WTA Finals Review: Rybakina Just Sent A Message | Ep. 75

Alvin Owusu (00:00.11)
And welcome to another edition of the best of three podcast. I'm Alvin, that's Tory. And we're here to talk a little WTA finals. Elena Rebacca just went coast to coast in Riyadh, breaking bones and taking names and walked away with a nice little pretty paycheck of $5.3 million or so. So not bad for one week's worth of work, but yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (00:01.16)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (00:20.743)
for her.

Tough sledding did not take a loss the whole week, eight days, whatever the heck long it is. I read somewhere that 11, 12 matches consecutive for the end of the year and beat, I wanna say that what I read, what I read was six and she beat Sal Blanca. So seven straight top 10 opponents in those 12 matches. Seven straight, not, mean, think about it, straight.

Alvin Owusu (00:29.198)
The whole tournament, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (00:48.084)
Yeah, she

Yeah, I mean.

Torrey Hawkins (00:52.794)
And we're not talking she beat 10, nine, eight, seven. mean, she beat four, she beat three, she beat one. I mean, she went through all of them. mean, whoever was in front of her. I just, that from being the last one in to not just winning, that in itself is tough, but to beat them in the fashion that she did and to obviously be technically number nine coming in, you know what I mean, to this thing. That says, that says.

Alvin Owusu (01:02.455)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22.236)
huge things for 2026.

Alvin Owusu (01:24.874)
I you know, that's an interesting way to look at it thinking about next year. So I want to get there, but you know, watching Elena Rabak and I think we've talked about her ad nauseum on this podcast as I know specifically that I've said, I find her to be the third best player in the world, right? Like, but behind Sabalinka and Iga, like when I look at the players that are in the field, I go that one right there, that's...

third on most days, some days you could look at her and she is the best player in the world. But let's give credence to those who have won multiple, right, let's give the credence to those who have won the multiple Grand Slams between Sabalenka and Suyatek and so on and so on. But when you look at tools for tools, I go that's what top three tennis looks like. And the knock on

Torrey Hawkins (02:00.392)
For sure. And Eega, Coco, and Thorn.

Alvin Owusu (02:22.592)
on Elena this year and probably in the last two or three years, it's just her inability to be consistent in finish events, right? She'll look like this version of herself rounds one through three, and then something happens, right? And in the last month, there's...

Torrey Hawkins (02:32.84)
Right. Right. She can snatch victory from the... Or she can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Right, right, right, right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:40.792)
Probably such victory for there you go. There you go. Yeah. but, in the last few weeks or so, like you've mentioned in the, in the open there, I think 11 matches in a row one now. and she's beaten the likes of even before this event, right? She beat Paulini. She beat Alexandra. She beat, I mean, she has recently beaten Sabalinka as well in the last, you know, maybe that's not in this last street, but, to walk through this tournament, the way she, the way she did,

playing I think the best version of her tennis, right? Which is all.

Torrey Hawkins (03:12.881)
Right. And in your attendance, of course, it speaks to her style and her ball strike and her physique. And she's six foot tall for crying out loud. And she moves incredibly well. when you have that, that's going to make some dangerous situations for a lot of people. Alvin, I made a comment last time. I think it was last time. And I called her the Morat Safin of the current level. And at the time, I was

Alvin Owusu (03:37.39)
Mm-hmm, you did.

Torrey Hawkins (03:41.563)
You always, hate comparisons because I feel like we throw them out too quickly. I feel like we don't, we'll give an upstart. The, the nod in this case, Rebecca versus Savage. She's of course, clearly a top player and congratulations to her on a great, great week of tennis. But clearly I'm shading Morat a little bit with the Grand Slams one and his history in the game. The comparison I'm making was.

She is the player no one wants to play on her good day, on Atlanta's good day. And that regardless of your grand slams, to your point earlier, it doesn't matter. You could have won all four. If you're playing Atlanta or Bakina on her good day, the ball is in her court. And that was Saffin, right? Fed knew it. Nadal knew it. Novak, Novak was a bit younger for that whole.

tear for those years when Saptin was lurking in the water so to speak. But they all knew that if Moratz on, it's over. And when multiple Grand Slam champs say that, had that level of respect, to me that was what my comment was. And I stand by that comment for Alen Rubackina, especially this week. You heard right here Alvin, I think you're being kind and I don't want to get too too far ahead into the year review.

She kicked two players out of the top four this week, in my opinion. And I feel like she did so in such a fashion that she showed what she can do, which is clearly she had a good week of tennis and had a good last two weeks of tennis. But she did it in such a fashion that showed.

Alvin Owusu (05:13.879)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (05:30.06)
If I'm playing like I should, you can't beat me. That sounds like a simple statement on the surface, but I want to really drill down on this. You cannot beat me. I can beat myself. I can have my serve errors like I normally do. I can beat you off both wings. I'm fast. I'm six foot tall. I cover the court like no other. Alvin, she doesn't take a lot of crazy chances. She drills.

Alvin Owusu (05:37.386)
So.

Alvin Owusu (05:57.804)
No, not really.

Torrey Hawkins (05:58.918)
cross-court forehand winners. She goes through you, wider than you, deeper than you, and she takes that point and has that hold, that little bit of a hold on the forward, you don't know where she's going. And she catches people flat footed. Let me say that again. She catches number one, number four, number three players in the world flat footed. Not you and me. Top, top, current, active Grand Slam champ winning players flat footed.

What that tells me is that ball had so much heat on it and was so well hidden with the front shoulder that you didn't know where it was going. And it didn't matter. You probably wouldn't have gotten there anyway. So when I tell you, you talking about top four, Alvin, I'm putting her three and that's just with an asterisk to say, only reason why I'm putting her higher is because she hasn't won a slam yet. But I think that slam is coming. Wait a minute, a few years back, right, sorry, sorry.

Alvin Owusu (06:47.309)
Well, no, she did win, she won Wimbledon in 2022. So I think that's the caveat though. Like she has won a slam. She has shown us that I can put together seven wins over the course of two weeks. Like, that's usually the thing where you go, okay, you can win it at the 500 level. You can do well at the 1000s, the putting it together to win a grand slam is a whole different deal. She kind of did it in a reverse order. Like she won the grand slam in 2022 and then...

Torrey Hawkins (07:04.271)
Right, right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (07:10.894)
Right, right, that's what I forgot about. That was those early.

Alvin Owusu (07:13.517)
And then even well then even she even finaled she finaled Australian Open in 2023 like six months later, right? And that was a fantastic match.

Torrey Hawkins (07:17.667)
Right, that, right. And then had that whole issue where she was in and out with the coach and coach was getting banned from tournaments. yeah. And then she took her walk about. Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.

Alvin Owusu (07:26.847)
Right, so I think there's something to be mentioned there though, like the Elena Rebacchina experience, right? Like you mentioned, she can take the racket out of anyone's hands. She's probably one, Amanda Anisimova doesn't really do it to Irina Savalinka in the same way, but she is able to put Irina on her tail.

Like when you, when you watch them trade groundstrokes, it's like, can see sometimes arena is like holding on, holding onto the rope for dear life. Like I can't get ahold of this rally. This woman's ball is actually bigger than I am the bigger than the ball that I'm producing going the other direction. And that is, that doesn't happen to arena Sabalinka. but that's your, think that that feeds your case for the Morat Safen comp though. Like that is, that's it. Like, and when she's on her day and more for her when she's, it's not really.

Torrey Hawkins (08:07.749)
No, no.

Alvin Owusu (08:18.613)
often about the tennis being played. It's the, it's the person she, how she brings herself to the court on that particular day. and I think we have to keep in mind that like, she's a professional tennis player, but she is also a young woman, a young person, like at age 26 years old, right? Like she's still, she's hitting her prime right now, but still, if there's something going on in your personal life off the court, it will ha it can have an effect on the way that you perform your job.

