Jannik Sinner Is Taking Away Time: The Roland Garros Problem

Jannik Sinner’s Rome title was not just another dominant week. It became a case study in what makes him so difficult to beat on clay: not only ball speed, but his ability to read early, move cleanly, and compress the opponent’s decision-making window.

Alvin and Torrey examine the tactical profiles that could actually trouble Sinner at Roland Garros. Medvedev’s recent match offers one version of the blueprint: change direction early, avoid extended backhand diagonals, and force Sinner into open-stance slides from alley to alley. Casper Ruud’s Rome final offers another: use the kick serve to buy time for the forehand, then protect the rally with depth and shape.

The problem is execution. The plan to bother Sinner is not mysterious, but it requires almost every tool to work for long stretches: serve shape, return depth, directional courage, endurance, footwork, and the ability to stay committed under pressure. That narrows the realistic list to players like Alcaraz, Djokovic, Medvedev, or Zverev — and even then, only under very specific conditions. 

Transcript

Alvin Owusu (00:00.881)
And welcome to another episode of the best three podcast. I'm Alvin that's Tori and I'll hail to Yannick center. Just completed the set here. Rome masters 1000 champion took down Casper rude. So six, three, six, four. I get that right. Two and four, four and four. I just, know what? I it's bad when I watched the match and then right away, right away. Don't remember the score because I didn't write it down. But yeah, let's just give him his, let's just give him his due. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (00:17.71)
4-4 I think.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (00:30.305)
Mr. Center is, as the kids say, he's on one right now. Six Masters 1000s in a row, 33 wins at Masters in a row, nine, all nine Masters 1000s in his possession at the age of 24. Second man to ever do it behind one Novak Djokovic. He was much older and further in his career. And now he's staring down the barrel at

Torrey Hawkins (00:36.578)
He's cooking right now. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (00:48.526)
Mm. Mm.

Alvin Owusu (00:58.751)
the career Grand Slam if he's able to get himself over the finish line at Roland Garros. So with that being said, before we get started, TH, how are you?

Torrey Hawkins (01:09.312)
I'm doing well, Alvin, I'm doing well. It's, I gotta tell you, a good tennis, beautiful weather out here in Atlanta today. was just a good day in general. Yeah, yeah. With the demo or with the new ones?

Alvin Owusu (01:18.005)
Yeah, I hit this morning by the way. I got out early. Yep, yep, the demo, but luckily I, yeah, with the demo, another good hitter. We got after it, was, it's found the slice, it's like, it's, so this is good. This is good, we're in a place.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27.33)
Good. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32.462)
telling you, you're accelerating with it a little bit.

Alvin Owusu (01:35.537)
What happened was, and I know you guys are here to hear about Yannick Center, but here we go. As opposed to grabbing it by the throat, I just brought my offhand down to like the top of the grip, which just gave me a little more space, and that's what I needed to like really push through it. yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:44.652)
Yeah.

Yeah, to really, really yank it. Yeah, to really get a little extra on it. Well, good for you. It's always neat kind of finding the strike zone. It's like a new car. You kind of got to get in there and kind of feel it out in the corners a little bit. You see how it operates. But no, it was a good day, great match, good tournament. Alvin, I have to go off just for 30 seconds on the commentating. And I...

Alvin Owusu (02:11.295)
I'ma let you cook. I'ma let you cook.

Torrey Hawkins (02:17.408)
I've met Jimmy Aris on a few occasions, so I'm not going to call him out specifically, but I have to say, Alvin, I have to say, let me show you this, Alvin. This is what I think is the quintessential piece you need to watch every match you watch when the commentating gets a little bit suspect. Alvin, you know I'm talking about. You got to pull out your remote control and use the old volume button, Alvin, and just start.

Alvin Owusu (02:38.657)
It's a remote control.

Torrey Hawkins (02:47.886)
and just start clicking as violently as you can down. If you have a mute button, even better. You one of the longer remotes, one of the new ones. But I gotta tell you, Alvin, I couldn't find the remote fast enough, and I just really feel like...

I'm glad we do this podcast because I feel like it gives us, to your point, gives us the space to be able to speak to it. The match had so many ups and downs in it. Ruud started off great. Then as soon as he hit up a break, I feel like he lost a break, kind of right behind the right. But you just saw, to me, was a lot more the ebb and flow of Ruud than it was so much on center. Don't get me wrong, Yannick played a great match as he's apt to do, but I felt a lot more of that was precipitated by

some sloppy mistakes for a guy at his level and quite frankly opened the door and Yannick was just oh so gracious to take advantage of it when it did. But that said even the second set and I felt like once again

We had to pull the remote out in the second because I felt like it was a countdown, like they were working for the Italian Board of Tourism or something. And I just feel like we just want to get back to the tennis. We understand the greatness. Even if we don't, we'll appreciate it more on our own. I don't want to be reminded of three games to the championship, two more games to the first Italian guy in 50 years. Look, I get it. We all get it. We were there when Andy won Wimbledon. And it was how many years? I think it was 70 or 70 plus.

Alvin Owusu (04:21.692)
7077 something like that,

Torrey Hawkins (04:22.64)
I think 77 maybe. We get it. I totally get it. I'm 100 % a fan of history and I appreciate it more than most. I'm old, Alvin. I've watched tennis in my years. So I get it, but I don't need to be reminded of it. And I certainly don't want... I think it takes away from the path that Ruud has taken to get here. I think it takes away from some of the greatness when we're kind of almost... We're looking at the match through the lens of the Yannick Center fan and acolyte.

