Coco Gauff’s Evolved Defense, Zverev’s Opening, and the Roland Garros Attrition Test

Roland Garros is rarely just a question of who has the highest level. On clay, every return game, long rally, and physical exchange changes the tournament before the second week even begins. In this draw show, Alvin and Torrey frame Paris as an attrition tournament — one where the draw itself becomes a defining opponent.

The strongest lens is Coco Gauff’s title defense. Rather than treating Coco as the same player who won the event, the episode looks at whether her game has evolved: a steadier toss, a more assertive forehand, improved serve patterns, elite passing shots, and the ability to blend counterpunching with offense.

On the men’s side, Sinner remains the standard, but Zverev emerges as the clearest non-Sinner championship alternative because of how the draw breaks around him. Novak’s section is more demanding, Alcaraz’s absence changes the geometry of the tournament, and the early rounds are filled with players capable of draining the favorites before the business end.

Transcript

Alvin Owusu (00:05.667)
And welcome to another episode of the best three podcast. I'm Alvin, that's Tory and Tory it's that time of year. It is, it is French open Roland Garros, Tierra Batu, Philippe Chatrier, all the things that we appreciate about the, the, the peak of the clay court season. is coming to an end, but not without two weeks of sliding around and trying to make some history. But.

Torrey Hawkins (00:11.876)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (00:34.977)
before we get into our French Open draw show. TH, how are we doing this morning?

Torrey Hawkins (00:40.314)
good, Alvin, I'm good, I'm blessed, you know what I mean? Got some family in town and it was just awesome seeing everyone, you know, very, very blessed. would sometimes forget how blessed we are, you know what I mean? So, you I invite you and obviously myself and our viewers and listeners, everyone, so just take a pause in this crazy world where everything's happening. Just, man, just embrace your family, man, and embrace the ones that...

that help make the composite of who we are, you know what I mean, on a very feel-good moment this morning. I'm really, really blessed to have my family and my parents. it was really, it's just one of those moments for me with some personal things going on health-wise. just really, really appreciate having them and having them not only with me, but also having them in my life. So, wanted to pass that on to you this morning for your,

What is that? Your daily nugget or what's the little piece that one of the radio... Right. Yeah, but it was very, very apropos for today. You know what I mean? So there it is. How about yourself, Mr. Usu? How you doing?

Alvin Owusu (01:45.571)
Yeah, it's like a daily devotional or like, you know, whatever it might be. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:55.779)
Yeah, glad to hear it, glad to hear it. I'm doing well, I'm doing well. Shout out to, I know you know this, a few of you might not know this, I am a proud alumni of Catawba College. Did my four years there on the men's tennis team, well also as a graduate, but I was a student and an athlete, I did both. But my point is, for the first time in program history, both the men's and women's teams are in the semi-finals of the Division II NCAA Championships.

Torrey Hawkins (02:06.392)
top of baby.

Torrey Hawkins (02:13.909)
Ha ha ha ha.

Alvin Owusu (02:24.917)
My friend, we are turning ourselves into a perennial powerhouse. and they're both playing in the same ease this, I think today and tomorrow. and the better they do, the better I look, let's just put it that way.

Torrey Hawkins (02:29.131)
Absolutely.

Torrey Hawkins (02:36.02)
Absolutely. I am actually looking at bringing on one of your future, I think she just graduated, one of the number one on the ladies team. Shout out to Sophia. How you doing? Antonelli, she may be joining us at the club in the fall. So we're going to wish her good luck in the rest of tournament thus far. obviously, when I was talking to her, she was like,

Alvin Owusu (02:46.253)
Nice.

Torrey Hawkins (03:05.812)
know about Catawba College, was like, I know a lot about Catawba College as a matter of fact.

Alvin Owusu (03:11.445)
It happens very infrequently, but when it does, you can see a Catawba College, anyone associated with the school, their faces light up, especially the further you get from Rowan County in North Carolina. But no one came here to hear about the mighty, mighty Indians. Let's get to business. And I think the draw show for us, this is our, I don't know, probably sixth time doing this, dating back to last year.

Torrey Hawkins (03:15.13)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (03:20.036)
No No doubt.

Torrey Hawkins (03:28.631)
I guess.

Alvin Owusu (03:40.675)
And they're always fun, they're always interesting. I start to look at it like the welcome drinks on the weekend of a wedding. We're not quite at the rehearsal stage yet, we're getting close to there, but for everyone who's in town, let's get together and spend some time together before we get down to business. And the order of business for us starts on the men's side. And before we kind of go through this thing,

section by section, I think our goal is to tease out some matches that are worth your attention early on and then also zoom out and look at this from a macro level of like, okay, what do we actually have here? And I think we'll start with the macro, right? Obviously we've got Yannick Center up top. We've got Alexander Zverev in the two spot. And then the big question here was where was Novak gonna land? I mean, outside of what is Novak's condition? Who knows? I don't.

it probably doesn't matter what his condition is today. It probably only matters, it will matter when he starts playing tennis matches. But Novak lands on the bottom in a pretty hellish section that we'll get to a little bit later. kind of when we look at the whole thing here, do you see an opportunity for anyone to

disrupt what we think is going to be a fairly, fairly chalk-ish, maybe straightforward end to this tournament.

Torrey Hawkins (05:14.126)
You know what, things can always happen at the French Open. I'm gonna answer your question in two parts. On its face, no. In the terrible two, as we always seem to see, and as it always is, it's been a long clay court season. The fact that we're missing Carlos Alcaraz and wasn't it, who else? Mehdi, Mehdi?

Alvin Owusu (05:39.212)
Mousetri? No, Mousetri, Mousetri, Mousetri, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (05:41.88)
Sorry, sorry, thank you. All ready is a testament to just the length of the year, right? And their unfortunate injuries at this point in time. If I'm not mistaken, Alvin, we lost nine of so many seeds in the first three days. And I want to say it was a total of maybe 17 by the end of the first week. So it was something drastic. I may be off on that second number, but it was a significant amount.

Alvin Owusu (06:06.56)
In Rome, right? Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (06:07.896)
Well, I'm talking about in the French Open, in the first week of the French last year. It was almost, it was just blood was in the water everywhere. And I think it had a lot to do with the, just with the overall volume of play coming in. So with that said, we don't really know who is and who isn't dinged up. We don't know who is and isn't able to, and playing in top form. We know Yannick Sanders playing in top form. We know he's played a lot.

Alvin Owusu (06:12.074)
yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah, that was bad.

Torrey Hawkins (06:36.57)
I know he's won the last five Masters 1000s and he's clearly the player to beat and he's in top form right now. Assuming he's healthy, assuming everything is good, he's clearly the favorite. It's the rest of the field, it's the others who we don't know and it's quite frankly him himself. He also has played five big time tournaments in a row and that's six, seven matches, I think six per week for the last...

dare I say month and a half, really hasn't had much breaks. So assuming he's, and you always have to kind of question what kind of form a player like that, well, we know how good a tennis he's playing, what effect that's having on the body just through that many, a myriad of matches. So that being said, that's my caveat is yes, straightforward, question mark, how does the volume play out?

Alvin Owusu (07:27.906)
Right, that's fair, that's fair. And with that, let's kind of like walk through this section a little bit here. I'm kind of, my attention is drawn pretty early to this. What will eventually be inconsequential, but always interesting when you get players, one of my favorite things is like, when players are in that kind of 28 to 32 seating range, and they end up drawing someone who's in like the 33 to 40 range,

Those types of matches and then anytime someone else like other opponents are within about five ranking spots of each other early on, it's one of those, okay, as a fan, when there are so many matches on today or if you're there in person and you have a grounds pass, what should I be doing with my time? Those are the kind of matches that I tend to gravitate to and then also recommend other people get their eyes on because you know the quality of the tennis is going to be there. The levels are about the same. So with,

know, here with like Fusovic versus Beratini. Beratini, you know, coming in and out of injuries here and there, but he seems to be healthy now. That'll be an interesting early matchup. But also, Bublik versus Struth. That one is interesting to me. Bublik is playing in, I think he's, can't remember if he's in Hamburg right now or the other event. But, you know, he's had a pretty solid run over the last 12 months, but.

Yon Linder Struth is, you know, he's tough. He's extremely tough. That's one of those like, it's a little tougher than you want for a first round, if, if, and you assume Buhl gets through it, you feel like he's gonna be, he's gonna be sharper for it and bodes well for the rest of the first week for him.

Torrey Hawkins (09:12.974)
had some magic last year. I am not as bullish on Mr. Bublik at current form. However, if anybody can be magical with the soft touch drop shots and the big serve and overall good ground strokes, it would be Bublik. it would also be a great win and momentum maker for Young Leonard.

Alvin Owusu (09:38.986)
Yeah, and everything's kind of like the, the, especially in this section above all other sections, through the lens of what is going to push or test Mr. Center as we move forward towards the money making into this event, the business end of the event, towards quarterfinals and out. And Bublik is one of those players that, I Bublik has beaten him. He beat him on grass last year, right before Wimbledon. So that's of note. But then also,

I won't even overlook his record against Shroff. It's three and three. Bube has won the last two, but Shroff has won all of their clay court meetings. So not that either will be likely to be consequential towards the end of this event, but worth noting another interesting, a little interesting section here between Munar and her cats and then Spaziri and Francis.

Torrey Hawkins (10:23.381)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (10:31.919)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (10:33.973)
Hurkats has been as close to top 10 as anyone else. I'm not sure if he got into the top 10 maybe two years ago before he got hurt. And then Jaime Munoz, a very proficient Spanish clay quarter. A lot of experience. Yeah, this is gonna be, yeah, that's a tough first round. I'm safe for both of them actually. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (10:47.042)
Always fun to

Torrey Hawkins (10:53.614)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed.