Right? So, okay. So we take that, we take that to be what it is. And with her coaching turmoil over the last, better part of the last 18 months, seemingly resolving itself in the last few months with Vukov being reinstated, right? Whatever, whatever the public or the tennis world thinks about that relationship, it seems to work for them because Vukov back, Elena, boom, up into the right. What you going to say? What am I going say?

Torrey Hawkins (08:49.111)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (09:01.868)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (09:07.756)
Right. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (09:14.287)
You're right. Right. I'm not saying anything, but hey, we keep it up and look forward to seeing more in 2026. I want to expound, not push back, expound on your point about taking the racket out of the hand. I watched a good bit of all the matches. I went back and rewatched several highlights a few times and I came away with something I don't often see and

Torrey Hawkins (09:45.538)
Rebecca has an ability that I have not seen much before. The closest thing I saw in this level, and I'm gonna speak to it in a second, was when Naomi beat Serena.

It was the ability to take the harder hitters best shot.

Torrey Hawkins (10:11.093)
a combination of absorbing and redirecting and adding a little extra and took it back through, okay?

Alvin Owusu (10:16.832)
So glad you mentioned this.

Torrey Hawkins (10:24.413)
The side. The point I want to speak to, because I want you to speak to, I'm sure you got some thoughts.

When I'm a big hitter, AKA Arena Sableka, right? My back swing is pretty large. My front swing, by definition, is pretty large because that racket speed's gotta keep going somewhere. When a person takes that ball with a little bit more of a compact swing and hits through the court back through me, I'm still in the recoil, if you will, the counter load, I used to call it.

Alvin Owusu (10:40.663)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (10:53.421)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (10:59.628)
Right?

Torrey Hawkins (11:02.531)
my previous shot. So by definition when it comes back I'm doing the matrix simply because I wasn't finished my overall shot was not finished or had just finished by the time that ball is returned. You typically see this when a player has just come down landed on their left foot if they're right-handed and the ball is drilled at them on the return of serve and now you have to kind of somehow maneuver, smother

Alvin Owusu (11:17.261)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (11:30.327)
You know, we talked about the Nicole Vyta-Sova step where you kind of take this one knee down approach and kind of basically do a on the rise, one step smother shot where you get down with a load of the ground and taking the ball early. Shout out to Nicole Vyta-Sova, by the way, back in the day. But what's now happening is that's happening off the ground. You went all in on a ground stroke that you thought was juicy enough to hit and you paid the price for it because that juicy came back.

Alvin Owusu (11:44.843)
Hehehehe

Torrey Hawkins (11:59.094)
Bigger, deeper and cleaner. You cannot hit a big shot without having a pretty big swing. But Elena does it in a way where she has a little bit of a smaller, a little more of compact swing. Just as live of an arm. And Alvin, she has taken away your time punishing you for hitting a big shot with a big swing. It's just the craziest level of time.

Alvin Owusu (12:22.88)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (12:27.65)
efficiency or time conservation, I don't know whatever term you want to come up with, that she takes away your time and punishes you for the decision to hit bigger. Every big hitter wants to do what? Hit big. And what does she do? She punishes you for it. Then she redirects you when she needs to. And even her open stances in the corners, they look like she had time. Oh, I ran a little short on time. I had to go down the line this time.

Alvin Owusu (12:41.834)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (12:57.118)
Not going down the line late, sloppy, off balance. No, you know what? I gotta go down the this time. That's the opposite she's playing for me right now. She's playing that well with pace, Alvin, and taking your time away in the process. That you don't see every day.

Alvin Owusu (13:11.638)
So yeah, so it's like, it's not just, she's doing it really well. And I think it was on full display this week because of the other players that she was playing in secession, right? Like we got the best of the best out here, right? It's like popping into the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam off of, in round one, right? So, but I think what I started to notice is like, not just with Elena, but also in the Anisimova-Sablinka match, it's like, we often talk about the ability to,

Torrey Hawkins (13:23.744)
Yup. Yup. Yup. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (13:43.117)
I'm not saying necessarily counter punch or counter punish, but like how well do you defend against pace? But it's not really that it's how well do you counter pace? Like, that's to your point, like all of these women are hitting the ball so big. I think Amanda Anasamova is a really good example here. Not only because Irina played them back to back matches, but she can do it off of one wing really well off the backhand.

Torrey Hawkins (13:48.502)
Yup. Yup.

Torrey Hawkins (14:08.065)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (14:09.004)
She can shorten it up, right? She can redirect pace there. Not so, not so grand on the forehand. She needs a little more time, a little more for traditional, traditional buildup where Elena on the other hand is, is willing to pull short, take back on both sides without sacrificing pace, right? She's taking that pace, she's redirecting and she's just, like, it's like watching someone play pong, right? Or like, or pinball or something like that. It's like in one way out the other way without.

Torrey Hawkins (14:15.169)
No more time. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (14:37.365)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (14:38.442)
without really sacrificing any cleanliness or power on the stroke. It's like, that where we're, is that the next evolution of the women's game that we're starting to see?

Torrey Hawkins (14:51.133)
1000%. And we've seen different iterations of it. Ega did it to a large extent when she first came on tour with the return game. I've taken ball so early people couldn't handle it. Paolini is just in my, and I don't know shade on Ega. Paolini is just a shorter, more athletic at times version, right? In terms of trying to take balls that much earlier. And now you've got the return of the big hitter. All these, all these women are tall and they're big hitters. mean, from Madison to Amanda to Arena, these

Alvin Owusu (14:59.339)
Right?

Torrey Hawkins (15:20.417)
are some tall women. they're bringing heat, they're covering court and they are striking the ball. I don't know my conversions as well in kilometers per hour, but they're 170, 180, know, ground strokes. I mean, they are punishing the darn ball on certain things. And maybe not that high on the, maybe that serves, but the forehands and backhands are coming right behind. I know they're hitting high eighties, low nineties.

forehands and backhands. that being said, and you mentioned Amanda and Arena when they played, but you can see the body blows happening between those two. That was a slugfest. Both are getting hurt, hurting and getting hurt by set pace. Rebecca seems to be more comfortable in those kind of rallies, has time to step in her forearms cleaner sharper was really clear to me when I rewatched the Pagula match where Jess was redlining a good bit of the time.

Buggy whipping, just hardly ever buggy whip. She hardly has to. She's got compact strokes.

Alvin Owusu (16:21.545)
I can't even imagine seeing Jessica Gula buggy whip. Like I don't have a mental memory of it.

Torrey Hawkins (16:25.45)
This is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying. And so when she's buggy with it and kind of falling back and taking Jessica, Jessica has pretty compact strokes herself and doesn't sacrifice much pace when she tags with the ball on both wings. She had to. A little bit of falling back, a little bit of losing balance. The ball was just coming out of that fast. And hey, hats off to JPEG for taking a tough three. But just so that you can appreciate what I'm saying, Alvin, when you feel like you're redlining, right? It's

God, it's just something that you just don't see that often. And so I wanted to mention that because I feel like that's why I feel like the kudos are worth, it's worth us pouring copious praise on this because she has brought a level now, a bit of a, it's a minor leap now, not a quantum leap just yet, but do it at a slam and do it over the course of time at a slam in 26 to me, that'll really prove to me that it'll truly be that level.

quantum leap, but she is starting to show people you can read faster, hit cleaner, move better, you know, very similar to what's center's doing on the men's side. But then she's still bringing howitzers on both sides. So it's not like it's not like she's sacrificing anything in the process. She's just doing what you're doing a little bit closer to baseline a little faster. and by the way, she's six feet tall and moves well. So, you know, you run out of

Alvin Owusu (17:51.756)
and does serve like she's got somewhere to be as well.