And I don't think that's really what it's meant for. I think it's meant to give us some nuance, give us some tennis insights. What was Ru doing that was hurting Yannick? What was, to your point, what was Metty doing? And I want to tee you up on that one. What was Ru doing and how might someone expose that? On the clay.

Alvin Owusu (05:08.671)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (05:15.66)
What did he fail to do that he could have and push that max three? And of course that always leads to one of your favorite things, one of your themes of a Grand Slam. Who's gonna make it interesting? Who's gonna spoil the plot? Who's going to disrupt and make this whole thing be a little bit more notable, especially with Alcraz being out. So with that said Alvin, I tag you back in on this whole thing to maybe speak to that. But I just had to bring that out Alvin. I feel like it's unfortunate that my prop has to be

remote control but buddy I will have it handy from now on I promise you that

Alvin Owusu (05:50.177)
Fair enough, fair enough. And you know, I think that those on TV have a, their job is very different than ours, right? We get to do this podcast and have this space where we just talk about, this is letting other people listen to us talk about tennis. And we love to talk about tennis and we've been talking about tennis together for years. So I think on television, like there's almost a, maybe they feel pressured to create drama where unnecessarily.

Torrey Hawkins (05:58.339)
for sure.

Alvin Owusu (06:18.772)
Right, that's the whole counting down of games, till yada yada yada. I think this is one of the beautiful things about our sport. If you're watching, you already get it. Like, you don't need to be convinced that this is great. Like, we're aware that this is great. But we all know that this, you know, no one man is perfect. Not extended one out win every match in perpetuity, right? So give me something else. And that's one of the things that I feel like right now.

Torrey Hawkins (06:19.713)
Perhaps.

Alvin Owusu (06:47.23)
watching Yannick Center forces us to do is with all the wins that he's stacking up in a row, like we can't just hit record and start saying the same thing we say all the time. There's new things to see every time you see it. There's new things to appreciate. And then there's little things that if you wanna think forward, like, okay, if someone were to get in his way, what might that person do or do well in that day? Or what might that person's game?

Torrey Hawkins (06:56.526)
100%.

Torrey Hawkins (07:00.15)
Every time. Yup.

Torrey Hawkins (07:11.736)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (07:15.168)
game style or their profile look like. that's the, I feel like as tennis fans, like we don't necessarily need more, we deserve better, right? So if not the tennis channel crew, then why not the best of three duo? Okay, fine. Okay, here's where we are. Well, there's one thing that I noticed about Yannick Center. This is probably going all the way back to the quarterfinals. Two things actually, but one, I'll go for one and then the second one. Yannick Center,

Torrey Hawkins (07:31.47)
100%. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (07:44.797)
starts matches kind of in the same way that Prime Eagga starts matches. Sprinting, sprinting. He's coming out hot, right? And what's going to happen, what needs to happen is you're have to weather that storm and then find your ground and then try to get into the match. Now granted, it's very hard to do that in two out of three sets if you're giving up the first five, six games of the match. Medhi was able to...

Torrey Hawkins (07:51.31)
with that. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (08:14.089)
to weather that storm and turn that ship around. And that's like that a couple days ago.

But if he slips a little bit in the way that he started today where he had a tough time kind of locating that first serve in those opening games, what you started to see from Casper was some conviction, right? Some belief. Got out of that first service game pretty easily, was able to break, and then he's like, okay, I'm feeling good. can get myself into this match. What happened to me last year with the drubbing that he took, non.

No residuals here. We're here to play ball. And Caspar Root is, at one point he was considered one of the best clay court players in the world. I think he probably is still one of the best, if not last, true clay court players that we have on the tour with using the parabolas and using a lot of spins and running around trying to find that forehand. The problem is that Yannick Center is also very good on clay and then he's just a better player than him.

Torrey Hawkins (09:07.694)
of best with at least a half of a snap.

Alvin Owusu (09:19.646)
It's like, that's a nice trick, but my baseline level is just better. Going back to the Medi match and then we'll, then we'll get to the Casper, the Casper match. There was one thing that Medvedev did differently, you know, from Miami matchup to this matchup a couple of days ago. In Miami, he was pretty dead set on locking horns with, with center, especially on that, on the cross court ad side, go back into back end.

Torrey Hawkins (09:44.804)
at 10-Sign all day.

Alvin Owusu (09:45.633)
Right? That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's that's his happy space. And yes, has a great backhand as well. but Meddy felt like he could, he could withstand that one, because of his ball quality. What I noticed was Meddy was not going to let any of those rallies get longer than two, maybe three shots on the same diagonal before he forced himself to pull line. Right. And that, when you start to see Yannick center sliding.

Torrey Hawkins (09:50.008)
go to.

Torrey Hawkins (10:07.576)
for hygiene. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (10:15.164)
open stance from effectively doubles alley to doubles alley. That is your only chance. That's when the window's open because if he gets on the front foot, you can't make him play click court tennis. At that point, he's just gonna play like it's a hard court. He's gonna go right through. He's gonna use that pace. His position is so tight that he can do it. But if you get him moving side to side and don't allow him to get set,

Torrey Hawkins (10:23.645)
That's when the windows open.