Alvin Owusu (10:58.261)
And then next right, the winner of that match will play the winner of Spaziery and Francis, obviously Elliott Spaziery, University of Texas Finest, most notably with the Sonna match against Mr. Sinner in Australia. He's cracked the top 100, he's hovering right around 90. Francis, overall good year, but Clay Court thus far has been, I would say slightly underwhelming.

Torrey Hawkins (11:11.268)
Ha ha ha ha.

Alvin Owusu (11:27.837)
skipped Monte Carlo, I don't believe he played Madrid either. And then round of 32 in Rome, did okay in Houston earlier in the season. So it's one of those matches where I never really feel like Francis has an issue with underpowered players. Like if you start to look at his record, you're gonna have to hit him off the court. He's got a little too much skill and a little too much craft for, especially like, like I said, underpowered guys, especially guys coming out who played

college tennis, not to demean those played college tennis at all, but it's just a different level of pop that Mr. Ceziri has. And while it worked well for him and the probably the last time he built saw him, which is I'll show you against Yannick. With Francis, I just feel like it's just not gonna have enough to put a dent in him.

Torrey Hawkins (12:19.77)
Yeah, I think your point more is is going toward the experience that Francis has and his ball striking is his ball striking is top 10 in the world period. And so you know, Mrs. Bezerri, the difference in top 10 top 100 is pretty far. And if and Francis what?

Wasn't it just four or five years ago, Alvin, that he was in the semis of the US Open, knocking off the hole, and at some point, you don't get there and have that level of prowess and lose it even if you're maybe a half step slow and a little bit older. So you can still strike the ball. He won't be hit off the court by Spazier. I think we both can agree on that. But that's two very tough.

matches and for that matter, as is always in these kind of matchups, I think it's good for the viewers and listeners to know, there are on the clay, every round, every first round is fairly tough. Even, I know you're gonna get to it later, think Novak drew and Pesci Pericard, right? And so I'm looking at that like on any other surface that

that on any other surface, well I should say for that particular match maybe grass will be a tough first round but in general, you know, even that match isn't as straightforward because the clay makes you do things. The clay just makes you earn it that much more and that's that many more returns, that many more shots, that many more body blows. It's just the clay has its cumulative effect, right? And it just, even if you get through that round,

your, you know, your, I think of video games, they got the little, the life button, right? The little, the break button, it's like the little arm with the, you know, with the little, it starts, it starts going down a little lower. You know, every match you go down and there's not a way to get extra life, so to speak, you know, with the power up button. So it's just, that's the thing I think that you have to really be watching. I'll be thinking about my inner, you know,

Torrey Hawkins (14:27.284)
meter of the attrition meter, you know what I mean? How much are these players losing through attrition and how much are they having to grind through? And I think that's always an effect you have to take on with Roland Garros is that will play a factor more so even than the matchup itself as these matches and as the draw continues.

Alvin Owusu (14:49.217)
Right, absolutely. Matriculating down here through the rest of this section. Another just like kind of interesting pocket of matches here, like Greek Spore versus Arnaldi, and then Muller against Sitsipas. That's just, again, to your point about tough first round tennis. Obviously Sitsipas isn't where he was in the rankings prior, but he seemingly has found some form that is allowing him to post decent results kind of week in and week out for the last two or three months or so.

Torrey Hawkins (15:04.804)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (15:14.67)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (15:18.721)
That's again, that's a, for him to, I think he would be really reinvigorated if he could see himself getting through a Mueller and or Greek sport or Nalde to four potential third round matchup with Mr. Shelton or even Collin Young is tough on Clay as well. it's, mean, I say that to say all of it is it, if you're looking at what, who might end up hoisting.

the trophy at the end of the two weeks, it's likely, if it's gonna come from this section of the draw, it's likely gonna come from the guy with the one next to his name. But if you are a tennis fan and you're looking forward to watching some good tennis over the next opening rounds, there's a lot to pick at here, a lot to dig into. There'll be a lot of really tough matches coming out of this section. Moving down into Felix Oje Aliassime's quarter, that is a...

Torrey Hawkins (15:54.49)
Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (16:16.592)
That's a hell of a first run matchup for him.

Torrey Hawkins (16:18.298)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (16:20.837)
I mean Altmeier is Altmeier's is tough. They've gone one on their one-on-one career wise on clay Francis won the last two but like Altmeier is he's kind of like that pros pro Kind of shows up week in week out. He's maximized his skill set like he's going to bring the pale and the basics at a very high level I I'm circling that one as a cuz

I mean, Francis has done extremely well at this event before. I'm sorry, not Francis, probably Felix. He keeps saying the F and I want to call him Francis. Yeah, exactly, we'll just go with FAA to keep it simple. But his clay court season has been a little iffy this year. I think it's always wise to err on the side of form as opposed to historical. Except with Novak Djokovic, we're gonna put him to the side.

Torrey Hawkins (16:56.046)
Yeah, FAA.

Torrey Hawkins (17:12.27)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (17:16.634)
Yeah, he's always a monkey rich.

Alvin Owusu (17:20.147)
Right, exactly. But I'm a little concerned about FAA, to be honest with you. This is a tough opening round match and his form hasn't done anything to make me feel hopeful that he can live up to that 4C. It feels like a pretty shaky 4.

Torrey Hawkins (17:38.17)
Yeah.

Especially on clay and especially, you know what mean? I would him indoors in the same situation is a completely different animal and I grew he was he certainly looked sharper toward the end of last year But again, that's indoor and it's indoor hard court So, mean I agree with you the clay to me has always been a little not terrible on it He moves was good athlete. He's tall. He's he actually was quite well for a big guy, but he just doesn't seem to It doesn't seem to be as comfortable for him and I agree with you and Altmaier is the last person you want to play

on a service or not that's not your preference when you're a four seed looking down the draw and you've got you know all my right in front you that's that's a I agree with you 100 %

Alvin Owusu (18:19.252)
Yeah, I mean even at that small section there like anybody else. Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (18:21.834)
I think you treated him to two Argentinians, right? So you don't get out of it at all.

Alvin Owusu (18:27.872)
Yeah, and Felix is interesting in that like when you look at just kind of his shot production, right? Like you would think it would land well on Clay. It's an extremely heavy forehand, backhand is just, it's kind of a lockdown space. He's not gonna, you know, create a lot of offense off that wing and he moves well, he slides with the best of him. It's just like his, it's almost like his mentality is not suited for Clay. It takes a certain amount of like,

Torrey Hawkins (18:38.714)
Yeah. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (18:56.884)
willingness to weave together shots and then points where it really feels like he wants to hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, as opposed to kind of weave, weave, weave, weave.

Torrey Hawkins (19:10.202)
know, little more Muhammad Ali stick and move, you know what mean? He's trying to go through you a little more Tyson than Ali. And I think that's actually the problem. When I watched Felix and a lot of players for that matter, I could name a few other players in that same category. They have the ball. They slide, right? But clay court tennis, at least elite clay court tennis, is not just your ability to...

Alvin Owusu (19:13.085)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (19:39.37)
slide and your heavy ball. Clay court tennis comes down to your ability to move and defend being attacked, which I don't know if he's as good as. It has to do with your ability to, we talked about on previous episode, triple threat. Yes, I can go behind you, which is almost looked for. I can also run you.

and I still have either the angle or the drop shot, option three, that you just have to respect. And that one thing makes you a little more leery.

of doing so. And I think that's something that he doesn't necessarily have. And then on top of all that, you need to be able to have just incredible fitness toward the guy on other side of the net, fears, long points and long games against you. And where a player with great fitness almost looks forward to a match going long, a big server, big forehand is looking to hold serve. They don't necessarily look forward to long games on their serve. And so now you realize it actually hurts your first serve percentage over the course of time. Your legs get a little bit more

Alvin Owusu (20:37.054)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (20:42.844)
shot, there goes that first serve percentage. And from now, you're being a 6'5 player with an obvious weapon, you go down to about 6' maybe with 60, maybe 50 % first serves, and now you are spinning that thing in there, and now your returner, who may have been 5'8, now looms 6'2 on the second serve return of things, because he's inside the court more, he's hurting you more, and that same triple threat works against you. You don't have those same options. You're clinging.

and dare I say even forcing from time to time. it's that first serve, second serve, the triple threat, those are things that I don't see Felix and a host of other taller, bigger, harder hitters possessing. And that's why I think it's that the clay is tricky for him.

Alvin Owusu (21:30.016)
Yep, yep, well put. We'll keep matriculating through here. Interesting first round matchup for, I mean this is one that might fly under the radar between Chilich and Kwame, but Kwame, young French guy, wild card, he's one of those, it's Mois to Moises, I'll have go to the ATP site and.

Torrey Hawkins (21:40.922)
Yeah, work well, Moist? Is it moist? How do you say it's Yeah. Fun kid. He's crazy fast,

Alvin Owusu (21:53.183)
Yeah, yeah, and I think he's one of the ones, like, you every year there's a batch of new ones, exactly, exactly, and he is kind of, I wanna say the leader of that class, I think he's 17 years old, maybe, maybe 18, but that's an interesting one. He'll have the French crowd behind him.

Torrey Hawkins (21:57.912)
Right, new next James, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:06.692)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:14.202)
I'll say fun, but I won't say interesting, but I know what you're saying for me anyway. I think Chillich is still one of those old steady, and dare we forget another Grand Slam champion right here. I just don't know if Moise has faced Marin yet, you know what I mean? And that's a whole nother tutorial in and of itself. And while he's certainly vulnerable at his older age, is not necessarily about the

Alvin Owusu (22:26.43)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (22:44.156)
likes of Mr. Kwame yet, you know what I mean? So, you know.