Torrey Hawkins (17:52.735)
You don't have ways to defend it.

and have a serve. Have a serve in 115 to 120.

Alvin Owusu (18:00.662)
Well, mean, that's the, well, that's the, that's the, think that is the, true differentiator and why we always, you can never really count her out is because she can get herself in and out of service games quicker than anyone else on the women's tour. Like she steps up and expects to hit us an ace per game. And that is, that is not necessarily something I know. Arena's got a pretty big, obviously arena has a, has a fantastic serve, but, I think serving for easy points.

off of aces and serve winners, like, or service winners. Like that's, that is her, that's her special gift. Her special gift. And the rest of her game.

Torrey Hawkins (18:33.052)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah. yet still gets broken and yet still gets broken quite a bit. So that just shows when she gets that part down. If I go back and look at all the stats and go matches and I'm in the IBM room after the end of tournament and getting all the stats, that number jumps off the page. I look at some of the stats and some of the matches. mean, some of the break points saved are like stupid, you know, 14 or 30. I mean, you're like, I have 30 break points against you. You know what mean? And that's for a lot of them, probably with the exception of Sabalinka.

who served a very cool 75 to 80 % for the tournament. So I say that to say, she still has lot of room for improvement, but she's still breaking you like it's going out of style. And she can still average, I think she was averaging between 10 and 15 aces a match. So when the serve is on, right, hello. You know what I mean? So it didn't matter to the player.

Alvin Owusu (19:22.709)
Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (19:28.234)
Right. And she's also, she, and she also showed off her, her, her dexterity at the net as well. Like was able to come forward, like take a lot of those, you know, getting into those kinds of side to side rallies, go line, come in, finish off with a, with a nice open court volley or a drop volley. Like she showed a little bit of everything. Like she was in full flow, almost the entire, the entirety of the tournament, you know, short of that, you know, maybe that first set against, against Ega. besides that, like she was, she was, she was lights out. I would love to see.

Torrey Hawkins (19:55.676)
Bye. Bye.

Alvin Owusu (19:58.316)
you know, her against Amanda and Ernest. I know they played in the very first match of the event, but you know, kind of going back macro, my thoughts on the event itself. Like, I don't know if I mentioned this beforehand, I love this event. I love the idea of this event, and I understand that there's a difference between the way we, as fans, you know.

Torrey Hawkins (20:02.462)
up.

Torrey Hawkins (20:10.095)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (20:20.029)
enjoy this event from home versus the way that it is, it actually happens in person, right? It's a very small stadium. it is some level of full, I think it's like 4,200, capacity, but so it's, it's a small, it's a small stadium, but, and maybe there is something to the, to the idea that there aren't a lot of like, no one's, no one's a home favorite there. Like there is no, there's no, no one to that anyone's inherently going to cheer for.

Torrey Hawkins (20:24.51)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (20:31.889)
Well, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (20:44.539)
Right. Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (20:49.095)
in the arena, they're just trying to cheer for good tennis. from my standpoint, I remember that old event, I think it was maybe a Georgia event or Southern event, top 16s, where you had, I think it was maybe in Augusta. so like, Jonesy. Yeah, but like to qualify for an event like that where you go into it in the very beginning, from the very first match, you're talking about...

Torrey Hawkins (20:59.121)
course. Augusta. Yeah, it was in discuss. Shout out to my boy Craig Jones who ran that tournament.

Alvin Owusu (21:14.387)
Like the top players in the, in the, I think it was in the South, right? Was it the top 16 players in the, in the section? Like this event, you got the top eight women in the world. So as effectively you're starting from the quarterfinals of a grand slam, except for you don't have the benefit of any of week one to get yourself into. Like, and so you, you, you saw that early, like, you know, Paulini came in a little sick. Okay. Maybe this isn't her event anyways, right? Indoor, hard courts. Fine. even Madison dinged up, right? You know,

Torrey Hawkins (21:17.926)
So,

Torrey Hawkins (21:37.373)
Madison came up.

Alvin Owusu (21:43.092)
lucky to get two matches out of her. And then, I think Jessica and Coco both, they played a tough match against each other, like, isn't a, mean, Coco won it last year, so let's put that out there. But with the other four players playing at the top of their game, I think Amanda and Samova kind of throwing a nice little wrench into this mix of players. Exactly, exactly. It made for, it made for.

Torrey Hawkins (22:03.022)
It's better in the works. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:09.003)
It made for something really, really interesting. And I know there's like, there's only a handful of, you know, indoor events on the women's side towards the back end of this year. But like, I was thinking about it as we go forward, like we don't have a grand, an indoor grand slam, right? Um, true indoor grand slam, like all of the two, obviously they all have, we have some, we've got some roofs here and there, but like a true indoor grand slam. is the, it is the weird other surface, other scenario, but this, this tournament almost feels like.

Torrey Hawkins (22:22.717)
Right, True. We have some coverage, right?

Alvin Owusu (22:36.487)
a fifth slam in its own way, right? You've got these great players and it's a sprint from the very first match. There's no plan of qualifier to get yourself warmed up. We practiced for a couple days, first match, everything matters if you wanna see yourself holding that check at the end of the tournament. I'm a big fan of it. I really, really enjoy it.

Torrey Hawkins (22:39.549)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (22:44.509)
honor from Saint.

Nope.

Torrey Hawkins (22:53.233)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:57.789)
It's a great event and hats off to Elena and again, miss consistent, Irina Sabalenka. mean, once again, goes the distance, once again, darn near defends her seed all the way through, got to the finals itself obviously and had some great matches. I really enjoyed Irina playing Amanda. It was a great match to me, both to the absolute slugfest that match and it was great to see.

good tennis and we're back and I just again you can't say enough about it going from ninth of eight to to winning the whole thing and didn't and you know didn't take a loss the whole time it was just really intense looking forward to what this bodes for 2026 I made a quick point and you can pause me now if you want I do feel she's disrupting two people out of the four so tell me if you want me to keep going

Alvin Owusu (23:49.035)
We can keep going the top four right now or Sabalenka Suyantek Golf and Anasimova are used so I said I think she's the third best player I I feel good about her being at third because she does go back and forth with arena like they've they've split I mean of the last Seven times they've played it's now four three. We're back in it, right? So like that's

That is a true rivalry right there. Ega has had the better of that matchup. I think she's won five of the last six matchups, something like that, between her and her back and outside of this week. So.

Torrey Hawkins (24:24.636)
Throw all past everything out. Forget everything we set up to this point right here. Soul food, key and peel. This to me changes everything. think Pegula had a head to head win, history win over Rebecca as well. But I don't think she had, this is her first win, I this is like 2023. Put all that to the side. I think Iga and Jessica will be put.

Alvin Owusu (24:30.763)
Okay

Torrey Hawkins (24:53.654)
out of the top four if this kind of form continues. She's just playing cleaner, stronger, handles their pace. Both players were redlining at multiple times against that top four. I think Amanda comes in at a very strong, at a very strong three, four in that level, just because sometimes her variance of play can be up and can be down a little bit. Not for what she can do, just the overall, she had some.

great resetters in this tournament. Came back from behind in a bunch of matches, which I was great. Tested with her new fitness and her new mindset. But she can be three, she can be four on a great day. She can beat number one, right? And we've seen that. Still needs to power through and win a slam, right? And kind of get to that level, although she's, she finals Wimby, right? And semis of US? what was her next, or was it final US? Final US.

Alvin Owusu (25:42.421)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (25:47.133)
Amanda, she finally wumbled in, finally US Open. Yep, packed it back.

