in the form, which probably won't happen by the time group stage is finished. Now with that said, I think it's still gonna come down to the three or four we kind of thought. I was, I say I was surprised that Pagula won, but after it was a Wuhan, I think she beat her and beat her straight, if I'm mistaken. I thought golf had played her pretty well, which to me shows well for Jessica to say.

I just played you two weeks ago. know the script, so I know what to adjust. And you always got to have that with Jessica. You always know she's going to be watching tape, figuring things out. If there's a slight edge to be taken, she's going to take it. But I still think this comes down to the four players, Arena, Coco, my opinion, Amanda, obviously, I'm going to put Rebecca in that same mix, not to throw shade on Eega. I just feel like in an indoor situation,

where weapons are king, feel like she who brings a few more weapons has the upper hand on paper. And that's where I'm going with it. So again, depending on how the group stage works, I haven't seen the draw and to know, or is it finished to even know what the four, who will emerge out of that. But that's where I'm kind of leaning at this point in time. But it's going to be a very, very, you know, it's going to be a very, exciting finish to this week. I'm looking forward to the tennis.

Alvin Owusu (59:34.214)
That's fair.

Torrey Hawkins (59:53.765)
Again, it's a you said it before, it's a suit as paradise. mean, if you can strike, you're indoor, buddy.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:00.314)
Yeah, and I think it's interesting how the way the groups shook out, right? So, Eega ended up in the group with all big hitters, right? She had Madison in her group. She actually plays her baka in a tomorrow, and then she also has Anna Samova in her group. So she's got some big hitters in her group. that's, you can look at it one of two ways. Either she's under siege the entire time, or she's getting to see a big ball every single day. So yeah, it's a little.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:26.951)
The easier, the easier half, right? She's not the easier half of that too. Let's be, let's be for real.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:30.999)
Right, and then on the other side you have Sabalinka who is the big hitter in her group with a lot of pretty good movers with Paulini, Coco, and I just lose, with JPEG as well. So yeah, it's interesting. feel like with the way the groups are put together, I'm with you. believe Coco and Irina will probably come out of that side. We'll see, it's tough now that we've.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:59.101)
It's tough.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:59.725)
Now that we've seen one match from everybody, it's a little tough to say. don't wanna like, you I've already seen a lot of these matches happen already. But tomorrow's matches, have, know, Eega versus Rebecca, Anasumova versus Keyes, and then they flip the other side on Tuesday with Coco playing Jasmine and Arena playing Pugula.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:19.943)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:23.501)
We still got a lot of work to get to. And I think the tournament wraps up on Thursday or Friday, so we'll come back to you guys with that at that time. But I think that's a place for us to pull the E-break. Again, this was fun. I really, really enjoyed Paris. New arena, new part of town. Same Paris indoors. Felt the same to me. But again, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:48.209)
Yeah. Court looks weird. I gotta say, the court looks tiny. I mean, does it not?

Alvin Owusu (01:01:54.79)
Well, it's the lighting. I think it's the lighting because they're playing at it like La Defense, is in the outskirts of Paris, and it's this very, very large stadium. think it's the second largest tennis stadium behind Arthur Ashe. It's very big, the center court is. But then the second and third court are kind of right next to each other, and you're at an outside court at US Open or something like that. And so that one looks really...

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:18.035)
Mmm.

Right, right. P1 and 2. Yeah. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:23.841)
Right, right, that one looks really small. Especially with the way they kind of pulled the bleachers in. So it's a little wonky, but I think it's, from a facility standpoint, it's an upgrade from Bursy, which I went to, I was there last year. The second court downstairs, it fit fewer people than my senior class in high school, right? It's like super small. And the line to get in there, it's general admission, so people, if you didn't have a ticket to center court,

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:47.645)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:52.751)
which luckily we did for the one day we were there. Like if you didn't camp out and get downstairs and stay there all day, you weren't watching any tennis. But now they have an extra court, they have more seating, I think it's a net positive, although Bursy is a neighborhood inside of downtown Paris, which we could walk to, as opposed to now you gotta go out. But that's just a little thing. But yeah, let's.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:59.987)
Wow. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:09.714)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:14.993)
felt the same thing about about Rod Laver Cup when it first came out, by the way, I felt like the court, the stadium is so massive. The court seems small, right? And let's be honest, I think that's the one beautiful thing about Arthur Ashe, however it was designed. Maybe there's just there's maybe there's not so much extra room, even though there's a lot of extra room. It just and maybe the way the cup of the stadium sits, it just it doesn't feel like it is small.

You know what mean? The court feels bigger almost on Ashford. These two courts, I felt like the guys were playing. It looked like a little bigger than Mini Tennessee when they were hitting balls. You were like, what court are these guys on? And Felix ripped the ball at the end of the match. And I don't think he made it into the stands. I'm like, is this thing?

Is this thing like 100 yards away from the people? mean, it was, couldn't, cause all you can see is the lower tier people, right? In the stands. Anyway, all that said, I look forward to going to one these with you in the future. I agree with you. Great tennis. And I'm looking forward to the end of the year and as well as the WTA finals. So we'll get back to you in a week.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:12.526)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:26.192)
Yep, we'll wrap up strong. All right, that's our show for today. Again, subscribe, follow, like, all that stuff and best of three, we are out.