Iga Świątek’s Next Version, Coco Gauff’s Forehand, and the WTA’s Crowded Top Tier

Iga Świątek’s Toronto title was not simply a form check. Alvin and Torrey argue that her week showed a more tactically complete version of her game: more height, more shape, more patience, and a clearer sense of when to press rather than force.

The episode frames Świątek’s run as a possible entry into a second career cycle. Rather than trying to recreate her previous dominance, she may be building a version better suited to the current WTA landscape — one where the top tier is deeper, the weapons are bigger, and separation requires constant reinvention.

The discussion also covers Coco Gauff’s forehand development, Elena Rybakina’s run to the final, Naomi Osaka’s movement and defensive progress, and why Grand Slams increasingly function as check-ins for where the WTA elite really stand.

Transcript

Alvin Owusu (00:00.014)
Hand and welcome to another edition of the best three podcasts. I'm Alvin. That's Tori. We're back, baby. We're doing another podcast. you know, I used to think TH that we had a schedule and I realize that we have not really been on cadence as of late, but we're we're here now. We're here now. Canada Canada has it is right. In can Canada and in Canada Canadian tennis has ended and Ohyan Ohioan tennis has begun.

Torrey (00:01.186)
That's true.

Torrey (00:18.074)
Cadence is what we make. Cadence is what we make it all.

Torrey (00:25.156)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (00:29.474)
But I wanna take a pause to have a conversation about some of the things that we've seen over the last week and some change in Canada, both on the men's and the women's side, primarily on the women's side. I I I really, really, really, really enjoyed the Toronto edition of the Canadian Open on the Women's Side. but I don't wanna be rude before we get started. TH, how you doing?

Torrey (00:38.329)
Right.

Torrey (00:51.833)
Alvin, I'm doing well. It's been a great week of tennis. It's been hot, Alvin. As you know, it's here in Hotland. It's been very, very warm. we you every once in a while, you know, I I'll get a parent or two that says, it's going on today, and I'm like, it's 85. It's fine. You know what I mean? Today, I think was high 90s. I think the feels like got up to like 108, 109, and I was like, it's a little warm today. You know what I mean? Today was a little bit warm.

Alvin Owusu (00:59.0)
Bruh. Bruh.

Torrey (01:21.789)
And for a guy that's that's out there in it most every day, you know, when for me to say it's warm, that means it's pretty warm.

Alvin Owusu (01:28.77)
Yeah. And that's that's kind of the trick, right? Like I haven't been on court and I I feel like it's fine if you're doing it every day, but once you stop doing it, like you lose the muscle. You lose the muscle. And I'm still I still get out there and I still hit. And this week I played Padel once, I played doubles twice, and it was like, man, it's it's it's this is bad. This is this is this is like a four shirt kind of day, and we're out here for ninety minutes. It's it's it's tough. but

Torrey (01:38.101)
True. True.

Torrey (01:52.959)
yeah. yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:56.587)
Luckily for us, no one came to hear about my my transgressions on the tennis court this week. yeah, done it's not about me. it is about some of our favorite characters who I think really stepped up and put on display on the women's side in Canada this week, in Toronto. I think we it only makes sense to start where, you know, in the winner's circle. Iga Schwatek. Iga, like obviously it's the the the easy story here is Iga

Torrey (01:58.936)
No normal.

Torrey (02:12.492)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (02:18.892)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (02:26.094)
played well, Iga won a Masters 1000, Ega broke her 11 month streak of no no tournaments won. And it's all it's all gravy. But I want to go all the way back to let's say like Rome, Madrid, when she changed her coaching team. And I I I went on, you know, kind of on here. I'm on here. I don't what you call this on record saying that I like the changes that I'm seeing.

Torrey (02:30.133)
Yep.

Torrey (02:43.767)
Sure.

Torrey (02:49.633)
Make it.

Torrey (02:53.835)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (02:54.378)
it it won't happen overnight, but I like the I like the the the pivot in kind of direction that we've gone here. And it could be as simple as like sh the new voice is saying the same thing as the old voice, but the new voice is the one that you want to hear and therefore it starts to make sense. so Iga runs the table this week and I'll I'll I wanna go all the way back to her match against Diana Schneider. And she beat her pretty handily, right? The the score was like two and one or one or two, something that.

Torrey (02:56.598)
Right.

Torrey (03:02.192)
Sure, sure.

Torrey (03:08.767)
Right. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (03:24.386)
But there was something that happened in that match that I saw that made me go, she's feeling really, really good about what she's she her she's very clear in her decision making right now. And it showed up earlier in the tournament. She's using a lot more comfortably using a lot more height, not forcing the issue as much, especially on the forehand side. Her her approach is starting to

Torrey (03:33.856)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (03:44.725)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (03:50.21)
dial back and not go the way of her intensity level all the time.

Torrey (03:54.229)
Okay, okay. I see what I see what you're saying. You're almost saying more more body blows instead of in instead of going for the haymaker.

Alvin Owusu (03:56.234)
So

Alvin Owusu (04:00.638)
Not needing to go for the haymaker all the time, be willing to trade body blows. And it it happened sometime in early second set, very specific kind of rally. Iga goes they're in a down they're in a cross-court deuce court rally, right? So Iga's banging forehands, Diana's backhand, Diana goes line, Iga goes backhand cross to the ad corner. Boom. They go two shots there, and then Schneider goes forehand.

Torrey (04:17.139)
Okay. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (04:29.75)
Line, rips one. Ega runs over and without without even changing a step, just hits the buggy, same direction. Just goes with it and goes back line. Diane almost like sprained an ankle. She was like, what are you doing? What are you doing? And then next ball, I think, was was Ega short backhand. Boom, down the line.