Torrey Hawkins (25:50.555)
Final two back pretty darn close if you ask my opinion. She's clearly here to stay but I look at those two as going out. I also look at Paolini and a few others as perhaps not quite regaining that top four spot. I look at others like Madison. I look at others like Badosa. It's going to be tough sledding getting back into that top 10 Alvin. It's going to be very, very tough. I don't want to get too far ahead but just to say I think

that Alanna over back and it's full on into that top four. think Coco's still there. By the way, shout out to Coco. Her forehand has never looked better. I have ad nauseam to your point, complained about the serve and the forehand for so long. Her forehand looked great. I mean, not good, great. Big, confident, hitting it through the court, not just going heavy, not just going cross court. She takes care of some of these little double faults and a little bit of maybe just trusting that a little bit more.

let Gavin Mellon get a little bit more time in on that thing. She's only getting better, Alvin, and she's gonna continue. If you're winning two slams and you still have room to improve, that's a lot of good in your corner. That's the four to me. You got Amanda, you got Irina, you got Elena, and you got Coco. That's your new top four, in my opinion, from what I saw this past week.

Alvin Owusu (27:07.722)
I'm not so quick to, when you start, I look at it just a little bit differently and it's not nuanced really. I think we just fundamentally feel a little bit differently about ego right now. To your point about Coco, right? I think we need to keep in mind that Coco's only 21 years old and this is something that I'm gonna, she's only 21. That is.

Torrey Hawkins (27:12.473)
Next

Torrey Hawkins (27:24.411)
and she's only 21. She will always be top four because of that.

Alvin Owusu (27:29.258)
That's something that I'm going to put that off until our WTA year end conversation, because I think that's something that we really need to keep in mind. And I always look at these things through where is this player on their journey of their career? Right. So when you start to look at the rest of these women, like Arenas 27, right? Elena's 26. Ega's 24. Amanda's 24. Right. So I think right there, you've got four women, five women. can't, I can't even count my own math. Four women.

between the ages of 24 and 27 who are in the top six in the world right now. Jessica's 31. Let's just call this Spade a Spade here, right? She's much closer to the end of her career than she is the beginning. She peaked late. think she's done a fantastic job to be a true stalwart of this tournament. She's made the tournament three, four years in a row and considering there was no, she almost went from other tour player to...

Torrey Hawkins (28:10.606)
Father, mother, time is up. We get it.

Alvin Owusu (28:26.472)
top 10 player and then like she said, once she figured it out, she's like, this is where I belong. So, but she is 31 years old. I would imagine within two years or so, we're probably saying goodbye to Jessica on her own, like on her own account. Like she doesn't really have much left to prove. Like maybe give it another year to go for a grand slam. But you know, if she doesn't win one, I think we, we hold her career in the same, in the same regard, right? But extremely high regard.

Torrey Hawkins (28:38.807)
Maybe less, but yep. 100%.

Torrey Hawkins (28:52.226)
on same high regard, I might add. And I hope she takes over and becomes WTA president or at some level because she's just too much embodies everything that is good and professional about the game. And I love her. I just love her in general. So keep going.

Alvin Owusu (29:09.866)
Fair. So, okay, so now when you start talking about like the way that we view players prime, right? You could see, you would say, Arena is firmly in hers. Atlanta is probably in hers, right? That 26 to 28 range. Okay, boom, we got 26, 27. Fantastic. they crack heads like bulls, right? Then it's like Hancock.

Torrey Hawkins (29:30.234)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (29:34.665)
with Will Smith and Charlize Theron in the sky. Boom, right? Just makes no kind of sense. Just more lightning, more lightning. It's great. But then Eega and Amanda being 24, like Eega's won how many Grand Slam? Six? She is one Australian away from the career of Grand Slam, right? And she is still coming into her prime age. Amanda is like, has...

Torrey Hawkins (29:36.314)
And Charlie's done,

Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (29:57.993)
just another player has entered the competition. Like we got Amanda this year, the best version of Amanda this year after being away from the game for a little while and showing flashes before that. But now she's here, she's still getting better. She's looking at 2026 like this is my time to win a Grand Slam and really challenge for the top spot, like truly challenge for the top spot. So now when I'm looking at that, that's what I consider the top four. feel like Coco is probably the one that's

Torrey Hawkins (30:19.193)
True.

Alvin Owusu (30:27.784)
It's hard to say that she won a Grand Slam this year, right? What am I gonna say about Coco? Like I haven't said about Coco. Like a bad day is six, only gonna get better. Her bad day is six in the world. Right, and I think this speaks more towards the, know, kind of the, not necessarily parody, but like we just had a year and we're four different women won a Grand Slam. A fifth woman won the year in championships, right?

Torrey Hawkins (30:35.161)
Only that only gonna get better her bad her bad

Torrey Hawkins (30:51.669)
And a fifth one, one, right?

Alvin Owusu (30:56.138)
And it's all kind of, know, arena got, they presented her with year number one in the middle of the tournament. Like she is year number one. She won one grand slam. She had a fantastic year, but there are a lot of other women who said, walk away from this year going, had a great year too. I had a fantastic year as well. And you know, a different 1000 result here and there. I think arena just had no dips all year long, like no dips. that's, that's.

Torrey Hawkins (31:15.927)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (31:20.118)
Yeah. Miss consistency. we're going to agree to disagree. I think it is a great argument that it can only be solved with time and going into next year. And I look forward to seeing it. I'll be honest. And I hope you're right. I really do. We don't have any disagreements on JPEG. think she's clearly on closer toward retiring than she's been through a handful of surgeries. She's had some and just playing some great tennis right now. So proud of how she did. And speaking of

I think had the closest match with Rebecca of all all the matches, know, with her, you know, six, four or whatever, maybe six, six, four and third. So just saying, you know, it certainly, certainly was, was, was, was fiercely contested as it always is with Jessica. You're never going to get out of there with, with, with an easy match. So anyway, I look forward to it. I just feel like those players are on notice and there's another three or four that are on notice of exiting the top 10.

that may not get there at this rate. I just think that's it's because once we have a newcomer, as you said, into the octagon, well, the problem is that they got to kick somebody out. They don't make room for 15 in the top 10. So that's kind of where we are now. And that's the neat thing about this thing going into next year.

Alvin Owusu (32:33.597)
You know, that's an interesting, you know, just kind of, don't know. We can talk about it here. I think it's time to talk about here. The, the next, the next eight, right? We take the top eight in the tour finals, but the next eight is a very interesting group in itself. Like, do I, I look at, you know, kind of going in order here, Mirja Andreeva's at nine, Alexandra, 10, Bencic, Claire Towson, Lina Nosková, Alina Svitalina, and then Emma Navarro, and then...

Osaka, right? Do I really think any of those women are gonna supplant the ones ahead of them? Like, there's actually one that I do think will, I'm gonna save it for that year in wrap up, but Mira probably should have been in the event. Like, that's the weird thing. Like, had it not been for that mishap, like getting into, was it Tokyo?

Torrey Hawkins (33:13.506)
Yep. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (33:21.456)
She was eight. Right, right. On paper, think that she was eight-ish, you know, whatever the number was, right? So.

Alvin Owusu (33:30.033)
Right. But yeah, I think, you know, we started looking at, I mentioned age earlier, like someone like Svetalina is 14 in the world. She's 31 years old. Like to, be top eight at the end of the year, you need to be playing a full schedule and playing at the highest level, like, like finishing, you know, semi-finals are better at a couple of grand slams in a year. It's not easy, especially with the top six that we just mentioned that are like crushing it right now. They're crushing it.

Emma Navarro was kind of in that space last year and then she took a step back this year.