Alvin Owusu (22:46.084)
Right, right, yeah, yeah. It's more so like if you are a fan of tennis and you wanna, obviously we'll be talking about, we know who we'll be talking about in a week or so. This is a good opportunity to get an eye on, I like to see when these young guys play their, the first one or two Grand Slams. I remember, I think Chilich beat, you and I were together, Chilich beat Fonseca at Wimbledon last year, is that right? that's, I feel like we were watching that one in my house.

Torrey Hawkins (22:56.676)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (23:14.988)
Yeah. Was it chillin'?

Alvin Owusu (23:15.776)
Maybe, it might have been Chilich. And then, know, kind of earlier in the year, I remember watching Hodar's first Australian at-move match against I think Minsic. It might have been his second round match. But it's just kind of good to get look at these guys. Yeah, they've got to see it. We get to see them. You see how hard best of five set tennis is at this level. I guess this is still level with it, that format. yeah, just one of those like eh.

Torrey Hawkins (23:27.78)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (23:31.29)
They gotta see it. They gotta see it.

Torrey Hawkins (23:38.414)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:45.192)
If you, you, if there's nothing else going on, go check that one out. And I think the French crowd will be, will be lit for that one. Another interesting matchup here. Christian Gurin, Lerner Tien. Lerner's playing some, yeah, Lerner's playing really well right now. I think he's in the final, semi-final of either, is it Geneva or Hamburg? I always forget like who's playing which event right now. They sneak in right before the tournament, but.

Torrey Hawkins (24:09.423)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (24:13.919)
Yeah, Lerner beat Mickelson yesterday. Tough three set battle, I it's like 6-1 or 6-2 and third.

Torrey Hawkins (24:16.739)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (24:20.986)
This could be a very sneaky situation for Mr. T and I could see him.

Really making some some moves and getting and possibly getting to the second week here. I really like his game. I like what and especially on the clay. I mean he's good on most on most surfaces, but especially the clay the lefty side of things having the ability to redirect on both sides. He's just rock solid. He's beaten seeds before he know that's that he won't have that he won't be shell shocked at the at the you know at the parentheses and numbers next to somebody else you are and I feel like he is.

poised to make a nice run. Ironically, I'm looking right below him and my main man, Cirundolo, playing a Botic.

Alvin, you know, that's a heck of a first round match right there. I see it, ironically, speaking of Sarandolo, I know you have some thoughts on that matchup. I haven't seen Sarandolo make his usual quarters, you know, round of 16 kind of runs as of late. And that's interesting to see Lerner as an 18 seed and Sarandolo has now, in my opinion, has slipped a little bit to a 25 seed. I feel like they're going opposite directions. And I say that to say, you know, here's the juxtaposing the two of

them. I actually even though it's one little group in Argentina, I really could see learner going farther with what I've seen of his matchup in his profile. He just matches up differently to more people than a Sarundalo does and I and for that reason, I see his stock if you will being a little having a little bit of a higher ceiling.

Alvin Owusu (25:57.94)
Yeah, that's well put. Learner Tien is almost the, when you gave that kind of breakdown of what it takes to be successful on clay at this level, I think him and he and Felix could not be more juxtaposed to each other. He has the savvy, he has the triple threat, he has the ability to weave through points as opposed to try to always hit his way through points. So I'm with you there, Learner. Sarundalo.

Torrey Hawkins (26:11.748)
Smith.

Alvin Owusu (26:26.279)
We talked about this before but it always strikes me as like he's like a fake. He's like a fake Argentine like he he's got the flag But he's definitely a hardcore player. It's it's a You would you would expect a seated Argentine to do really well, but I also

Torrey Hawkins (26:30.327)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (26:40.93)
Right. He came up through the Wando Pochero School of Argentine. He was on that side of town that only had hard courts. And a speed gun in the back closet, you know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (26:46.591)
Yeah, exactly.

Alvin Owusu (26:53.951)
Jesus. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, he's got a tough first round matchup. Botic is one of those, very similar to Benjamin Bonzi that we'll get to later. He's one of those guys, in the first round, that's not what you wanna see as a seed. He's not gonna get flustered. Pretty handy on all surfaces. It's going to take, I mean.

Feel like we're gonna say this a lot especially the men's side. It's gonna take a lot of work to get through all these matches And that's just kind of also part of being on clay court part of being three out of five sets like everything slows down Especially and especially in Paris. I think it's gonna be a little warmer next week It's all it's all mid 80s not that I've been looking at the temperature or anything like that, but Not that I'm packing my bags or anything

Torrey Hawkins (27:39.738)
Yeah. Not to pack in your bags or anything.

Alvin Owusu (27:46.208)
But yeah, mean, obviously warmer temperatures is gonna favor those who like to get the ball through the court, but you never know, things can change pretty quickly there. As we get to the bottom of this quarter, Danil Medvedev, not the guy that jumps off the paper as a one who would do well at this tournament, the clay court in general, but has quietly

turned himself into a, I'm gonna even say past respectable clay court player. I think he's gotten to the point now where his stock level is starting to show up more frequently on clay. He's not gonna make a mess. mean, short of that, was it an 0-0 match he lost in Monte Carlo first round? It was a weird one. Short of that, like, he's been bang on for the last two months.

Torrey Hawkins (28:27.834)
Sure. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (28:43.975)
I'm not only the final in Indian Wells, but also pushed center in the semis of Rome, took a set off from there. So when you kind of zoom out and look at, when I'm looking at the top half of this draw, what am I getting myself into here? Could I see Mevada making a run to the semis? Like, I mean, not only do I see that happening, I don't see much.

Torrey Hawkins (28:50.88)
send me a note.

Alvin Owusu (29:10.759)
I don't even see much resistance outside of like maybe Lerner Tien if he's able to move himself through.

Torrey Hawkins (29:10.81)
resistance in the way. 100%. Who he happens to have beat a few times, you know, in Australia.

Alvin Owusu (29:19.455)
They have a very short time of Lunar T and being on tour, they have a very deep history together.

Torrey Hawkins (29:23.064)
Yeah. Right. that was the only thing that could derail him. And unfortunately for Metty, and fortunately for Lerner, that was what I was saying. I could see Lerner making some nice moves. And should Lerner either not get there or DeNeil, you know, prove to be a little stronger on the clay with that punishing stroke of his, he would definitely serve to play spoiler of the, I think there's five, maybe.

players that could get a set off of center and he certainly is one of them and he just proved it on clay, know, less than a few weeks ago.

Alvin Owusu (29:58.621)
Yep. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention, in this section here, one Gail Monfise in his final, his final, visit to Roland Garros as a player. his fellow countryman Hugo Gaston in the first round, two wildcards. that'll be, that'll be special. That'll be special. As many, as many matches as we get with Gail, it could be one, it could be some, we don't know. but regardless, every minute spent on court will be, will be entertaining.

Torrey Hawkins (30:04.408)
Yeah, fire gospel. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (30:16.217)
me.

Torrey Hawkins (30:25.082)
We're the better for it, man. That darn Gail Monfiste, I remember the kid, man, since.

Gotta say it was probably 02, Alvin, my first time watching Gale on the qualies over there at the outside courts at the US Open. Baggy shorts, slap forehand, hitting the old jump, slap forehand, know, crazy serve, drop shot, I mean, you name it. Some of the things I saw that kid do as a young man and in the career that he's amassed and just the sheer entertainment value he's given us. Inspiration.

and laughs and and awes and everything over the 20 plus years of his very very very colorful career I'm just and I just could not be more proud of his of his tennis career and you know I feel like it's something that in an in a previous era right he would have been he would have been Yannick Noah you know 2.0 you know what I mean as far as winning the French for the French you know I mean he was

Alvin Owusu (31:27.743)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (31:31.514)
always like Yankees was a shop maker and playmaker and you know in that era where you might could sneak one out you know what I mean Gale was right there I'm lost to was it was it Fed in the final of the US what was his what was his best finish wasn't that one his best

Alvin Owusu (31:47.135)
Did he ever final I think it may be semi-final. I don't think you ever don't think ever final

Torrey Hawkins (31:50.01)
Was that a For some reason I thought it was a final, it could have been a semi. When he's Coke on the sidelines, when he was going into the fifth set. That might have been a semi. Either way, my point is to say I look back at his whole career and all the highlights that I through my head and I'm just, I always have a smile. mean, you cannot help but have a smile on your face. So I'll be tuning into every match he plays knowing this will be his, this is his last round up and obviously his last French. So anyway.

There are a lot, I don't wanna skip down to Etcheveria and Borges just yet, but there's a lot of these other matchups, I know we're talking first rounds, and obviously the lucky losers and the qualifiers are in there, but there's a lot of names in this next half album from Demonard and Blox.

to Brooksby, to Menchik, there's, you don't know who they're gonna play. Obviously the draws not filled out yet from the Qualies. But clearly, obviously the Qualies could always wreak havoc, but.

that second round matchup, it turns into a couple of dicey ones, you know what I mean? you know, I just wanted to point that out. feel like, you know, one, know, Demon R playing blocks, Brooks B playing, potentially playing, playing mincey. Those are some, that's very gorgeous. There's a lot of matchups, Kev Manovich and Marzan. There's some matchups there that you're like, not only is that match,

A couple of them could be tough. And who they lead into could be just as tough. you're looking at a four set, could be a five set next round, kind of a matchup back to back. And those are the matchups that you always, you as a, let's say you as the favorite here being a demon R, while you look like you're an eight seed compared to a bunch of qualiers and non, you

Torrey Hawkins (33:43.17)
points of no interest, person of no interest, now you walk in that same man, but I gotta keep my head on the swivel because this is not some easy, this is very tough sledding for me going into these few no-name quote unquote matches.