Alvin Owusu (10:42.82)
I mean, very, very specific here. Open stance, sliding into the alleys, right? He's not gonna give away the space, right? He's not gonna turn his hips, but that is your best chance. Now granted, you have to serve as well as Medvedev, right? Which Casper's first serve is not as impactful as Mehdi's first serve, right? So there's your slight differences. And then you have to be able to hit a ball well enough to then force him

to give you a ball that you can actually turn line. And then when you see it, you take it, right? So it's, the margins are so thin. They're so, thin. What Matt Vettel was able to do, if that match hadn't been disrupted by rain, I don't know, maybe we get a little bit, maybe it's a little bit different down the back end of that third set because Yannick was, you know, the lungs were busted. He was in the danger zone. But yeah, but he's he's world number one for a reason. He got himself out of it and.

Torrey Hawkins (11:13.646)
Correct. Correct.

Torrey Hawkins (11:25.326)
All right, that's a good point.

Torrey Hawkins (11:32.035)
Sure.

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (11:39.726)
I think, and it's really neat you mentioned, and I love your word profile because that profile is exactly what needs to happen.

Alvin Owusu (11:40.968)
and then had all he needed today.

Torrey Hawkins (11:54.51)
I'm even gonna go back a little further and include a third profile is the way that Novak played him, which ironically is Novak in Australia out-centered center in that situation. balls even earlier, you know, had the ability to in some ways outstrike and use his strike, very similar strategy, different ball. Chris spoke about this a little bit on the pod was.

just the depth and penetration of Meddy's ball, right? It just comes through with little unorthodox, sorry, a lot unorthodox, but he almost starts up, swings through and almost finishes on the same side of the other shoulder. I mean, the ball's got a weird side spin. I mean, that bad boy's coming in all sorts of different ways and it's clean, probably not a ton of rotation and the ball just, you know, it's just going through the court. That said,

Alvin Owusu (12:28.361)
hahaha

Torrey Hawkins (12:47.752)
Once he gets that ball in and deep and it's humming, you know.

Alvin Owusu (12:50.505)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (12:51.744)
He's able to go from his 15 feet behind the baseline, taking the return off the shoe tops, to on top of the baseline with the next ball. And his depth gives him that ability. Novak, by contrast, is up on top of the court the whole time. Just has that much better timing, feel, the ability to take it on the rise. And he's accurate with you on the rise. And what made Novak's, in my opinion, even harder and tougher, obviously it was on hard court, was he's able to change direction with whatever kind of ball he gets. But to your point, like Mehdi did, he was changed.

pretty often and not letting center get into that groove because center will he will hurt you given two or three of the same ball you know it's as I say he's Claude he's he's Grock he's he's whatever you want to call him he is he is a supercomputer and once he sees that ball enough times he will attack that situation given Watson whatever AI component you want to give him. Today I saw a third profile that could beat him

Alvin Owusu (13:48.531)
Ooh, okay.

Torrey Hawkins (13:49.294)
And what Rude did and what Rude was unfortunately unsuccessful in continuing to do, Rude had the ability to hurt Yannick off the forehand multiple times off of a solid big serve to the backhand, especially on the due side, and he would get Yannick up.

Alvin Owusu (14:08.415)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (14:11.968)
and then take that midcourt, that kind of floating heavy ball and rip it hard cross and if you're comfortable going cross or going line equally to keep center at bay you can in fact serve and first strike him with a good kick not with a flat. You have to go with a good kick to get the ball to the strike zone.

Another thing, bit of a tangent off the same theme, he was able to even get some certain volley off center off the same type of ball. He just didn't volley deep enough or crisp enough to finish it.

Alvin Owusu (14:44.691)
Yeah, just lacking the, yeah, he's, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (14:45.198)
just a little short or a little soft. It's a little bit user friendly. For most, it would have been a good shot. But for center and on clay, that ball is a third attempt and it's like, buddy, I got you. But I thought the times he did it was fine. He came in a couple of times it was dumb. He hit a ball big and thought he'd pressure him and you're going to pressure center on pass or shot. But I just felt like he came in, he was thinking right, wasn't able to execute it. And that ability to do that is big. I'm talking first,

we're talking kick serve, good kick, use the clay to your advantage, get that ball out of the strike zone, you're almost worse off hitting big and flat because that return's gonna come back faster to you, then it's gonna hurt you more with this return than your hurting center with pace.

Alvin Owusu (15:32.019)
So, okay, let's just put this all together and we'll talk about this profile here. You have to have the ability to change directions. Go line, right? You have to be able to get that, yeah, change line early. You have to be able to get that serve up and out of his strike zone. And then you have to be able to come in and finish with volleys. Who the hell is that tennis player? Well, that's Carlos Sacco-Raz on a good day.

Torrey Hawkins (15:34.914)
Sure. Yeah.

Done. Yup. Early. Change line, early. Yup. 100%.

Torrey Hawkins (15:55.288)
Carlos Alcaraz on a good day, could be, could be Sasha Zverev and he's done it at times, Alvin. He's come forward, the second set of that match in what was our last tournament, Barcelona, he almost did it there in the second. He did do nothing in the first set. I'm just saying he can do it. He's tall, good kick, can come forward. I'm not saying he does it enough. That's his problem, right, baby? But you have to do it. All night long.

Alvin Owusu (15:57.033)
And that's.

Alvin Owusu (16:17.343)
You just have to do it all match and you have to mix and match those particular strategies throughout the entire match. And that's really, really hard to do. We've come up with a list of two, right? And then Novak does it in a little bit of different way, but like I think that goes to, that speaks more towards how damn good Yannick Sinteros right? You need all five tools and you need them all to be humming on the same day.

Torrey Hawkins (16:24.334)
That's right. That's right. That's right. Oh, wait. Right, right. I can do two of those things in a row.

Torrey Hawkins (16:45.816)
Right?