Torrey Hawkins (34:02.985)
I was gonna say that the two I was gonna say that have a shot, that have a shot, Mira to me is just a matter of time. The two that have a shot to me are Osaka and Navarro, period end of story. The rest of them to me, buddy, I hope they cash in on the freaking flyer miles and whatnot. Alvin, the game is just continuing to move forward. One of the things people don't fully get in my opinion, I'm just gonna be quick about this because this is, it's the biggest,

And yet simplest thing to understand, every week those players go out and go the distance, they get better. Arena has gone the distance in so many tournaments this year. She has few bad days. That's not to say she can't be beaten. She can be outright beat. Anybody can. But your word profile gets so small and that type of player has to play so well on a given day.

Alvin Owusu (34:52.691)
Case in point.

Torrey Hawkins (35:00.469)
that it just becomes unlikely over time. You have two other factors from playing all week. Confidence, you can win on bad days, and you win different ways because you've had to, right? Think of the effect of the Beatles had when they had to play all those different songs and music, create their own music when they were at the old club in Germany back in the day when they were creating all this they had to create music, right? They had to play all the time.

Alvin Owusu (35:07.785)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (35:29.963)
So you start learning how to figure this out pretty quickly. Confidence, ranking, and now you have the ability to win on bad days, week in, week out. So long as you don't go through a major injury, you are actually playing better. Now look at the opposite. The player that played only one or two matches, while their body is fresh and their fitness is there, mentally they don't believe. Point wise, they don't have the ranking to

Alvin Owusu (35:43.837)
Injury, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (35:59.583)
So plant slash be seeded over. They might even play that player sooner in the next tournament, certainly the next year when points roll off. And here's the third, deep down there's blood in the water for them and not the other way around. So it's not just that that player's playing good ball right now. It's that blood's in the water on the other side. And now you are in a, you're in a, you're in a tailspin. You just can't really avoid it. You'll be doing good if you are, bench-inch will be doing good to re.

to hold seed in the tournaments coming up, Alvin. And that's just what it is. Not just her age and everything else is where it's Fidelina too. And they are phenomenal players, great players. Love them to death. Fidelina is married to my main man, Gail Monfey. So she'll always be a favorite mine and her style test has had a great year this year. And a mom hats off to her. I'm just talking the tennis right now. And two or three more players have now bumped into Alvin. We're forgetting about Paula Badosa who hadn't even been around.

Alvin Owusu (36:52.713)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (36:58.902)
most of the year who was like a seven or eight in the world. Just saying, well, regardless, but she was top 10 coming into this year. She'll be lucky to get back top 20. Let's be honest. So this is what I'm saying. I just feel like we're at a point where half all of those names you mentioned will, when they call it a day is up to them. That's not my, I'm not crescing. I'm not sitting here with a crystal ball. That's not my decision to make. They will not be top 10 relevant. They may not be top 15 relevant.

Alvin Owusu (37:00.041)
Yeah, she's broken. Paola's broken. She's broken.

Torrey Hawkins (37:28.182)
with these because your, your, uh, Pauline's aren't going anywhere. They're, they're getting bumped down. They're not necessarily, they're not pushed to round 32. They're just going to get pushed from four and five down to seven or eight as seeds do. So that being, they're still going to be playing good ball. So I just say it to you, Alvin, I just feel like at some point we're now kind of weirdly getting into this new top four that can all beat each other on a given day. And they're all.

pretty darn athletic, pretty darn tall and have weapons on all sides. The one player that's still remaining to get her last weapon figured out is the youngest and perhaps the most athletic. So when she gets that figured out and starts to have more twice as many aces double faults, where right now she's double faulting more than she's acing, she will add to her two grand slams. And at that point it could really be over. So that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying

And the other eight you just mentioned don't have weapons on both, don't have athleticism on both, and they do not have the ability to either take your time away or go through you. And both of those things, top four, dare I say the top six have.

Alvin Owusu (38:30.651)
Right, that's the kicker.

Alvin Owusu (38:42.173)
And I think that's the thing that I want to make sure we don't skip over. It's more of a testament to the depth of the top six right now. anywhere even, we're even leaving out like, like Jung can win, right? She's been kind of banged up a little bit. She was in this event last year. Like she'll be, if she's healthy, I think she is a tall, good mover with big weapons.

Torrey Hawkins (38:52.213)
Phew, that right. Top eight.

Torrey Hawkins (39:00.341)
Yeah!

Torrey Hawkins (39:07.733)
Queen win. She is one of those that would have been top four five that's coming down to eight, seven, eight. That's exactly what I'm talking about. What do do with that?

Alvin Owusu (39:11.771)
She's one of them. She's one of them. Right. Exactly. So it's yeah, exactly. So like, mean, do I think like Jasmine Pavlini kind of initially came out of nowhere last year was her breakout year. She figured some things out, right? Finals French Open, Wimbledon back to back. Okay. Makes this event fantastic. We were all maybe expecting a little bit of a drop from her. think, I think a testament to her is getting back into this event this year, right? Not top four, but okay.

She got in the event. She was six, I think six coming in. I think you look at someone like Madison probably doesn't get back here next year. Madison had four good weeks last year of the season. She wins the Worm Event before Australia. She wins Australia. She's semifinals Indian Wells. That's kind of, that was the top of her year. Granted, good run.

Torrey Hawkins (39:54.462)
No.

Alvin Owusu (40:10.344)
That'll do it. That will do it. But yeah, for her to come back with maybe regressing back to her norm, her norm is 15-ish in the world. That's usually where Madison is.

Torrey Hawkins (40:26.516)
for a former slam finalist in 2017, a phenomenal second chapter. And to my point, she's on the other side in my opinion, closer to that, know, that Golden Sun said more than she is on the side of having a third chapter. Most players never have a third chapter. They're lucky to have two chapters. think she's certainly on that third, on the closer to the other side of things calling it a day. However, great year for her.

to my point, we know she may not be in that conversation for the top four, top eight after this, just due to injuries and health alone, let alone the other things that are factors. So that's all I'm saying. I just feel like it's to your point, Parity, but I wanna speak to one last point too. And they are hitting their way in and knocking these other pegs down a bit. They're not winning and grinding through. They are hitting themselves through. And the reason why it's got so strong,

is that those players in the other side of the Sviontech vortex, she's now approving, buddy, if you want to handle players like me and the JPEGs, if you want to go through players like me, you got to bring it. And the tour has now responded with, okay, challenge accepted. And that's where we are. And so the Sviontechs and Pagos are going anywhere for the next four Sable slams, but now...

We have that in my opinion, this new top four that's coming in and tennis is the better four.

Alvin Owusu (42:00.029)
Yeah, I'm, I say this all the time. I am so happy with where the women's game is right now. It's like every time you get to round of 16 of an event, it's on and popping. It's on and popping. And I like the, know, with Anasova, like, you know, kind of rising towards the forefront of the women's rankings here, you're starting to get some new permutations, the combinations of matchups that we've, prior to this year, she had never played Eagle before, right? They'd never played before Wimbledon.

Torrey Hawkins (42:06.184)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (42:28.05)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (42:29.338)
And then they've played, like, they went from never playing to playing three times. Like it's, we're getting new data. Her and Savalinka have a pretty good matchup as well. And then you add Rebecca into this and it's just, we're lucky as tennis fans. Like obviously Australia is not too far away. I'm obviously looking forward to it. It's gonna be a fantastic tournament. I think it's nice that the...

Torrey Hawkins (42:46.342)
Very much so.

Alvin Owusu (42:56.922)
Arena is the best player in the world right now, but it's not as clear cut as it may seem. I feel like if you look at Wimbledon to now, the last six months of the year, it looks a little bit tighter. It looks a little bit tighter. So that means I'm very, very excited for what's going down in Melbourne. All these ladies get their well-deserved rest and...

Torrey Hawkins (43:19.708)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (43:23.654)
and then continue to entertain us in a couple of weeks. Let's change gears and maybe do a little preview. Preview, the event's already happened, but the men are now in Turin. Alvin puts on his...