Alvin Owusu (33:57.087)
I mean, I would even go a step further. So this is the top half of Novak's quarter. So you got 32 players here, and if you had a round of 32 out of 500 that had Novak as the top seed and DiVonora as the two seed, and DiVonora's looking at a matchup with Blox in the second round, like that's no joke. And Blox, I mean, he beat Blox in Monte Carlo five and six, right? And one thing about

Mr. Blox is that we've seen over the last two months. He's getting better each week on clay. Not just on clay, but in general as a touring professional. That's not gonna be, you know, that's not gonna be straightforward. And I wouldn't say that Clay is Alex's best surface by any means. He moves well, obviously extremely quick, but he brings a fairly flat ball through the court. It's not, you never really see him do extremely well at this event. And I think someone like,

Torrey Hawkins (34:31.15)
Right. In general.

Alvin Owusu (34:54.578)
Blocks who is rangy can push him has pushed him Extrap like that over with a little more time over best out of five It's not it's not straightforward and then you you start looking

Torrey Hawkins (35:05.754)
And he's chasing the Yodars and the Fonsecas, right? He's chasing the Laurentians and done well against them. So it's at that point where he started looking at this and say, know.

Don't sleep on me. You know what mean? I was right there with those guys and had beaten those guys before. And I am, I'm looking for my time. You know, I'm looking for my turn, you know, to kind of play, to play disruptor. And as I say, that's that's a very, you know, you never count, you, you always would on paper bet demon are, but to my point, I just feel like that's a, it's a very, it's a very interesting matchup, you know, that you won't see necessarily first round, but you could definitely see, you know, the, next round. So in that, that, that gets interesting, not only for the,

the attrition I'm talking about, also, okay, this is another top 10 player he's playing, right? And each time you play him, you only get better. So is there a chance of him to nab a set, of course? He was close to it before. Is there a chance for him to knock him off? Always a chance. And again, really fast players like Demon R, I feel like the really big server, the really fast player, the clay neutralizes them both, right? They just has a way of taking some of that off.

the table a little bit and that's what and demon R is that probably the fastest guys on the tour so that those things almost hurt him in that sense because you just recover a little too fast you just you just get back a little bit too much to the middle you know and and that the guy that can actually pound him you know he's probably a lot more like Chilich and and somewhere between Chilich and and um daniel you know with his ball striking and his height and his size so he that's a you know just just 10 years give or take younger you know what i mean so that could be a tough could be a tough matchup

all I'm saying that he's one of my favorites coming out of that next gen group. So be fun to watch.

Alvin Owusu (36:51.198)
Yeah, and then also, know, it is his, I this is his first French Open, so he could also mess around and get himself knocked out in the first round too. You never know. The level of these guys is always, it's there, it's for everyone, so let's let it play out, but that's definitely one that I think drew both of our attention here. And then going on down to Borges Echeverri, Kacemanovic Marizan, that's just good tennis in a pocket there.

Torrey Hawkins (36:59.034)
For sure, for sure. Always have.

Alvin Owusu (37:20.856)
Another one of those, know, Etchibar has done extremely well this year to get himself into seeding position for our second Grand Slam here. But then Borges is like, I would imagine Borges is right around high 40s, low 50s right now. You know, he's kind of been in that space. He's beaten, you know, he's beaten some top, he has top 10 wins. So again, not exactly what you're looking for as a seed. It's not really a gift.

And I think we'll kind of see that pop up a few times throughout the rest of this, not only the menstrual, but especially the limestral. Sheesh. Keep popping forward here. Ignacio Bucce. Ignacio Bucce.

Torrey Hawkins (38:02.554)
I'll let you attempt it.

Alvin Owusu (38:04.222)
Yeah, that's another one of those. Well, he's coming, right? He's coming. If you go all the way back to, I wanna say it was Rome. Was it first round Rome or first round Madrid? Maybe it was Madrid. I think it was Madrid. He had Feast kinda dead to rights there in the first round of that event and then I think went on to have a better run in Rome and now he's in the semi-finals of Geneva?

You think I'd have this right up here next to me, but I don't But his his opening round match against Rublev Rublev has seen this kind of story before in that Young upstart, you know, he gets them in the first round if we go back a couple years he lost to Fonseca in the first round of Australian Open but Rublev's been playing pretty well on clay this season obviously finaled Barcelona

against Las De Fis in that match and then quarter final of Rome. So I think he seems to his game in place right now. Doesn't seem like he's struggling in any bit. Maybe the rankings coming back a little bit, but that's more towards I think the rest of the field, not necessarily his level right now.

Torrey Hawkins (39:20.932)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (39:25.061)
And then continuing to move forward, we've got another fun one, Hamedovic versus Honthman. Just like, again, I think Honthman right now is around 55, Hamedovic I think is around 56, 57. So again, if you find yourself on the grounds, that's a good one to have a seat and just camp out for. It will be good. Very similar game styles, I'm not gonna say complimentary, but very...

Almost rank and file top 60 tennis. We'll be solid.

Torrey Hawkins (39:58.586)
and on the clay, always good tennis. I want to just say the name Caspar Roode and just period because I still feel like he's one of those five that I mentioned that category earlier that could take a set.

if not too off of center. But I also, I'm really looking at that, not looking too far past it, but if Sonigo is able to take care of the qualifier slash lucky loser and plays against Tommy Paul should he went out against Higekata, that could also be a Sonigo. They don't hit it much bigger than the Mamay Man Sonigo and then Tommy Paul. That's a great matchup on the clay. So it's just the...

I feel like those are firework type matches when you got big hitters against fast counterpunishers, that's always some good tennis. So I think that could be another good one there as well. And from what I see, obviously going up until the Novak's immediate first two matches.

Alvin Owusu (40:59.451)
Right, and just a clarification, Buse is in the, he's playing in Hamburg. He's actually playing in the semifinals against Kovacevic today and then DemonOrs playing, Alex, pardon me, Tommy Paul in the other semi of that event. So I'm always a little, it's kind of double edged sword, like you're coming in with not much rest if you play the week before, but you also have the upside of, if you make the semifinal,

Torrey Hawkins (41:05.23)
Pamper.

Alvin Owusu (41:29.181)
in the previous week, like I'm feeling pretty good about myself, right? So it's good to see Tommy Paul kind of get himself on a little bit of a run here, coming into the championships here. Gonna help, gonna help. So this little section here, this little section of eights, quartet of matches, I think a lot of attention when the draw came out, it's like okay, if Novak is gonna get himself through this, one,

Torrey Hawkins (41:31.284)
you

Torrey Hawkins (41:41.454)
It'll only help you.

Alvin Owusu (41:59.358)
In Pesci Paracard, there's no preparation for that. But if you're one of the best returners ever, I feel like your chances are better than anyone else's, regardless of Novak's current form or whatever. Giovanni got his work cut out for him. Let's put it that way. I'm not gonna look at this and say, Novak has his work cut out for him. Giovanni's got his work cut out for him.

Torrey Hawkins (42:03.834)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (42:22.886)
And just a brutal draw if I'm the tall Frenchman hoping to get some love. I'm happy I'm not playing a fellow countryman at the same time. You know what mean? You did put me up against Novak.

And again, and he could play another Frenchman in that next round. But that's about the end of the love for the multiple time Grand Slam champ that Novak is. I think every round after that gets a little bit dicier. So if I'm, if I look at the man's draw, I'm like, wow. I mean, I'm like, buddy, also one of the five that I feel can beat, can take a set and has proven, right? And has, and has beaten, you know,

Alvin Owusu (42:55.335)
mean, jeez.

Torrey Hawkins (43:07.644)
Yannick Center in the last six months. this is a, I don't know, I'm gonna say this is the calm for the storm, but clearly that attrition meter I was talking about at the outset will have to be, I mean, he will have to maximize that. And I don't think Impesci plays long points, right? Clearly he's not gonna be grinding, you know what I mean? On the clay. that, regardless, think Novak will be.

They can play five sets in to be two hours. You know what I'm saying? I mean, just, you know, with the Pesci's level of style of play and then big serve. So long story. I feel like I don't want to look past him, but at the same time, I don't see, I don't foresee any notable seismic shifts there, but I'm just hoping that for Novak's case, you know, the elder statesman, anytime you're outstretched.

Alvin Owusu (43:37.691)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (43:59.202)
you know, 90 to 100 times on a return of serve on the clay. Anytime you got a little bit of a tender hamstring, anytime you got a little bit of a, you know, I'm going to use the old person term sciatica going on in the lower back. I just always worry about, you know, can we know his tennis is there. It's can his body hold up enough to get him there at the end. I feel like we need to all, we need to send them a case or two of Vicks vapor rub. You know what I mean? Just to make sure he's good.

and warmed up before every match and then we see some great stuff. But anyway, I don't see him getting derailed at all in the first couple of rounds. again, he be physically up to the challenge rounds three, obviously four quarters all the way through to match his level, his actual mental acuity? Can his physical prowess match?

Alvin Owusu (44:55.837)
Well, let's level set on Novak here because, and I feel like we do this every Grand Slam and I guess it's warranted, right? Because he made four semi-finals last year and then made the finals of our opening Grand Slam this year. I think, I'm gonna say this and take it all with grand assault because of what I just said, right? But Novak has played a grand total of 10 matches this year. Not that he needs a lot of matches, I'll say that he's played 10 matches this year.

Torrey Hawkins (44:59.075)
Ahem.

Alvin Owusu (45:26.159)
If we go back to the last Grand Slam, obviously he made the final and that's what shows up on paper. And he lost to Carlos in a valiant effort, came out smoking in that first set. And then Carlos played some amazing tennis and obviously he beat Sinner right before that, right, in the semi-finals. But, let's not forget, he did, in the middle of that tournament, after he wins the first three matches, he gets a walkover against Mencik, right?