Alvin Owusu (16:47.339)
And you need to hope, like he did against Novak in the Australian Open, that he just misses his chances. Or hope that in the French Open final he blows a couple of match points. So, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (16:56.984)
That's right. And in movie lore, this is taking down the Death Star. mean, is, the force, Luke. mean, this is getting off those two shots and getting to the nuclear reactor. I mean, this is exactly what we're talking about. In the words of Dumb and Dumber, so you're saying there's a chance.

Alvin Owusu (17:08.829)
Yeah,

Alvin Owusu (17:21.407)
mean, it's a small chance, like, mean, he has lost tennis matches before, right? He has lost them before. He will lose them again as we look forward to Roland Garros, you know, because, you know, what happened in Monte Carlo, what happened in Monte Carlo, what happened in Barcelona, happened in Barcelona, what happened in Madrid, happened in Madrid. We are now in Rome, Rome is done, and we are moving towards Paris. And as we move towards Paris...

I'm going to have to open my aperture here to find some resistance for Mr. Center because we, we, yeah. And we talked about this before, on a previous podcast. I don't remember which one it was, but it's like, okay, well, who could have a chance when I think this was after the news that Carlos was going to be missing the tournament. Like, okay, well then what would this have to look like for someone to actually challenge him? We came up with some names, but like,

Torrey Hawkins (17:51.918)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Open it wide.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:17.34)
Our four semi finals last year were center Djokovic Alcaraz and Musetti. Two of them are not participating. Musetti, Musetti officially pulled out and Novak. Okay. We'll see. We'll see. I'm not going to say no. I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say no. I'm going to say obviously yes, but it's probably closer to yes than no. We'll see. and then that profile, like the things you need to do, there aren't many players that can do.

Torrey Hawkins (18:23.736)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (18:29.998)
Right, he's always a wait and see.

Alvin Owusu (18:47.332)
All of it.

Torrey Hawkins (18:49.814)
all of it, the whole time, on clay, right, for three out of five.

Alvin Owusu (18:54.844)
Right. With potentially six matches in your legs. Right. Yeah. The math ain't math on this one, TH. But I will say, saw what I saw from Medvedev, because we have to go, mean, Medvedev is not the obvious clay court choice here, but, but he has a unique set of skills, right? And those, that unique set of skills and the experience, like let us not.

Torrey Hawkins (19:02.446)
Amen.

Torrey Hawkins (19:10.894)
100%.

Torrey Hawkins (19:16.952)
He does.

Alvin Owusu (19:23.134)
Let us not forget that he was world number one. He was, he is a former grand slam champion, multiple time finalist. He's been to the highest of the high. He does not get phased. He does not walk into a match with the onyx center thinking, I'm, I'm, I have to go up a mountain here. He's like, I need to play well. And if I play well, I have as good a chance as anybody. And we went from, I don't remember what that score was in Miami. Was it six and six?

Torrey Hawkins (19:30.764)
Yep. Yep. Right.

No.

Torrey Hawkins (19:43.586)
Right. Right.

Yep, Ruth out.

Alvin Owusu (19:52.489)
When he lost to Center. Yeah, I'll find it at some point. Yeah, was tight. It was tight, right? And so from a tight match to another tight match in which he was actually able to get a set, you could say he's getting closer. And I saw a level of comfort from Mehdi on a surface that he is not inherently comfortable on.

Torrey Hawkins (19:57.014)
right. And for one, five and six and like that. I agree.

Alvin Owusu (20:22.056)
But he is comfortable trying to execute this particular strategy against Yannick Sinner. Stretch it out over best of five, we shall see. I imagine if we get into a fifth set, if we start to push four hours, Medi ain't never gotten tired. I've never seen him get tired, ever. And that's what it's gonna take. But yeah, I'm not overly enthused about anyone else's chances right now.

Torrey Hawkins (20:51.31)
It's certainly a small list, as it always is with the top number one, because that number one's that good. But I will also say it's not, I say it's not difficult. It's extremely difficult to do. It's not hard to figure out. Can you do it is the thing. Casper today, Alvin, had

Alvin Owusu (20:56.059)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (21:17.678)
heck, the guy got off to a break and a decent hold was almost sprinted to a 2-0 start, only to get almost broken in love the very next game. And in that, I wish they would do a stat on serve percentage by game to kind of show almost an aggregate on first serve percentage and do a coefficient of depth.

and time gained. know that sounds like a crazy set of numbers but I'm only asking for two things. Does the server, right, because it really boiled tennis down Alvin, it's about time, right. Servers are trying to take time from you and returns are trying to get time back from you and that's your tug of war. Let's just be honest, I mean in any sport it really kind of comes down to time or space or something, right. All the X's and O's being what they are. We all know what they're trying to do to each other and so on and so forth.

Alvin Owusu (21:59.827)
Off that first ball, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (22:12.81)
In this one here, if they did a co-op, just a small set of numbers on the amount of, let's just say the, and by time I'm talking the time difference, not the time, they're hitting the ball 100 miles an hour, 70 feet from each other. mean, this is, it's a pretty lightning rod kind of a, you know, set of exchanges. Time difference.

Alright, we started here, we go here, we're go back and forth. The time difference is what I'm talking about, just the amount of in between. Now, Casper in the first two games had a great time difference of his kick, which has given him a little more time, his open court forehand, which has given him a lot of time, now you got...

center on the run to your point sliding right side to side which is where you want him and now if you're a clay court specialist like Casper who can go back behind you often knows to go behind you often he even went behind him on over at one time I thought was pretty good like he just knows to go back behind you on the clay it's it's part of his of his his DNA and then in the very next game he dropped a few second he dropped down from say four out of five first serves to two out of six first serves and all of sudden BAM done

Just like that, the advantage and the time differential is huge and it's stark difference.