Torrey Hawkins (43:33.362)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (43:37.763)
make Turen matter hat. Obviously, we have things happening at the top, With Alcaraes and Center playing for, literally playing for the number one spot. We talked about, you know, on the women's side, were four slant winners this year. We had two on the men's side, okay, split them. We're within points of each other here at the top of the rankings. Let's play for it. Roll the ball out there and see what happens. So that is exciting.

Torrey Hawkins (43:39.715)
Ahahaha

Torrey Hawkins (43:44.636)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (43:55.954)
right down the middle.

Alvin Owusu (44:04.648)
But then also, the bottom of the eight, were you keeping up with what was happening with your boy Mousseti and Felix and Novak being the foil? Okay, so I'm gonna catch everyone else up who may not be up to date. so coming into Paris, Mousseti has got this eighth spot, right? He's got the eighth spot.

Torrey Hawkins (44:20.005)
Please do. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (44:27.762)
You

Alvin Owusu (44:31.176)
He wants to make Turin. He's playing every tournament he can to just try to distance himself from the Medvedevs and the Bubleks and the Felix Lajet-Ali teams of the world. Like, I want to get into Turin. Great. He loses like in the second round of Paris. Felix makes a run to the final, right? Leapfrogs him, right? Felix is in. We said he's out. Lorenzo, damn, okay. All right, we've got two tournaments left. Two 250s. One in Greece, one in France, okay.

Torrey Hawkins (44:47.314)
All right. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (45:02.216)
Felix is entered into the one in France. Musetti's entered into the one in Greece, in Athens, right? Okay, okay. So, Musetti, so Felix goes, you know what? I did really well at this 1,000. I'm sitting at eight right now. I'm gonna let it lie. I'm gonna take my week off, and if I get in, I'm going to rest it. If I don't, whatever, it's all good. So Felix pulls out of the event, I think it's in Metz, right? Okay. Musetti is,

Torrey Hawkins (45:08.218)
happens.

Torrey Hawkins (45:28.614)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (45:31.996)
Just trying his ass off. Okay, he needs to win the Athens 250 indoor event. Indoor event, he's never won an indoor event in his life, right? He has to win the indoor event to get into Turin, in Italy, in front of the home crowd. He's won Novak Djokovic. So yeah, Djokovic is the one seed. Lorenzo is the two seed. This gets better. Novak Djokovic's brother is the tournament director of this event, right? Which is the only reason why Novak is playing.

Torrey Hawkins (45:37.126)
Right, to get in. Right, Yep.

and has to go through one Novak Djokovic.

Torrey Hawkins (45:55.025)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:01.287)
Right? It comes out in the middle of the tournament that, um, that Novak is gonna, the question is like, okay, Novak is in Turin. Is he gonna, is he gonna play? Right? The assumption for a lot of people was like, he's not gonna play. He's not gonna do that. He doesn't want to play. doesn't care. In the middle of the tournament, an announcement comes out. I think it was from Godenzi. was like, Novak is, Novak's coming to Turin. He's going to be in. Novak quickly responds with like, I didn't say that. Let's, let's, let's.

Torrey Hawkins (46:28.027)
BWAH!

Alvin Owusu (46:30.183)
Let's handle this when we need to handle this, which will be after the tournament, right? So this is amazing. Like for me, the guy who wants the year-end championships to matter, I'm eating this up with a spoon, right? Okay, so Lorenzo almost loses to 40-something year old Stan Warricka in this tournament. It somehow gets down match point. Yeah, 41 going on 42, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (46:34.139)
Right?

Torrey Hawkins (46:42.811)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (46:48.911)
Yep, yep, saw that, yep. I think he's almost 42, actually. I think he's almost... Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:57.709)
match point down a match point against Dan gets through that. right. So Lorenzo's down here on his ninth life, scratching, clawing, like something like six weeks in a row. He's been playing just trying to like beard grow and trying to get into turret gets into the finals. He's got no back in those out of the court and they get into it. Right. Great match. They go three, no back, no back. Yep. Turns back the clock, lost the first set when it's next two sets. Lorenzo is just like destroyed. God.

Torrey Hawkins (47:04.165)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (47:17.658)
Excellent match.

Alvin Owusu (47:27.299)
I gave it everything I had. Well, you know, whatever. They're coming to the net. They post match, you know, shake hands. Novak apparently tells him at the net, I'm not going to Turin. Don't worry about it. You're good. Lorenzo's face lights up like, it's okay. It's fine. But like, he really could have like used that information before the tournament. He's like, you're killing himself trying to qualify.

Torrey Hawkins (47:41.241)
Ha

You

Torrey Hawkins (47:50.862)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (47:54.736)
So that's, that's so we, the tournament started today. We're recording on Sunday night. the tournament started today. catch up on the, you know, catch update yourself on how things are going. We'll, we'll see where we land in a couple of days, but this is what I'm talking about. Like in, and next year this won't happen, right? They're gonna, they're gonna cut the, cut the freezing rankings after Paris. There's no, like once the 1000s over as they should, as they should, this quirky little nonsense here of,

Torrey Hawkins (47:55.492)
Torrey Hawkins (48:16.302)
Right, as they should.

Alvin Owusu (48:22.125)
Novak not letting Lorenzo off the hook before the tournament starts to to make sure that his brother gets all the players in the event that are signed up for it is like It's the best. It's the best

Torrey Hawkins (48:28.688)
Yeah, yeah. That definitely had reeked of some underhandedness. But to be honest, I'm gonna say it right here. First of all, it a great match. That's number one. Once again, Lorenzo Musetti is proving his six to eight in the worldness to me. Just absolutely a very entertaining match. Three hours or so, maybe a little more. Alvin, it's a shame.

that as much drama as is around Novak Djokovic that he is so darn relevant. The fact that number three, let's just call him what he is. He's legitimate number three in the world. Off of Grand Slam, I'm going to call it off of the off of the ranking and points that matter scale. I'm not talking the ATP calendar points per round scale.

Alvin Owusu (49:04.711)
Hmm?

Torrey Hawkins (49:27.543)
He's still number three in the world. And it is a shame that these, some of these guys are 10 plus years, his junior are not able to go through the wall that is Novak Djokovic. And so while I hear you and I understand he could have let him know early, he could have let the people know before I get all that. But the man is 124 slams. He gets any and all.

Alvin Owusu (49:49.317)
Nah, you don't do that.

Torrey Hawkins (49:56.523)
any and all love that he is due and he's due quite a bit. I'm saying you deserve Lorenzo to be told at the net he did you a solid by beating you first and then telling you hey by the way you're welcome you know what mean because he's really given up his spot and I also appreciate him not going there half you know gonna try and then and then you know let's face it not really being able to compete and keeping that spot from someone from someone else and so

I'm more annoyed, I don't mean annoyed in bad way, it's hard to beat the best of all time, but I'm more annoyed that.

Lorenzo wants to make his case, beat Novak. Beat Novak. You want to be the man? Beat the man. He's right there in front of you. He's 38 years old. You know what I mean? If that's what it's going to take, beat him. You know what I mean? And I thought it was a very good match. It was actually ironic to me that Novak played his forehand so much in that first set. And I said, let me change it up a little bit. I thought he was actually being quite effective even though he lost that set. I thought Mercedes got a little bit lucky on a few passing shots.

Alvin Owusu (50:40.017)
Beat Novak.

Torrey Hawkins (51:04.507)
I, it was funny to me how, you know, of all the things to pick up on, then he started leaning in on the backhand. I mean, at that point it was over. know, the two-hander Novak is not going to lose that match up too many times to the one-hander. But that whole match to me still shows Novak's relevance. And quite frankly, a match like that, that he can still do, and he found he was having fun. You know, my only problem is that's going to, it's the Novak farewell tour is going to extend another.

you know, six months, six months to a year. And, you know, at that point to me, you know, it's, it's, it's the, it's, it's what he's do. In my opinion, you know, I think it's time, not because of the level Tennessee can play, but just due to the every other tournament, is he going to pull out or not? Is he healthy or not? And that, and and that's the drama and all that, but I feel like, you know, I'd like to see, you know, him just go off to the sunset to, to, uh,

for the rest of the tour sake and my own anxiety, not for Novak's tennis.