Torrey Hawkins (45:54.276)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (45:55.501)
he's down dead to rights against Musetti, gets a retirement. Right? And then, and then, and then, you know, this is nothing to do with him. He did not, you know, he didn't drug Minchus, he didn't hit Musetti with a bat or anything, right?

Torrey Hawkins (45:58.978)
Yeah, that's what time.

Torrey Hawkins (46:07.426)
All right. All right.

Center versus Demetrov and Wimbledon.

Alvin Owusu (46:14.906)
Right, Demetrov, that even, he couldn't even get out of qualities, like how far we have fallen. It happens fast. But it's not, we can't overlook what Novak is bringing into this event. And Australia was a long time ago, four months ago. But Novak's two most recent events, Indian Wells, played three matches, all three matches went three sets, loses to Draper six in the third.

Torrey Hawkins (46:20.93)
Bye.

Alvin Owusu (46:44.494)
in the round of 16 and then his only match on clay this year was against one Dino Prismich who is in his section. The Novak lookalike and he lost that match in three sets. So I say that to say at some point, at some point it will catch up with Mr. Novak. I don't know that that's today, but when I look at those matches just above him,

Torrey Hawkins (47:06.112)
for sure.

Ahem.

Alvin Owusu (47:12.092)
Obviously if Fonseca and Przemyśl can get themselves in the second round, that's going to be a lot of fun for us as tennis fans. Like talk about the future on display. That's it right there. Dino is one of those guys, he's in that same class as Fonseca and Blox and Hodar. He's just, due to injuries, I mean he's a little older than all of them, but due to injuries he's just now starting to become a weekend, week out, tour level player.

A lot of fun to watch, a lot of firepower, extremely strong, great mover. Novak himself has said it's like playing, looking at myself over there, which is about as high as praise you're gonna get from Mr. Djokovic.

Torrey Hawkins (47:54.362)
from the all time Grand Slam champ. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

Alvin Owusu (47:57.947)
Yeah, I say all that to say, interesting little pocket of matches here. If Novak finds himself getting through to the fourth round, watch out, because that means he's dialed in.

Torrey Hawkins (48:09.53)
And he always seems to be on the slam. that's why I'm tired of wishing him into retirement. I'm tired of ruling against, ruling him out. I mean, he just, he feeds off that. So I'm just gonna let the champ do his thing. He can do whenever he wants. He's earned more than earned that. was.

Alvin Owusu (48:14.108)
Alvin Owusu (48:29.978)
Let him do his thing.

Torrey Hawkins (48:36.044)
As you say, waxing poetic on Gail Monfils and his illustrious career, everything is quadruple, if not quintuple for Mr. Novak. So speaking of a nice little pocket, your buddy, the American's boss of Reddy and Fritz, you know.

I kinda like this matchup for Nishesh on clay against Taylor. The serve can come down a bit. Taylor's still very good. If this were grass, I'd say, oof, tough draw for Nishesh. But being on clay, I'm like, you know what? That's not a bad round. That's of the seeds to get as a wild card. That's not a bad situation to get.

and no doubt he's played Taylor a handful of times. And then of course you got Mikkelsen on the backside of that with the third American against Tshepchenko. So I think this is a nice little pocket of a match. And you'd like to think an American may come out of this, which, let's face it, let's face it, Americans don't always have the same staying power into the French, you know, as they do most tournaments. this is, you know, it's a nice little pocket of matches as well. And maybe not quite the same fire.

fireworks as the next set. But speaking of those four, you know, I really like I liked that. I like I like the

I like the matchups against each other in that match. as I said, I think if you're, if you're, you're Nishesh Basavaredi, you, you know, you're not too pissed about, you're going to play a seat. Let's face it, you're a wild card. You're going to, you're likely going to play a seat and to draw the one that you know, and to draw the one that you kind of may feel, you know, would I want to play?

Torrey Hawkins (50:17.338)
Novak, not necessarily, know, would I want to play Rubalav right now? Would I want to play Daniil? Nope, you know what mean? It's one of those things, if I had someone to play, right, and I have to have, whose biggest weapon is their serve and it's on clay?

And then I happen to know him and he's a little dinged up right now with who knows about his back and his knee, buddy. I'm just saying there's a lot of, I'm gonna say hope, while hope is not a strategy, I have to like his chances against Taylor versus say any other of the top 10 seats is all I'm saying.

Alvin Owusu (50:51.74)
Yeah, and Taylor, Taylor's slightly undercooked right now. Like he, you know, obviously he had a set of injuries that he was working through coming out of the Sunshine Double, set out most of the clay court season. I believe he came back, played Geneva, might've got one match in, which is, you know, he lost to Alex Popper in his first round, his first match there. So he's covered another French Open, which historically has not, has been his worst Grand Slam, undercooked.

Nishesh still searching. We don't really know what he's going to be quite yet. I don't know that he's gonna be able to bring enough to to really push Taylor but but again to your point like if you're gonna pick a top 10 seed at this tournament Okay, yeah pick the one who's played Right pick the yeah pick the one with with with one match under his belt in the last two months.

Torrey Hawkins (51:24.474)
Yeah!

Torrey Hawkins (51:31.522)
And that could be true, but.

Torrey Hawkins (51:39.418)
that you have a chance in, you know what I mean?

One match under his belt still and on the Taylor side of things. You wonder a guy like Taylor's been out there for several years now. He's made up.

Made the long run and both Wimbledon and US you'd love to see him at this point maximize and me personally would have loved to see him skip the French and be ready for Wembe. That's me. But again, his team knows they're doing and they certainly feel good about it. So good for him to want to it a world. But I just hope that he's good and sharp for Wembe where clearly he's pretty good. And that tends to that it has looked to be his best surface. They hate to see him get derailed or further.

injured, you know, in a French that he may not, he may not do, he may not last that long anyway. But again, it could be, hey, you Maxi the way, why not play it? You know what I mean? So maybe that was a thinking in that one.

Alvin Owusu (52:29.243)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (52:34.522)
Absolutely moving down here. We've got a we've got a fun matchup between Kova Sevich and and Hodar Hodar seated first time seated in the Grand Slam, which is wild all things considered I think he qualified into I'll show you so It's it happened for the for the good ones. It happens fast, right? Kova Sevich is in the semi-finals as I mentioned earlier of Ham Hamburg Hamburg playing some good ball

Torrey Hawkins (52:41.39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (52:50.49)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (53:03.1)
Took a set off Novak in the Indian Wells earlier this year. Kick and play. don't know if those of who aren't familiar with him, one handed backhand. Played a few years at University of Illinois. Lot of savvy, lot of game. He will not, I would imagine he sees this match up and he's looking his chops like he's gonna be ready and up for it. Moves extremely well on the dirt. But.

Torrey Hawkins (53:24.292)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (53:31.578)
All that being said, if one Rafael Hodar is going to be what he thinks, what we think he's going to be, not expecting him to make a run here or anything, it's his first time at Roland Garros, but this is where you'd like to see him hit the tier but two with authority. If I'm gonna be one of those guys, like I mentioned, for him, players of his caliber.

Torrey Hawkins (54:00.302)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (54:00.43)
It happens fast and I say that across the board. It all happens fast. while I could see Kovacevich pushing him, I would not be surprised if Kovacevich wins the match, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Hodar beats him like three, three and two. Like that would be a, this is an opportunity to make a statement in your opening round matches as a first time seed.

Torrey Hawkins (54:04.462)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (54:11.354)
true.

Torrey Hawkins (54:20.05)
Sure, right, for both of them. And they're probably, if anything, I was gonna say similar age, Kovacavich is probably older, right? So again, the whole thing, I agree with you 100%. Still love my boy Gabriel Diallo. I love the kid. I keep waiting for gravity to catch up to his ball and for that frame to kind of come all together. I really could see him having.

Alvin Owusu (54:26.564)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (54:44.672)
a bit of a Goren Ivanovic type of career where you'll know he'll always have the potential to beat a top 20, just a matter of which is the sun, moon, the stars aligned and I could see him and I use the analogy quite literally with everything except being left handed as far as the matchups and his growing into his body and growing into his head. know what I mean? He reminds me a lot of Shout out to Mr. Ivanovic that if there was ever a player

Alvin Owusu (55:07.717)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (55:14.646)
that you, you know, that the universe is calling for you to coach. It's the younger, right-handed Canadian version of yourself and Mr. Diallo. And I just see that being a heck of a matchup or if not him, maybe Marat Saf. My point is one of those, a guy like them that knows what it's like to be a little crazy with a lot of firepower and needs to just be calmed from the inside. You know what I mean? And forged, you know, with all that firepower. So every time I see Diallo's name, I want to tune in and watch.

just to see, just to check in on him. How is he handling his mutant ability? You know what I mean? So, and Duckworth would be a good challenge for him to see if he's able to bring it down, you know, and tack. Cause he's, it's never about, it's never about the surface of the opponent to me against Diallo. It's just about is Diallo dialed in? he, does he have his range and his rhythm? You know what I mean? And is everything right in his world? And if so, you'll see some fireworks. So.

Alvin Owusu (56:11.771)
Fair, fair enough. I'm gonna get through this bottom half here. Stan Orinka against Mr. Fies. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (56:19.746)
Yeah, that'll be a good match for the swan song. is playing some good ball right now. That's a great matchup for, in my opinion, for Fies. Varenka's clearly not been, not the French Open, know, Varenka of late, that was what, 10 years ago, maybe more? How long, how many years ago?