Alvin Owusu (23:26.878)
And so I wanna go, let me just, let's tease this out a little bit about the time differential. What you're saying is there's a certain amount of time between when I hit the ball, you hit the ball back to me. That is like, I am player A, you're player B. So from A to B to A, there's time. That is that takes X amount of seconds, right? But from B to A to B, the time is a little bit different, right? So we're trying to negotiate this.

Torrey Hawkins (23:29.518)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (23:46.104)
correct in that X amount of seconds.

Torrey Hawkins (23:52.216)
Bingo.

Alvin Owusu (23:55.998)
this time I want you to have less between your shots and me to have more. So I increase my pace or I push you back or height to whatever I do to keep you from hitting that 100 mile an hour forehand, get you to hit it at 80 so then I can hit it at 100. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (23:57.806)
100%. You got that buddy. 100%. Yep. Or height. Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (24:12.206)
Yep, that's right. And that is your time difference. Simple math, a second each, right? Your ball to me and my ball to you on paper is a second each. In reality, it's 1.25 and 0.75, right? At a point when a player gets behind, we always talk about getting behind the point, we're talking about time. It's always about time. Now.

Alvin Owusu (24:31.602)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (24:37.23)
Casper, due to a good heavy kick serve, buys a little bit of time, ironically, on the serve, right? And then Casper also does a great job of hammering the forehand with that. Most players do it a differently. They hammer the first, attempting to take away a little bit of time.

Alvin Owusu (24:52.018)
Take your, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (24:53.154)
And then they can bomb the, and then they can, sorry, roll the forehand. Casper chooses to roll the serve and hammer the forehand versus hammer the serve and roll the forehand. So to me, it's all about which pick your poison on clay. I would argue that.

Unless you're a medvedev who's six foot six, almost six seven, he's a European six seven to me, he slaps serve and ground stroke and is pretty comfortable because he's got the wingspan of a darn albatross, you know what mean? So he just can do whatever he wants and he's pretty good whether he's 10 feet back, a foot from baseline or just inside. He just cloaks that back in the court. And what I'm getting at with that time difference is if you start to miss said first serve,

then that could severely impact your ability to carry out any strategy. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (25:42.462)
So let's walk that down a little bit, right? I'm gonna go kind of like scenario by scenario here. If I am, let's say, let's use Mebbedev. I'm going to try to manage my time and the strategy that I'm trying to set up here. I'm gonna go hard first serve with the idea that my next ball, I want to hit a forehand with my feet set so that I can go where I want to go.

Torrey Hawkins (26:04.898)
Yup. Yup. Yes.

Alvin Owusu (26:08.613)
off of that first ball, right? So in order to do that, I'm going to tag that first serve 130. Hopefully that pace disrupts the returner. They offer up a return that is not as clean, right? If it's in the middle of the court, Medhi then slides around, gets on the forehand side and starts to dictate inside out from there, out of the court from there, right? Caspar Roode. He will use the, okay, doesn't have the same pop on the first serve, right? Flat. So if he tries to go flat,

Torrey Hawkins (26:36.428)
Not as tall, not as much racket speed. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (26:38.301)
All the things. If he tries to go flat T, I'm going to take a do side here. I'm going to go flat T to the backhand. Yannick's backed up. He's going to hit it pretty clean. Probably inside into Casper's backhand. Casper's not going to have enough time at that point to get around that ball and hit the forehand and start working inside out in that same way. So what he does is then he hits that same spot, but in a kick serve, forces Yannick back. Yannick goes back. That means his return is in the

Torrey Hawkins (27:03.532)
Yep. That's it.

Alvin Owusu (27:07.265)
air longer time, more time in the air, while that ball's in the air, Casper has time to get around, find that forehand, and then start working inside out. So there's lots of ways to get it done, but the goal is always the same, is to, I want as much time as possible between my shots, and the only way I'm do it is if you have less time. Right, yeah, okay.

Torrey Hawkins (27:15.118)
100 % 100 % 100 % Goals all in

Torrey Hawkins (27:26.1)
and you with the least.

That's right. And that is the race. That's the tug of war. Even early in that match today, Alvin, how many backhand slices deep did you see Casper hitting? A ton.

Alvin Owusu (27:34.781)
That's tug of war.

Torrey Hawkins (27:43.852)
He doesn't want to get into a high exchange because he knows that he's going to get that time taken back. Every time he takes the ball big, center's ball comes back big, and now you're actually out of time more than you would have started. I actually thought the way he played him was actually really smart. Kick out wide, look for forehand. If not, let's slow it down. Let's go deep backhand. Almost that middle cross. He wasn't going true cross. If he did, he went deep with it the second time just because he knows, okay, you're probably not going to go line on

me on that ball. And if you can, if you give me the right ball, I can also pull for it on you. I'm comfortable in and set out inside in and I don't have a bad back in myself. Casper's very underrated back in my opinion. Yes, he has pretty even on both sides. It doesn't drive it.

Alvin Owusu (28:14.651)
On that ball, yep.

Alvin Owusu (28:26.183)
but it doesn't drive it as well as like, let's say he uses spin, lifts it, so that's fine. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (28:31.062)
He lifts, but he doesn't always drive. That's why he's good on clay. He doesn't have that pop on that ball. The flip side is, Meti, and you notice this in the match, and I think, unfortunately, Claude Grock, Chad GPT, Watson Center figured it out. Meti would serve body, but 30.