Alvin Owusu (52:09.455)
Yeah, it's to your point though, like, yeah. And I joke a lot about the, about Tourette and I was very, very entertained by this whole Musetti, Musetti's journey to, to return to, to return to Italy in the, in the top eight. but he didn't finish in the top eight. He's nine. He's nine. He got in on a, on a technicality. No, that gave him a spot. He did not earn a spot.

Torrey Hawkins (52:32.129)
to end the calody. Was nowhere going to be sick? What was nowhere going to be?

Alvin Owusu (52:36.773)
No, it's like, it was like three or four, like four, like so he's like, no, like, yeah, it was.

Torrey Hawkins (52:39.319)
So he hears, I didn't know how high he was on points. didn't know, cause he hadn't played a whole lot of the other events.

Alvin Owusu (52:46.063)
Right. think he's played 20 events this year or something like that. So I don't have the rankings right here in front of me, but he's somewhere around somewhere around four, I believe. but

Torrey Hawkins (52:56.977)
101st title of his career. 101. Can you believe that? Good God. 101. I think he won, I think that was his 71st hard court title as well. 71 titles. 71. Some of these guys haven't even played at 71 events, let alone one of

Alvin Owusu (52:58.193)
That's a lot.

No. No, can't.

Alvin Owusu (53:17.959)
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a point. But yeah, so I wanna kinda look at the two events, both year-end championships for both men and women, right? The women, and I kind of, I said this earlier about it, feeling like a fifth slam. Because of the quality of players there, different, slightly different surface.

Torrey Hawkins (53:20.82)
He's good. He's good!

Torrey Hawkins (53:29.441)
Nope, nope.

Torrey Hawkins (53:38.754)
Yup.

Alvin Owusu (53:41.831)
And then also they have the benefit of playing the same format all the time, right? It's two out of three at a Masters, it's two out of three at a Grand Slam. So this is no different than the rest of them, except for there is no week one to get yourself into the event. The event starts now, right? On the men's side, and like you get, it feels like.

waiting this is taking something. takes a lot of like almost like a Herculean effort from one of these women to not only win the event, but someone like a Rebecca to, you know, run wall to wall, drop no matches, get the full purse of 5.3 million. Like that's a big deal. That is a big, big deal on the men's side. You don't.

Torrey Hawkins (54:12.993)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (54:19.662)
you never really hear people talk about winning the event. You hear people like Mercedes talking about getting in, wanting to qualify, wanting to be recognized. And so I feel like whereas the women's feels like a fifth slam, the men's almost feels like the new version of the pro bowl. Like if you take an American football analogy, like it's an honor to be nominated or to be selected. I've qualified for it. Like do we even, I mean, it's like.

Torrey Hawkins (54:24.481)
getting right. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (54:32.223)
Another 1000. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, to be so sure.

Alvin Owusu (54:46.946)
Lorenzo has no, has no aspirations of winning the event. Felix, mean, how Felix, maybe Felix could win the event. We just assume it's going to be one of the top two, but it's a lot of those two and the rest of them, which brings kind of like makes this event feel a little anticlimactic, except for this year. We're getting some, we're getting some climax this year, but, that's, that's kind of where I.

Torrey Hawkins (54:50.69)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (55:03.053)
Yeah. Sure. Sure.

Do you feel that would be the case without the top two?

Alvin Owusu (55:15.364)
Mm rephrase that question. What do mean? Do I feel like this would be anti-climactic if

Torrey Hawkins (55:18.473)
You feel, would you feel the same if, it's a big if, but if Carlos and Yannick were not part of the conversation or they had, like the women's side, had two other cohorts that won the other two, that won the other two slams of the four.

Alvin Owusu (55:38.439)
That's a good question. let's even look at this juxtaposed last year to this year's event, right? Last year there was really nothing to play for. It is the year in championships. Sinner had year in number one wrapped up. He had won two of the four Grand Slams. Carlos won two of the four Grand Slams. But Carlos had a lot of in between, like a lot of, kind of not great at the end of the year, not great in the beginning of the year.

kind of came in on fumes, flamed out early. He was a little sick last year. So it didn't really have a lot of oomph to begin with. We've got more or less the same, very similar feel this year. Swap a Shelton for whoever else made it last year. Maybe it was even Mevvedev, I don't remember. But would it be the same? I think the issue I have is that those two are just so far ahead of the rest of them. I would even be happier if.

Torrey Hawkins (56:14.761)
All right.

Torrey Hawkins (56:34.58)
And that's the point.

Alvin Owusu (56:35.994)
I'd be happier if Novak was in the event. Just give me something I can believe in that could make this feel less like a foregone conclusion. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like the tour at large right now. This is a microcosm of what we've seen all year long. So in that effect, it's quite appropriate.

Torrey Hawkins (56:44.564)
Less love, sir. Yeah. Yeah, and that's fair.

Torrey Hawkins (56:58.107)
I, what I said earlier about players that go all week, players get to this level, they start playing a little bit of a sharper and a higher level. And I say that to say all the things I said before, you play longer, you're winning more, you're defending better, you're being a little bit more, a little bit sharper, you're a little more calm in the rough seas of 15, 30 second serves. you're just, you hold up, you hold that hundred and 22 body serve a little better and get that ball.

six more feet deep, you know, in a game where two inches can mean the matter, you know, of four to six feet, you know, of depth and placement, know, two inches is a lot, you know what mean? So you can get that ball deflected, adjust enough to get it just deep enough. And that guy decides to hit that back and reverse the inside out. You're dealing with so many small minute adjustments. Those top two, whatever happens this tournament, will continue to.

have their dominance on the tour, which is unfortunate, no fault of their own. But it also means the rest of the guys that are in that outside of Novak have yet to really get to that level. And so what I'm hoping in this tournament, I saw Demonard had a pretty good match against Carlos, is it's the best I've seen Alex Demonard play to date. And so what I'm hoping this happens, and I'm hoping more of this, I'm glad I saw that match before we came on the podcast. I'm hoping that Fritz

Alvin Owusu (58:16.837)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (58:24.843)
and Ben and, you know, Demon R and whoever the other handful of guys are, Medvedev even, you know, I'm hoping that they start to, Felix had he had got in, start to really push and see how much closer they can get. I was proud of Felix going as deep as he did against Yadik in the weeks before in Paris. I was proud of his, he looks sharp, you know, looks very sharp.

you like to see these guys starting to at least close the gap a little bit. And how do you do that? You play them more. You play the other top guys more. And that's my thing. I'm to your point, I agree with you, foregone conclusion for the eventual perhaps, but the closer they keep getting, the more relevant they create, the more relevance they create. And they just might continue to claw, get another set here and there, get a little closer, get a little more belief, get deeper.

and maybe that in itself can lend itself to a decent 2026. I always look at this tournament as a bit of a prize money game and an end of the year, you know, send off and what it is. But it also to me, it bodes for the next year because let's face it, these, you know, the guys that know, you know, the rankings pretty much locked up between those two as are the slams. But to be that, it only takes a couple of albums. It takes one or two matches.

Alvin Owusu (59:31.568)
Sure, sure.