Alvin Owusu (56:36.731)
2014? Was it 14? 2014? Something like that? Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (56:39.524)
Yeah, I was thinking maybe 11 or 12. Yeah, so my point is I like that one there. I'll tell you what, I'm not looking forward to watching it that's Manorino and Ombere. I'll tell you that right now. That's a match up only the French could love right there. That's between the craftiness of Manorino and the huge serving of Ombere, buddy. If you're a tennis academy in Paris and you want to get some used tennis balls, stick around after that match. know what I mean? Stick around after that match and just get all those match balls and you guys got balls for

two weeks because that there I don't see a lot of rallies in that one. It's versus drop shot. mean that's. Early.

Alvin Owusu (57:13.403)
Yeah, right, right, right, exactly. Umair is not here to grind, that's for sure. And then kind of going through the bottom, rounding out the men's draw here. mean, Mahatch versus ZZ Berg, that should be a fun match. And I'd be remiss if I didn't call out Benjamin Bonzi, I think I mentioned his name earlier, against Zverev in the first round. Bonzi has beaten, when he beat Mevett,

Torrey Hawkins (57:30.998)
and that's a good point of match, 100%.

Alvin Owusu (57:42.972)
twice in the first round of Grand Slams last year, is that correct? That is, what does that say? Does that say anything about a direct one to one comparison against Alexander Zverev? No, because Alexander tends to get himself through first weeks pretty, like more times than not, it typically shows up in the semi-finals of most Grand Slams. So take that with a grain of salt, but Benjamin Bonzi's not gonna come into that match overwhelmed.

Torrey Hawkins (58:10.234)
Right, right, star struck.

Alvin Owusu (58:12.623)
Yeah, no, he's gonna be ready to go. He's gonna make Alex work for it. Like, he's gonna make Alex work extremely hard for it. And that can be both good and bad coming into the first round of a major for a high seed and one who hopes to be in this one on day 10. But I think I said the exact same thing last year in this tournament with Zverev opening up against Tien and he dismissed him, like, made him look like a junior.

So I think that is, while I think Mr. Bonzi deserves a look, Mr. Zverev also deserves some respect. He's 10 years on tour doing this at high level the entire time. right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (58:53.72)
He is also in my top five. think I'm.

I think I've listed all five of my top five by now. If I haven't, the only one that obviously isn't being listed is one who's not playing for the next few slams. So I think that's a great comment for, and quite frankly, he's worthy of that respect. He's certainly, he's more than earned it. His bad tournament is a final, was the final in Madrid or was it Madrid? Barcelona. No, Madrid where he came out with a bad first set.

That's his bad tournament, you know what mean? So to speak. So when you're when you're three in the world in two seed here I I could literally see if there was one to get through

This draw quietly opens up very nicely for Mr. Alexander, Sasha Zverev, because his arch nemesis has to go through the absolute gauntlet to get through it in Novak. Carlos ain't here. And his other, and the reigning number one is on the other side of the draw. So, and I'm just saying, and we know the kind of ball that he can play and on clay. I'm just saying, Alvin, I wouldn't be

shocked if there was a person of the Yannick Center to be to hoist the draw and you said all right Hawkins put a you know you got to put a thousand dollars on on on a champion other than this one and you know I would I would you know I would put that I'd find an I'd find another five grand and put it on top of that and put it on Alexander's rear I just feel like the draw for who's not there for where he happens to be and everything the way it's laid out

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:40.328)
never straightforward for any of these players, especially at the French, but I'm telling you, I really like, I like how...

It's not as arduous per se. And ironically, Novak's got the tougher section to me. That third section, I know we'll talk about with the women's matches also. I don't know if the French are trying to try the life of Novak and Iga, but I'm like, man, these guys are multiple grand slam champs at the French and you guys gave them no love. You know what I mean? The old Eminem and so no love. You know what I mean?

Alvin Owusu (01:01:17.668)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:18.874)
Anyway, I said to say it helps, it helps Sasha. That's all I'm gonna say.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:21.978)
Yeah, and we haven't, we haven't, I don't think we've gotten together since the news about Carlos being out for the grass court season. Um, we came out, I it was a couple of days ago. Um, I'll just say it's, it's for tennis fans. It's sad. Um, it, the longer he's away from the sport, the worst off we all collectively are. Um, and so I, um, yeah, there's not really much to say. It's an injury injuries happen. You know, when you zoom out, it's a, it'll be a blip in time. He'll miss two slams. Hopefully it's just two.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:34.468)
No, always sad.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:40.292)
No, for sure.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:45.44)
Yeah, it is what it is.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:51.891)
but, we haven't forgotten about him. He still exists. It's we will 10 as they say, tennis continues to move forward. is what is, we'll, we'll, now we'll take a, either this is going to be a break in the middle of the podcast, or we're going to switch to part two of the podcast. I don't know how this is going to work out, but we're going to, we're going to get to the women's draw, now. Okay. So we are here. Top, top quarter of the women's draw, Sabalinka.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:00.032)
at the boss of monsters, it really is.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:09.39)
do.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:21.35)
you know, it's for all, anything that might've happened to her in Madrid and Rome, we are now here in Paris and I feel like she's got a pretty good, pretty good runway to get herself back into quote unquote back into form. not really a lot of players in the section that are going to hurt her. I think the majority of our attention gets, drawn towards this particular, other half of or the other part of her.

top quarter. Jovic versus Jala, obviously that's a tough match. Mostly because of the surface. would imagine Eva hits a bigger stock ball than Alex does right now. But not big enough to withstand the dirt. Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:15.598)
go through, especially on the clay.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:19.076)
So that's obviously one to watch.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:21.582)
Kazukina and Sanmez I think could also be a very good match. I just like the match up there. Sanmez really impressed me. think that Clay could be good surface for her. She has a lot of, you know.

used Jasmine Paulini as an example as a reference point. plays, she counterpunches very much like her and it's very solid off her backhand wing. Kazukina is always, she's that aggressive player but that's not quite as adept at finishing and moving forward. The girl, Giacomo, who had a nice breakout in Australia, I thought it's good to see her back out. so again, there's great players in this one here.

I have not seen Emma Navarro play a match, Alvin, in perhaps almost a year. As far as me physically watching, so I can't wait to watch her play.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:11.386)
Let me tell you.

She's playing right now. So I watched her play two days ago. She's playing in Strasburg, 500 there, last event for the women. She's in the semifinals right now and she's actually upset. Won the first S6 one against An Li in the semis. she, who did she play two days ago in the match that I watched? She's had some health struggles of late, which I think a lot of people have made drawn.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:31.151)
Nice.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:46.702)
have made comments about her new physical physique. The hell with all that. She's hitting a good ball right now and she seems to be kind of in a good place mentally. Has gotten through some tough matches as well. Like that's kind of interesting to see a player who's been on a layoff for a while not only come back hitting the ball well but also getting through tough matches. She beat Zhang.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:59.419)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:13.304)
Yeah, 6-2 in the third in the quarterfinal match up there. She beat Jovich in the round of 16 pretty handily, almost like, while I was texting a buddy, it looked like Emma was sending a message during that match, like, you might have stepped into my role while I've been gone, but I'm, right, you're not gonna replace me. I'm still, my game is still there, my level's still there.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:35.514)
But you have replaced me.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:42.714)
Opening up against Janice Chin. I'm assuming if she can rest and recover well enough. I mean, she played in the semifinals today, which is, today's Friday, which means she'll play the final probably tomorrow or Sunday. And then, you know, it's a quick ride from Strasburg over to Paris, but still, now we're talking about a lot of matches in the legs. I don't know, we'll see.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:05.53)
Yeah, she's always been fit, I'm not worried about that one. This other match here with Laura Siegmann and Osaka, Laura always, every match with Laura, right? It's eventful. And of course, right, Exactly, really, really Laura?

Alvin Owusu (01:06:15.499)
Every match. Every match with Laura Siegfried. Yes. For Laura it's another day at the office. For Naomi it's like, Jesus.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:26.69)
And then of course, Vicky and Bartukova, that could be another one with a few bells and it's certainly not straightforward. I like, there's a lot of, I'm not sure where that quarter of the Sabalinka side of things ends, but I got to feel like, does it end with the Donovekic, Tubello, is that where it cuts off or is that- with Tagola, got it, oof, yeah. That's a, it's certainly not a-

Alvin Owusu (01:06:48.121)
It would end her quarter ends with a Gula actually. Yeah. Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:56.154)
There's JPEG. It's certainly not a, yeah, the lower half of that, the bottom half of the top quarter is, but it has some, man, between JPEG, between Madison, between, you know, so Vicky is the bottom, Vicky is the bottom half of the top. Right, right, right, so Vicky, that's that seed, then, no, no, Vicky's the top half of the bottom.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:16.633)
Top or the bottom? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:25.783)
Yes, top half of, she's the top of the other.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:27.56)
And Naomi is the bottom, but Naomi is the last, is quote unquote, the last seat of the part of the top quarter. Got it, yeah, we got it.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:35.866)
So let's not overlook this Barton Koba and Boko match. I think this is gonna be a really interesting one. We're aware of Barton Koba, she made the run at the Australian Open. I she went from qualifier all the way to round of 32. think she beat Vincic on the way. Made the round of 16 in Rome this year. She beat Madison Keys. Madison's been a little banged up anyways. And then lost to Svitolina who ended up winning the tournament.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:39.482)
Yeah, think that's one of the strongest ones I saw.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:05.945)
She is one of those younger ones to watch. Again, so is Vicky. Even though she's seated at this event, she's still quite young. So that's an exciting one. That's an exciting one.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:17.934)
I said.