Alvin Owusu (28:50.769)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (28:50.954)
making you decide, I call it the X pattern. It comes at the guy body, you lean and take a backhand, he's going back behind you with a backhand, right? You cheat and take forehand, he's running to the forehand. So in that way, you're already, he's using your own momentum against you.

He doesn't really want you to want to go wide or tee. He'll pop one every once in while, game point, but he really wants to get you right into the body and let the pace hurt you because he wants his next ball, that next body blow, so to speak, to really get you and to get his ball kind of on line, which is very smart for Deneil to do that and to know that his ball has that effect on you. then the third, we talked about this, Alcara, sorry, Novak has the ability with his spots that he can go slice wide.

He can go flat T. He can go he just hits every spot between about a buck 18 and a buck 28 and he and he doesn't matter He's just so accurate and then his returns are also as good as as Yannick's that he doesn't mind trading with you in that exchange because he's no back joker face. That's why he's so he's 1.0 or if you will I know and and now you know, you got Yannick being 3.0 So I say that to say I feel like we're you know, the the skillset

Alvin Owusu (29:56.498)
Yeah, it-

Torrey Hawkins (30:05.09)
that upset profile right has to have that ability and what happened to Casper today first serve percentage went down he didn't get that same amount of time to hit his first strike his depth went from five feet from the baseline with shape to

right behind the service line with not much shape and it's a sitter. And in that moment, the rug was literally snatched out from under him. that's really why there was so many tails of tape. I thought the match really started getting away from him when he ironically on a long hold at four three, he got down early in that game. He's able to eke it out a couple of ad points down. He's able to eke that game out. But I saw then that he wasn't able to hold on to that serve his first serve percentage in that first strike.

like exchange and then the very next game he got broken. I want to say at love or 15 and the very next game, you know, center held and before you know it was around, I think it was two oh, you know, in the second for before he resurfaced and kind of held held serve again. So I say that to say all props to center for creating pressure to do what you you can't do that and you can't do that. No one is under the rest on their own. You know, somebody's giving you pressure. However,

Alvin Owusu (31:00.125)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (31:12.411)
Right, directly, directly.

Torrey Hawkins (31:15.31)
100 % but at the same time I feel like Casper did stub his toe a little bit more than we may be giving credit, we may be giving all the credit to Yannick and in my opinion I think Casper did, he kind of self-sabotaged a little bit with the first serve percentage with not continuing the pressure he was hitting initially and that led to a fortuitous situation shall we say for Mr. Yannick's center and of course as I say you give Yannick an inch, he's gonna take a mile. mean so that's just, you know,

We know that that's proven and just a fact.

Alvin Owusu (31:49.629)
Yeah, and I mean, I want to kind of make sure we're staying extremely, I don't want to overstate the obvious here. And I think you said it well as well, but like Yannick Center is doing this to people. Like you can have, you have all the ideas in the world about how to do it. And I think you mentioned this earlier, like the, it's, the game plan is not complicated. It's just extremely hard to pull it off because the other guy, the other guy in Yannick Center is so good. It's the

Torrey Hawkins (32:00.703)
100%.

Alvin Owusu (32:18.084)
It's the ball pace. Like it all comes down to like, hits the ball so hard that you don't have time to do all these things. Again, back to our, back to our, our third co-host here, time. You don't have it. You can't, you can't do any of these things. And, but I mean, we will, we will, we will roll on to Paris. Something, something will happen. someone will be able to at some point push him. I believe, I hope, I think it's more, it might be more hope from my standpoint. I'm a, I'm a romantic. want.

Torrey Hawkins (32:28.504)
time.

Torrey Hawkins (32:36.076)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (32:45.608)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (32:47.036)
I want some tension here. I want a reason to to tune in on men's semis Friday and then final Sunday, because something might happen. But if we end up in a world where like, insert player ranked somewhere 16 to 20 in the world happens to find themselves in the final of the French Open, I'm just like, God damn it, okay fine. All right, I don't know. I don't know.

Torrey Hawkins (33:08.462)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm the purest. I enjoy beat downs. I hate to say it. I mean, I'll be honest because you know what I feel Alvin is those top players keep raising the level of the game.

and they keep showing you they're not staying, they're not just hovering where they are, they're continuing to get better. And I feel like center is showing everybody, I'm getting better every match, I'm getting better at tactically beating different styles differently. And that's what I've been so impressed with is people keep talking about the numbers and the win streak. That's not the story. The story is how he's doing it. He's beating certain players with shape, he's beating certain players by coming in.

He's now taken, I'm calling Carlos Alcaraz the drop shot play, that's almost his signature play. He's now taken Carlos' play and he's raised him, I'll see you one and I'll raise you two. He's now taken that play to an art form because he does have you so much on the back and I've talked about this the other day with option one, two and three. He plays such good option three tennis that you're not even, you're still trying to guess from the first two and he's nailing you.

on option three and you're like, whoa, you know, how, he almost made that running back slap forehand, you know, shot out and so he missed that by probably about eight inches and you're like, dude, when you hit your best lob of all time, a phenomenal point and the guy has time to run it back, look over his shoulder, see the opening and smack it there and you weren't covering it.

Alvin Owusu (34:31.718)
Yeah, right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (34:48.938)
and it would have been a wide backhand and he missed it by eight inches on a tough play, buddy. But that's option three at its best. And buddy, when you see that level, I never forget watching Fed play. I want to say he was playing Fernando Gonzalez. And I remember this play like it was Wimbledon. And I remember this play. He, was a, a, there was a, it was a drop shot play.