Torrey Hawkins (59:50.1)
for somebody to come through and ring the bell, and ring somebody's bell, and let the other four believe that it's possible to knock them off. And what better place than for it to happen in Toronto.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:03.686)
So just to clarify, so Felix did get in because of Novak pulling out and Felix is gonna be playing Yannick. He's in Yannick's, right, right, yeah. So Felix is in Yannick's group and they'll play there. I think they're opening against each other in that their first matches will be against each other. So that's an interesting one because of Felix, it feels like he's kind of made a mini leap in the last few months. Obviously took a set off.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:07.402)
Okay, Oh, right, right, right. So, Felix is gonna be in. Lorenzo that got in. Dude, no back. Right, right, right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:30.238)
Yeah, I'd say so.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:32.646)
took a set off center at the U S open, played him tough in Paris. He's coming into this event, nice and fresh, feeling good about himself. Probably. I w I'm really interested to see that match. It'll be tomorrow. at some point, it be tomorrow. I'm going to keep an eye on that one because I feel like that would be a, if, if Felix can get like, maybe get a set off of center, like that is, that is enough to take away from an event like this. Like in itself, like you don't need to, you need to with the match. You don't need to win it. You don't need to.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:36.142)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:01.85)
win the tournament, like come in, stick him in the first match, take a set. That like starts to put in a little bit of a little feather in the cap, like as we move forward into next year, can we start to close this gap a little bit? Yeah. Can Taylor sneak out a W against Carlos in group play? Like this isn't best out of five, it's best out of three, right? So it's.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:05.033)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:12.329)
Yep. Create a little doubt on one side and a whole lot of confidence to get in that avalanche of the snowball going.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:32.294)
Can we sneak one, can you sneak out a win here just to keep them honest? Keep them honest, keep them thinking about it. Yeah, so that's kind of what I look forward to this week. I'm gonna go ahead and make, I don't like to usually make predictions. I'm gonna make a prediction. Okay. I think this is center's tournament to win as much as the...

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:32.726)
Ha ha ha ha ha

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:37.565)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:58.404)
those who listen to this show know about my affinity for Carlos and maybe even maybe I even prefer him slightly to Yannick. That's fine. We can all have favorites. Yeah, we've all we've all got favorites. It's fine. I'm a human. I'm a human just like you guys. But when we look at the rankings and I mentioned they're so close right now, they're they're separated by like a thousand points in the rankings only because of the timing of this tournament. They're neck and neck. They're not really I mean,

They are. are. Yannick has performed, I think, a little bit better this year than Carlos has given the amount of tournaments that he's played. They've played about the same amount of tournaments, but...

Yannick played what? Nine months this year? Nine out of the 12 months? He took a little vacation in between, Australian Open and, and, and French Open more or less. but when he's played, he's been damn near flawless. I think he's lost before the finals once. Maybe, maybe twice, maybe Shanghai. And then the one other event that was a lost to, Bublek early at a warmup event before Wimbledon. Right? So.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:02.78)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:11.334)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:13.829)
Yeah, that's what we're dealing with. let's say he plays out a full schedule this year. Okay. Maybe he's not as fresh at the end of the year because he's played more of whatever, whatever, but with more points to play with, maybe he's got more of lead over Carlos. I don't know. I'm just saying, feel like indoor center is a whole different beast. Home crowd.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:18.18)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:28.36)
It's to beat. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:36.515)
Yeah, I think he's gonna, I think he pulls this out. I feel like he pulls this out, but I will be happy to be sitting in this chair in a week's time talking about this event and I'm wrong. That'd be cool. That would be cool. Do you care to make any predictions or are gonna stay away from it?

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:45.608)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:53.147)
I think he's none, He's played very well. He's playing some good ball right now. My fear, my concern for guys like him that have been playing this well going in, have they played well already? Are they coming down at all? You know, Paris wasn't that long ago. We're coming into this event now. He's a professional. He's going to be in shape. He's going to be well rested. But is he

Is he going to be as hungry? I think the home court advantage will be a lot in his favor. I guess.

He's been playing pretty well for the last several weeks. And so at some point that either means that's his norm and it's going to be the same lights out for 2026. So I'm hoping for the other eight guys, I'm in the top 10. I'm hoping that's not the case. if it's been, if he's been playing really well and this is now the time to kind of come down a little bit.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:42.309)
I mean, think it is his norm. think that's what he's been doing.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:59.876)
to meet the early rounds of the time together. mean, he plays six matches, he plays four matches and it's over. I mean, he's, I agree with you, but I still think that Carlos and him still have magic and I am hoping for a repeat of the French where we get fireworks once again. I felt like the other two were a little bit of lopsided affairs. I am really looking forward to another, not a French in the sense that, cause Yannick had him in the French and let him off the hook.

in an all-time, in an instant classic kind of way. And that's what I'm hoping we see from Novak, we see from Carlos. And Carlos looks, Carlos looks, you know, save for that weird haircut, he looks like he's in fine form.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:44.964)
Yeah, I think looking back at the match he played against Camp Norrie in Paris, he came up with a match off the and said, some matches you learn from, some losses you learn from, some you forget. This is one I just need to forget. was a bad day out there. Don't look too far into it. mean, he had won X amount of tournaments in a row leading up to that. The very next time back out, he looks like he's right back in form. I mean, you got a guy, Carlos, 67 and eight on the year so far.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:07.302)
back in form.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:11.653)
Yannick 53 and 6, like what are we talking about?

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:11.76)
You can't believe that. Six or seven matches or six and eight matches they lost all year. That's crazy. And they still have what are they playing this one? If they both get to the finals, another six matches.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:18.243)
Yeah, yeah, all year, all year.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:25.413)
It'll be so you play three in the round robin and then semi-finals finals. It's five five total five total. Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:27.398)
three group stage and then send me a number. Go five. That's incredible. Wasn't there a year that Novak did a 72 and five or was it? I don't know why that number sticks in my mind. He got player of the year. being one to seven, 25. And you're just thinking about it. And I thought no one would ever kind of equate that. One of these guys will likely get, well, Senator could get 72 and six, you know, in, in, not that.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:41.957)
I think that's about right.

I think it was 72 to 5.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:57.127)
much time, you know what I mean? That's lot. That's what the stats don't capture, Alvin, is how great that is, you know, as far as playing that well for that long and all the L's you are handing out along the way. know, these guys are only 54, 55 % better than the people they play against, but they are

Alvin Owusu (01:07:01.645)
Yeah, it's a bit of a joke.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:26.726)
winning 90 % of the time, they are 55 % better. that's tough sledding, buddy. That is tough sledding being a guy going because you know there is no room for error. mean, zero. You you hit that second serve and you're like, I gotta be careful. I mean, you know what I mean? you know, is studying, Yannick is studying your

His shoulders look a little slump right now. I he's down on himself. I'm gonna get him right here. And I think that's what I'm looking forward to. I can't wait till we do our year review. Because what I said about the women, I feel doubly about the men. I feel like we got about eight moving vans, you know what I mean? That are out front and are ready to just replace and it'll be a strong, this will be a strong.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:08.101)
Yeah, it's gonna be fun.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:23.11)
wake up call for some of the players that are nearing the end of their proverbial rope this year going into it. I think Australia could see, forget our reigning 24 Grand Slam champ who can, he can play for two more years the way he's playing off and on because he's deserved it and he's there. I'm talking about the rest, the best of the rest that are there that are hanging on in my opinion by a little momentum and a little bit of just inertia. There's about

In the top 20, think there's about eight moving vans. I've made some notes. I can't wait till we have that end of year review.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:59.013)
Absolutely. All right, we can put a pin in there. I just wanna go back, Novak, 2015, 82 and six. 82. 82 and six. Not 53 and six. So he's had Sinner's year plus 30 more wins.

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:05.861)
82 and 6.

You gotta be kidding.

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:17.199)
Plus, plus, right, right.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:19.494)
Go to sleep. Everybody go to sleep. All right. Put a pin in it there. Best of three. We are out.

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:25.669)
82 and 6.