Save for arena and the very top and those there's a little bit of, you you could make an argument to say that the next several aren't quite as competitive as it should be for the number one seed. There's still a lot of meat in the bottom, in that first quarter, you know, is what I'm saying. So I like a lot of that, you know, some of it could be straightforward. I never use the word straightforward with Madison Keys, just with her skill set, right? Now she Grand Slam champion, Grand Slam finalist, she is

Alvin Owusu (01:08:35.639)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:48.816)
You know, she still possesses the biggest ball on tour and I personally think for me the slowness I say slowest the potential for it to be a little slower helps Madison and if it's You know, let her let her get her rhythm and a groove letter kind of start to strike a ball a little bit she's one of the few people on tour and there's only about three of them that can take the racket out of Arena's hand and so with that serve and return and forehand, mean she's

got to just a bigger ball, you know, she's probably a little taller and a little and you know, so she's she's just and if things are firing just right for her, you know, she's the kind of player she's down a break that matter up a break. You don't see how you can break her. She it's just a matter of can she put it together on that day and her body of work says that she can it just matter will she be healthy enough and

I don't like Madison in my section. I would love for somebody else to deal with her. I don't have to speak to the leader of the fan club, Madison Keys, right here, but I'm just saying I want to make sure. I know you don't want to jinx anything.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:57.56)
We don't talk about Madison Keys. We don't talk about Madison Keys. We acknowledge that she's in the draw, and then we look the other direction, and we just let it happen. We just let it happen. Let's push on here. The opening round matchup for Cocoa Golf, I think is on paper. By name, value, it's interesting. I'm just really happy that Taylor Taliesin, after her run at the US Open last year, we talked about, she made it to round 16.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:04.192)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:27.031)
lost in that fantastic match against Krachikova. A lot of things happened to her in that particular tournament. She beat Panko, she beat Andreeva, she lost to Barbora. And then we didn't really get much out of her after that. I we talked a lot about like, she has to be able to stack weeks and get herself out of like having to qualify for these 1000s and qualify for Grand Slams. And here we are with Taylor's now 72 in the world on singles.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:55.194)
Yeah. It's awesome. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:55.641)
That's fantastic, that's direct entry into all the major events. And she's worked her way there, right? She went, finaled the 250 in Austin this year, qualified in Indian Wells, got herself to round 64. Same thing at Rome, qualified to the round of 32. So she is.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:12.206)
Yeah. But we're still stacking ships in doubles, by the way. You know what mean? It's not like you took time off.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:17.745)
Right, right, right. So it's, you know, she's done the work. Now would love probably to get a better opening round matchup than going against the reigning champion. I think that's something that we overlook, we forget about Coco Golf. We do talk about her a decent amount on this podcast, but you know, she finals her own. She's done, she's had an okay year by her standards, but she is the reigning champ.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:44.334)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:47.609)
I'm not gonna, this match is not gonna necessarily be straightforward for her because Taylor's obviously not gonna come in on the back foot or anything. Never, never Taylor on the back foot. But.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:58.01)
Right. Best thing for Taylor is being left handed in this matchup. Worst thing for Taylor is she's playing a Cocoa Golf that is playing well. and I feel like, I really feel like for Cory Golf, this is the opportunity for her to, she comes in at this tournament, the best possible way to defend.

the championship, I would say she's playing better tennis right now. That's me. I've just watched her. seen the skills come into play while they still need to meld, right? Her counter punishing and her attacking. I feel like she's such a quick study. She moves well on this stuff. If her learning curve is to how down to use her new weapons.

This is a great way to come in. She's not playing just off the offense, just off backhand and speed. She's not buggy whipping and rolling forehands, hoping that you bring it back to the backhand side. She's tagging forehands. She's serving well. Her toss is finally stabilized. I say finally because it's been a problem for a long time, but the girl is still young. It's just a matter of, I just feel like, as I say, bad for Taylor in that she's playing a much improved Cocoa golf and good for her, good for Cocoa to play a

player that can be tricky, you know, and we'll test her and we'll force her to bring that, you know, bring those two ends to the middle in her game. And I for one, I'm looking forward to this being a pretty good tournament for Coco because she's a little bit on the snide, but at the same time, her momentum right now and her skillset looks much improved and I'm, I for one, I'm happy to see it.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:37.591)
Well, let's even let's even boil it down to the basics here. What does Taylor do well? She's going to apply pressure and come forward. Who's got the who's got some of the best passing shots on the tour? Cocoa Golf. Yeah, let's let's let's keep ourselves moving forward here. And she matched up that caught my eye. My joint versus Anastasia Potipova. Yeah, my my eyes had a year. It hasn't been good. And Potipova is, you know, found herself seated coming off the back of a semi final run in Madrid.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:43.514)
percent.

Period.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:54.466)
My joint, I know you love my joint,

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:03.417)
Bye-bye.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:07.181)
Round of 16 run at Rome. She's in form. feel like, she looks fantastic.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:11.044)
Right. We're hooked up with Da'Nara Safin, if I'm not mistaken, early part of the year and is doing some good stuff. The one that caught my eye was Colin Skyah against your girl Lois Boisson, who last year was a surprise to me, finally. So good to see her back in the mix, too.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:15.084)
There you go. And there you go.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:22.1)
Absolutely.

Yep. And Kaliskaya has kind of been playing up to about her seed right now. Like she'll pick up two wins at Grand Slam, pick up two wins at a Masters 1000 and that gets you to about somewhere between 22 and 32 in the world. I would love to see, Kaliskaya's one of those players that you get drawn into because she hits the ball as clean as anyone else. But one thing that you've mentioned before, it's like ball speed and foot speed.

her foot speed is just a hair behind her ball speed, which when you're hitting the ball that big, it starts to matter. And I think she can get herself a little, she can put herself out of position at times.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:05.902)
behind well and and and maybe even due to the fact that her ball is that clean.

It's not, the heaviness isn't there to buy her an extra half a second, you know what I mean? And so again, it'll be a good match and Lois rolls and runs around, you know what mean? It'll be a great cat mouse or fire and iceberg kind of match because of that heavy versus on the rise clean and so on. So it'll be, I see a lot of on break in that match in my mind, just how they both play and that's, it's classic matchup.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:33.357)
hehe

Alvin Owusu (01:15:37.625)
And kind of moving down here, obviously, Noskov versus Sakari, that's former top 10 against a woman who was approaching the top 10. think Linda Noskov is always very interesting to me because she's just kind of quietly halving her ranking almost every year. And I believe she's like 19 years old. She's kind of been around for a minute, but very quietly. She has a very quiet demeanor.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:42.138)
you, Lee.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:53.823)
Doing the thing.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:06.946)
but a very big game. I would love to see her kind of make a push towards second weekend, business end, know, final eight of this event. But in her small section here, you do have one professional, Elise Mertens, then Jun-Kin Nguyen, who, you know, former top five player, points have rolled off due to injury, yada, yada, but she's back, she's playing well. A really clean start for her could

really change the way we look at the top of the women's tour over the rest of the summer, right? If she can, if we find ourselves with Junk in the fourth round, like if she actually takes out Meats and Beats Noskava in the third round, that's a yeah, forgot about her kind of conversation.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:56.073)
Yeah, former top five, mean, she's in no joke, who had beaten right before she got hurt had beaten Sabalinka, matter of fact. So certainly can bring the goods for sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:09.4)
She's a floater and so is our number six seed, Amanda Anasamova, who obviously finaled two Grand Slams last year, really finished the year on a high note, finaling the tour finals, has had a shaky start to this year, a little bit of injury, we haven't seen her on clay, and for all of that, I consider her to be a floater. I don't know what she's expecting out of herself, but if she's healthy,

I feel like this is the section where she could actually play herself into some form Not a lot players who hurt her on Lee, you know serviceable for sure

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:42.202)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:46.97)
Right, and like a Taylor Fritz, I wouldn't say that clay is her best surface, but at same time, she prefers hard grass. But at the same time, she gets the matches in and you don't want to play her. I mean, it's not like you prefer to play Amanda, but again, it could be a good match. Good to see her back in action.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:04.057)
Yep, and she I believe she's made to me like before her break from the highest from tour I believe she did semi-finals event before so she and she lost the sabalinka here last year in the round of 16 or quarterfinals camera which round it was but Then in a tough tight two-set match Check my math on that one. I might have been three. I think it was two though Things like four and four something like that But yeah, let's let's get moving out our Rome champion Alina Svitolina If she could have avoided anyone in the first round

it would have been Ana Bondar. Ana Bondar has beaten her in the last two matchups, both in straight sets. And this is where we start to say, regardless of how events go leading up to Grand Slams, it's so draw dependent, especially on the women's side where these margins are so fine. That's just, she's got a bit of a, Elena has a bit of an Ana Bondar problem.

This is not when you want to see it all things considered Rome champion Yeah, I know a lot of people like to reference her her husband Monfils as they she is like a daughter of France at this point But she's got some serious work ahead of her in the first round this tournament She has beat Anna before But the last two have gone have gone Anna's way. So that is a one to keep an eye on

there as we matriculate down into the rest of this section, this is where it gets dicey, right?

Alvin Owusu (01:19:42.498)
Katie McNally against Tom Yanovic in the first round, winner to be likely Belinda Bencic. That is a, wanna, Katie McNally has had a really interesting year coming back from injury and she's had losses too. I think Iga Mardukasciak, Sabalinka, she has beaten Victoria Mboko. Her, you see the talent there, you see her high end.

would love to see her put it together at a major, because I think she'd be another fun one to add to the fairly deep roster of American women. But, you know, nothing given, everything earned. Belinda Vincic has never really done insanely well at this event, so that could be a second round matchup worth keeping an eye on.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:36.474)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:38.712)
We'll keep moving forward here. Nice little draw for Marta Kosciak, our Madrid champion. I'm looking down here at the Salisha Park versus against Leila Fernandez.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:49.274)
Layla, as I was just gonna say, that's a one. And I hate to say it, I kinda like Alicia Parks in the matchup. Layla's obviously dangerous, lefty, moves well, returns well. But I gotta think that Parks has been playing well. She's just by watching how Parks out served.