Alvin Owusu (34:54.918)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (35:18.45)
And I almost think my boy got there and almost kind of casually hit this lob like, I got him. Nobody gets this ball, especially on grass. And Fahd took just a quick look over his shoulder like, don't sleep. And he hits this tweener corner. Wasn't just a tweener. He knew, he knew your boy.

Alvin Owusu (35:42.042)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (35:44.75)
Fernando had literally kind of dropped his racket like almost like, okay, points over and here comes this shot and you're like, how did he know it was open? He knew it was open. He knew he would get there and he knew you weren't gonna cover it once he got there. And this is on a get, on a steal, right? And so when you see a place like that, the guy is still, in this case center, is still processing the problem.

And that's problem solving at an AI rate. That's what I'm trying to say. It's an art form. So I like that. I like seeing the people continue to take it to that next level. And I love seeing the...

them continuing to take that. That's literally what next level is to me, is them doing it. But again, can he do it continually? Can he do it? He's got a lot of miles on him now, you know what mean? So that's thing. The aggregate of him is now coming into play. And while I'm sure the Italians are happy that he played it, it's also something that he's gonna have to watch out for.

Alvin Owusu (36:34.758)
Yeah, that's true.

Alvin Owusu (36:44.316)
Well, that's something he's got to watch out for like in perpetuity, right? Rome is always going to be right before the French open. So, and he's always going to be Italian. And so this is what his, this is what he's going to have to deal with. Like same thing, Carlos is going to have to manage eventually that like, know he's missed Madrid the last two years. I think eventually they're going to, I don't want him to suit up for this bad boy. So, um, but you mentioned one thing about the processing, right? And that was the second thing that I meant to mention earlier. Yannick center reads so well.

And when I say reads, like he, it's a combination of like ball and your racket position, all the things that give off like the slight tells of what is coming next, right? And you could see it in his matches like I would say post French Open last year in his subsequent matches with Carlos, he started to read the drop shot a lot better. I think the best version of that was probably ATP finals, like towards the.

Torrey Hawkins (37:25.55)
about the cues.

Torrey Hawkins (37:33.122)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (37:42.074)
At some point that match, like he saw the drop shot coming, like he read it before Carlos even pulled it out. he, he, reads quite well. And I think that is what. Like he is just playing at a different speed right now, which, know, the ability to read like makes that whole time management thing. Like it gets built in and like an extra quarter of a second there to start adjusting to the ball you're going to hit before you start hitting it. That then gives him more time to hit the shot.

Torrey Hawkins (37:56.137)
I would say.

Alvin Owusu (38:11.12)
that he's most comfortable hitting if he can kind of see it coming. And that's...

Torrey Hawkins (38:15.872)
and add to that great footwork to pull that shot off that he's gonna hit and add to that pretty clean on the rise. So he's taken any residual time away from you as well. And what you're left with is this cacophony of just an absolute.

compactor of time and stress because you'll never get it back. mean, you will, you, and he has this sixth sense, have you noticed this Alvin? He has this sixth sense of he almost always goes to the right target on a step up. You guess left, he's going right. You hedge and go back right, he's going drop shot away from you. You're right, man. Forget, But the read, and then, and then.

Alvin Owusu (38:53.328)
Right. That's the reading. That's the reading.

Torrey Hawkins (39:00.286)
it's the decision of that execution of said read. I would think that in my opinion the read is more of a mental, let me see what you're going to do here.

And then he tags it on you to almost like a slam dunk in basketball to make you pay for it. It's not like he's hitting open court Jay and then I got the hot hand. No, no, no, no. I'm going to embarrass you with this ball. Don't sleep. And it's just this and you know, he's not a huge power hitter. So you don't see him, you know, coming at you like say an Andy Roddick with the big 150 serve or say, you know, somebody else I can see with the huge forehand or, you know, or old school now band and or, or Marty with the, with the clean backhand.

hand down the line, know, he just hurts you and makes you just makes you pay. And you're like, you know, yeah, it's just a whip. It's just a whip. And that thing is an absolute mini sonic boom like a whip. Anyway, it's just, it's fun to watch him. It's really, it really, it really is fun to watch. And I think that when to the listeners of yours and

Alvin Owusu (39:45.276)
It's like that kinetic energy, not like brute force. It's like, yeah, it's a whip. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (40:03.694)
maybe even hopefully a handful of parents and juniors out there who are watching this who want to get the next level better. I think the next, the only person that's going to beat

Yannick Center is a player that can move as well as Yannick Center can, who can have the depth and withstand the barrage, but also deliver said barrage. And he's gonna have to, he's gonna have to be able to make Yannick uncomfortable. But I wanna take that a step further. The next top player after Yannick, there will always be one, right?

I've always looked through history of tennis. feel like each great player, there's another 2.0 version or 3.0 version, right? I mentioned Agassi and then we got Novak and now we got Center. I feel like, and I'm not forgetting all the rest of it, Pete, then Roger and so on and so on, right? Right, there's always gonna be a great one. There's always gonna be a new quote unquote new avatar. I'm talking about...

Alvin Owusu (41:00.813)
Yeah, other lane, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (41:09.228)
But the level of footwork and the level of movement and the level of is in itself great. And then on top of that, they're have to move like that to be able to execute. He's just playing at a different speed to your point and most everyone else is not. That's why it's such a stark difference. That Zverev match in the final of Madrid was so telling to me.

Alvin Owusu (41:30.425)
Madrid? Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (41:33.888)
because of how well Sasha was beating everybody else. Now we know his first set was not his best tennis, but Sasha had zero problems with anyone else until Yannick.

Alvin Owusu (41:36.953)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (41:47.026)
And Janik was just playing at a different speed, Alvin, not ball speed, processing speed, footwork speed. Any ball kind of down the middle, he was running around and tagging it and hurting him and going forward. I mean, it was almost to a point where you were hoping that Sasha would keep it close. You knew he was going to lose. You were just hoping they would keep it competitive. again, it was very, very strange in the world for a reason. He's not, he's going to get through a rough patch and be fine.

I just feel like that next player I'm talking two three five how many years after the next center

has his work cut out for him and it's gonna start with reads and footwork. It's not gonna be necessarily with technique and this and that. It's gonna come with those two pieces because you're gonna have to. be able to the man, to be the man, gotta beat the man, right? And that's what I think he's taken the level of the game and that is some very heavy lifting,

Alvin Owusu (42:39.973)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (42:48.453)
Well, and like, let us not forget, like Carlos exists, right? He exists just because he's not playing right now. He exists and when he comes back.

Torrey Hawkins (42:52.491)
for sure. And the ultimate foil of Sad Sinner.

Alvin Owusu (42:57.283)
Right. And vice versa. And center is, the ultimate foil for, for Carlos. Cause he forces Carlos can do all these things that we've talked about and center forces all of it out of him, all of it. So that's why this, that's why that particular rivalry is so great. But to your point about the, the, what is the 2.0 version of Yannick center that, that person, that player, and this is why a lot of people get really excited about Rafael Hodar at I do as well. But as we saw in Rome,

Torrey Hawkins (43:01.198)
100%.

100%.

Torrey Hawkins (43:08.492)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (43:15.362)
Yeah, of course, exactly.

Alvin Owusu (43:27.331)
He and we talked about this. We talked about this earlier in the, in the spring. He has not had enough professional time on tour. His legs are not there yet to do it, especially now we go from a long three is a long three set match is one thing along five set match and where you that, that laundry list of things we just listed out that you have to do to beat that, that guy over there. And it's going to take you probably four hours to get it done at that. Let's just, let's take it up a bit.

Torrey Hawkins (43:40.394)
and time out.

Alvin Owusu (43:57.22)
Right. Cause that's where we're talking about the highest, the biggest prizes in our sport on the men's side in these, in these grand slams. Like you also have to add in that, that factor of the matches are a lot longer. The requirements are still the same. Now we just have to do it over time and it's, it's yeah, it's, it's fun to a lot. It's still fun to watch. And I, I do like to say like, I want a little more tension. want a little more story, but that does not stop me from appreciating.

Torrey Hawkins (44:08.108)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (44:17.922)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (44:23.598)
Yeah, of course. Right, the greatness that you're experiencing, right, right. That's what I'm saying.

Alvin Owusu (44:26.787)
what I'm watching. Yeah, it's just a little, he does some things that are just, as a tennis player and as a tennis fan, you're like, God bless it, this kid is good. Like, he is literally no back joke bitch, the second coming. so that's, yeah, that's fun, that's fun. I don't think we have to give much more credence to what we just saw. That was great. I'm excited for Roland Garros, I know you are as well. We've got the draw.

Torrey Hawkins (44:48.046)
No.

Alvin Owusu (44:55.055)
coming up here back into this coming week, on Friday, something like that. you'll see our faces as soon as possible after that. In the meantime, we've got some stuff popping, so you might see us once more between now and then. We'll see, might have a guest or two swing in through the best of three space. But if not, we are here, Tori, we are here. 100 days of slam summer.

Torrey Hawkins (44:57.709)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (45:17.934)
Great, great time to be here. I thought the clay court season.

just flew by, you know what mean? It's not over yet, but it feels like it. It feels like there's been so much going on. And isn't it kind of funny how we kind of thought we had so much parody. We kept talking about the parody in the women's game, parody. And now the parody's almost overtaking. Now we got parody overtaking in the women's game. like, oh, hang on now, hang on. And it's like those same four that look like they were moving in.

Alvin Owusu (45:24.443)
It did. It did.

Torrey Hawkins (45:52.048)
It's like the moving truck got broke down on the way there and now the parity, ones we didn't necessarily expect are shooting through and I feel like in the men's game, obviously, well, it's unfortunate that we lost Al Carraz and Lorenzo but I also feel like it's only gonna make for a really strong resurgence when they return. Remember the three month suspension, right, when center was out. Al Carraz was winning everything. I mean, it was darn near. Then he had that real bad.

Alvin Owusu (45:57.455)
It's-

Torrey Hawkins (46:21.968)
Sunshine Double but but up until that time he was killing it you know and I feel like you know it's it's tough and I know that the tour itself is gonna take its toll on on some of these players just through the aggregate of matches and volume and that's another talk show but I still feel they need to do something to kind of limit you know limit the number of matches at least on a per player basis just so that these players have so maybe we'll tease that out for another episode

Alvin Owusu (46:50.031)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (46:50.894)
It was a heck of a tournament and heck of a season. God, Yannick Center is literally playing at another level right now. And it's fun to watch, fun to be a fan.

Alvin Owusu (47:01.916)
Absolutely, absolutely. And if you're a WTA fan, don't feel slighted. We covered the women's half yesterday, so I'll try to remember to link that in the description so you can go watch that episode. But yeah, I feel confident putting a pin in it for now. I'm Alvin, that's Tory, best of three, we are out.