Another lefty who's been playing well in Alexi alla Australia. I really feel like the serve could come down to be a bigger piece I know it's one the clay but I've just seen Alicia starting to put some rounds together and I really feel like Layla doesn't have enough to hurt her and so anytime I put that back on the player who has the weapon I think to myself, you know what? That's not a bad. That's not a bad matchup for Alicia You know what I mean? And so again, it's one of those things where I could I could just if I had to

pick one, I would pick her anyway, but I would also say that she's starting to show that she's not the wild card mentally that she has been in the past. And she's really starting to believe in herself and believe in what she can do. And I really like her. I like her ability to control Alicia and she's always had a big serve. So I always crushed the ball, but now she's starting to use that angst to her advantage. I like that'll be a fun match to watch for sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:06.455)
Yep, and then rounding out that quarter, think the fun one, the fan's favorite here, the potential third round matchup of Oste Penko and Iga, should we get there, we shall see. think it's, I've been extremely bullish on Iga. I'm buying all of the stock that's dropping off the back of the truck that no one wants to seem to hold onto. I'll take it, send it my way.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:16.152)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:36.215)
I feel like, okay, she's won this slam four times. Yeah, she didn't win it last year, but she lost in the semi-finals in a heck of a match against the world number one, Irina Sableyka. I like the shape that her game is starting to take that I've seen over the last, over the time she spent in Rome. And I'm gonna kinda leave it there, because I have a feeling we're gonna be talking about Ega.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:46.508)
a heck of a match.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:06.271)
in a slightly different light in a week or so. Wouldn't it be fun if she beat Osteopanko for the first time in her career in this event? If we were turn this into a like, she the quote unquote, she back? Or what is our perspective on Egos Sweet Attack right now? That would be an interesting way to put one's proverbial foot down.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:08.494)
you.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:15.502)
Yeah, at the France, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:34.495)
keep bouncing through this section here.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:35.834)
There was a stat I want to say, I had to look it up real quick, that there were, I want to say it was 10 former Grand Slam, yeah, 10 total Grand Slam champions in the draw at the, four previous winners and 10 Grand Slam champs in the draw right now. And obviously, you know, have, you have in both of those two players, right? You've got, you know, you've got two of them, or five of them.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:03.81)
So off the top of my head, four previous winners would be Coco, Eega, obviously Panko, and Barbora Krachikova, right? Can I name the rest of the, you said there was 10 total slam winners? So obviously you've got Rebecca, you've got Sabalenka, you've got Keys, you've got Rata Kandu's in the draw, so you got her, that's eight. Who am I missing? Who's five, six, seven?

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:05.656)
I'm done.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:16.419)
and total.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:34.097)
Naomi. That's, that's nine. is Andrescu in the draw? I don't know if I saw her. it'll come to me later. I know it'll come to me later. Yeah. Cause she won the French. Yeah. yeah, it'll come to me later. If it's not, if it's not, it might be her. She might be the one. but yeah, we'll keep, we'll keep moving forward here. that, that, Mary and Jarvis playing well.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:35.918)
Naomi, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:42.17)
Sorry, I don't know if I'm sorry either. Well, or more maybe? You already said Kujikova? Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:02.071)
I expect her to get a clean start here. potential third round matchup with Buzkova should be, could be fun, should be fun. Paulina Jastrzymska. Well, Jasmine, you know, she's, you know, obviously not the back to back grand slam finalist that she was a couple summers ago, defended that off decently last year. And now she's starting to feel the effects of having a lot of points to defend.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:14.49)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:24.154)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:30.583)
on a year in, year out basis, opening up against Diana, who just is coming off of a, you know, she won the Parma 125 last week. She's beaten Seath in the first round of Grand Slams before. think she beat Coco in the first round of Wimbledon last year. So when she's on, it's a fun one to watch. think Jasmine's much more adept on the clay court than Diana is. Definitely gonna give her that.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:30.667)
Bruh.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:59.734)
So I think if both players bring their stock game to this match, this is Jasmine and a tight one.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:04.922)
No, and Jasmine just win the win the Italian with with Sarah Ronnie. So I mean, I think if she didn't she I just had to say it sometimes we forget about these players that may be on the snipe a little bit singles wise, but are still kicking butt in some doubles. And so there's not like they're not playing well and not winning. So, you know, to me that's, you know, same with I saw some son of a earlier, you know, in the draw and I'm like,

Alvin Owusu (01:26:11.225)
Probably.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:27.876)
You know, she's not a, it's not a pass through, you know what mean? By any far stretch. And again, to me on the clay, if you can serve well and you can return well, you know, and you're athletic enough to figure some things out. don't think, Jasmine's, what's she got to, five, four, whatever she got up to.

Alvin Owusu (01:26:46.103)
think she's like four in the world, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:47.322)
Right, is that was more of an outlier as far as I'm concerned, no disrespect to her whatsoever. She just happened to have some really good results back to back to back, but I wouldn't put her on paper as foreign the world.

And that's not, but I wouldn't put her anyways out of top 10 either. so her to me, a force or outlier 13 is also an outlier. So I'm just saying she's, you know, she's all day. She's all day eight through 10, you know, and, and against anybody on any surface. So not to say she can't be beaten, but she's never out of any match. She just returns to good. She moves too good. You're going to actually have to flat out beat her and she moves well, especially on the clay that I just feel like that's something we have to appreciate. You know, when, she's playing, she's not playing bad tennis.

she just hasn't repeated some of the great results she had from the year before.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:33.163)
Yep, absolutely. And then rounding out the bottom of this, the bottom of the last quarter, interesting match up top, top whatever, top of our screen, put it that way. Haley Baptiste obviously took down Sabalinka in Madrid, did not do that fair as well in Rome, but has shown that the level is there coming up against a Barbara Kujikova, our 2021 champ.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:46.074)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:01.511)
who also finals, she lost in the final to, Yastrubska in that, the one two five in Parma. nice to see Marlboro back and playing, direct entry into this event. yeah, I mean, two time singles grand slam champion, Marlboro Kachikova. So this is, this is not a, this is not a straightforward first round match for probably either one of them. yeah, I, I, this is actually, you, if you, if you want to make time for something,

in the first round, time for this one. I think this will be fun match. And then Elena are back and I'm at the bottom of the draw. That's it. That's it. My voice hurts. We did a lot. We covered the whole thing. I think I talked to everyone at the party. I'm spent. But yeah, for us, it's okay. All the work is done. We have trained. We have prepared.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:31.332)
That was one right there.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:49.113)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:58.714)
Look forward to

Alvin Owusu (01:29:01.046)
We're gonna make sure you stay hydrated. Make sure you stay limber, you gotta stretch. Time to watch some matches. So the singles will get started on Sunday, so two days from now. We will, you know, we typically pop in as needed in the first week and then crank it up in the second week. I don't know how that's gonna go this year with the time zone difference. Obviously I'm gonna be in France for week two. I leave.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:07.855)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:27.002)
Yeah, when do you leave?

Alvin Owusu (01:29:29.654)
Friday, so a week from now, a week from now. Yeah, so like fourth round-ish, should be hopping over there.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:32.366)
Boom, boom, boom, boom,

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:37.73)
I'll be sure to send you my Charles de Gaulle survey, customer survey.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:41.527)
my goodness, my goodness. get in and out. Charles de Gaulle is so bad, I'm having to, because we're taking a, we land, we're taking an Uber to the train station, because we're going straight down to Burgundy from Paris, but it's like, okay, we can't check any bags, because it's gonna be long enough getting out of the airport. I don't want to be having to get to the back end of this thing and then waiting on bags to try to catch a quick turnaround time to catch that train. So, RIP.

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:01.177)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:08.921)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:11.094)
for me in CDG. TH, was good. We covered a lot. So let's...

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:13.082)
Right, right, right.

the stuff, Al, absolutely can't wait, man. Can't wait and you'll be there. You'll be there on the grounds. You gotta bring me a towel back, brother. It'll be a, or if not a towel, a poster. You know what I mean? I feel like there's so many, God, the French is always fun to watch and it's so fun just to see it. There's a certain look of the crushed brick when, I mean, all the clay court matches, but especially they have the French next to that kind of greenish backdrop of all the courts.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:24.042)
I can do that.

Torrey Hawkins (01:30:45.852)
it's those that haven't been it's it's God it's beautiful I mean it's just there's something about seeing that many clay courts all at once you probably the only rival to it is Bumbley you know I mean that where you see that whole sea of green it's just it's something pretty special just to look at for the tennis fan I mean there's there's not a prettier side if you can kind of get a vantage point that kind of looks down at all at some of the courts it's just it's nothing nothing nothing better to see than

Alvin Owusu (01:31:01.642)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:15.772)
than to see that the terrible two. but I'm with you Alvin good stuff today and a lot of man too many too many matches to watch. mean, it's like it's like it's like Fogo to child. You know, it's too much.

Alvin Owusu (01:31:29.812)
Well, it's for us here in the States, it's it's it's nice that this opens up a Memorial Day weekend, right? So the tournament starts on Sunday. We've got, you know, obviously Sunday and Monday are off work. So it's like, it's not so bad. Not a a a bad start. Not a bad start to the.

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:34.618)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:43.022)
If you're a tennis fan, great, great day to have a little bit of holiday, obviously, aside from the purpose of the holiday. It is a great day to watch some tennis and kick back with a cold beverage.

Alvin Owusu (01:31:57.487)
We've had roughly over 100 days between our last Grand Slam, the first Grand Slam of the year and the beginning of the French Open. And I always bring it up, we have 100 days between the beginning of the French Open and the end of US Open. So we somehow pack three of them into three months. Yeah, so it's about to get fun, about to get real. But that's good place to put a pin in it. I'm Alvin, that's Tory, that's the three, we are out.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32:02.202)
Right.