Torrey (04:44.552)
Backline.

Yeah, I'm remembering that point. Yeah.

Broke her ankles. A hundred percent. Saw that. Saw that. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (04:59.702)
And I was like, Ega Ega three months ago goes hard cross court and tries to rip the winner there and and flex the muscle. And she was like, No.

Torrey (04:59.838)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (05:05.607)
Right. Right. Or or or just so already already pre-committed to that shot and trusting her speed and almost so high percentage that she's not willing to change it up. And to your point, was going left, right, and center on Diana at will. Went behind her, went she attacked.

She attacked the backhand. She went behind her. And every time the ball went up even a little bit, she was in on the swing and volley, Alvin, like somebody gave her a text message and gave her an early early access. swinging volley. I heard the swing and volleys over here. I mean, she came in so fast sometimes, some of them even got a little below the net, but she was in there before the bounce. That's hard to do at the pro level. That's hard to do at any level, let alone the pro level.

And Alvin, I'm telling you, she looks like the best version of herself. Interesting what you said. Could have been the same thing the old guy, the other guy was saying, but it's in a different voice and it's more current. It just looks sharper, it looks clearer in her in her own shot selection. Her her her intentionality was spot on all week. and it just looked like she's getting her type of ball is.

Looking like it's giving her more swinging volleys, more step-ups, more balls to actually do the deed. I actually think she's hitting the ball bigger in high tempo rallies. She would never hit the foreign that big in my opinion. That was always one of her faults, in my opinion. She would only hit the on-the-run ball hard, but she knew she was gonna go back cross. She's ripping center shots now. She was trading blows. The match to me for her was Marta Kostic the round before. That match to me was phenomenal tennis. I thought that was one of the max of the tournament for her because.

Alvin Owusu (06:54.325)
Mm.

Torrey (06:59.54)
A, Kostic is playing some good tennis. And B, she had to weather the storm, because Costica was just taking the racket out of her hand a bit. And she did everything from reset to counter drive to broke serve. And Marta was actually playing very, very well. I think once she won the first set in the match fair fairly handily. So I say it to say that match to me, what the the Schneider match to me, especially after Schneider kind of took care of JPEG a little bit, I was I was like, wow.

Alvin Owusu (07:16.791)
Yeah, six six yeah, six yeah she did.

Torrey (07:26.742)
She just went through her like Swiss cheese and it just showed me Eva's variety, her multiple ways of hurting you. and even talking about you know the the match with Costic, she beat Costic a certain way, she beat Schneider another way, she beat Svilina yet another way, and she beat, of course, and then beat Rebecca. I mean, she won Alvin of her six, seven matches. She she won, she won.

Each of them were all a little bit different, which just shows you her versatility and different ways tactically. She's always been very smart. We girls got what six, six slams? Seven, six. Yeah, yeah. So I say it to say we know how good she is. It to me, what was what this showed to me wasn't so much a lot of new stuff for me, for Ega. It just showed me how she's starting to put the recipe together better and getting the shot that she needs. I always felt like Ega.

Alvin Owusu (08:05.847)
Six, yeah, four, one, one, yep.

Torrey (08:25.369)
Better step up forehand. But she took so many balls on the rise. How do you get that? Right? Well, now she's hit more shape to get the ball she needs. And when she now runs you and you throw that ball up a little bit, boom, she's on it like man, she's on it like literally nanoseconds. And she's taking that ball behind you in front of you, whether it's a swinger, whether it's a put away on the step up. That to me, to see her game.

giving her the shot that she wants more often to me, that's the best testament of a player playing well is when they can get the one-two punch that they want or get the sequences of shots that they feel comfortable hitting and doing over and over and over again. That's that's a sign of a player playing really well.

Alvin Owusu (09:10.453)
And you mentioned the term she's clear, right? And I I think that shows up in a well the way that I see that show up when I'm watching a player like Iga and you can you go, okay, yeah, she's she's floating right now. It's almost like Neo in the Matrix when he's like he's he's dodging everything. He knows where things are coming before they're coming, right? Sh I'm just watching her feet and after she hits you know, a center out forehand.

Torrey (09:29.548)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (09:36.726)
And you see her like just she just starts to get herself in position for the next ball and it comes exactly where she's standing because she trusts that I've done this enough times. I believe in what the end result from this shot should be when I hit it well enough that it should be right here. And she's her eyes and her feet are on the exact same page. And I'll I'll even take that a little bit further and going into this Finalina match where she came out guns blazing in the first set. And then this is the this is the part where I got

Torrey (09:55.912)
a hundred percent.

Alvin Owusu (10:06.571)
Really, really interested and go and went, okay, if I is making a real turn here, she's down four Svenelina has has woken up. She's punched Ega back in the mouth. Ega's getting a little bit testy. She's always been a great front runner.

Torrey (10:16.481)
Yep.

Torrey (10:21.44)
Yep. Right.

She never right, she never did well to come back from behind or to or to re answer the bell in the third. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (10:32.917)
It's the re-answer that gets me. So in the Koschik match, right, she had a little bit of a shaking start. It wasn't great tennis from either player, quite honestly, in that first set. And then Iga got a hold of it and then boom, took off, right? Sets two and sets three were pretty much clockwork. But I love to see like Ega wins the first set going away. Svitolina does what she does, consummate professional. She I she did it once or twice in the tournament, like drops the first set and then like, okay, I'm back on it. Boom. You can see her intensity rise in the second set. She's she is in it for the fight.

Torrey (10:44.032)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (10:50.922)
Yep.

Torrey (10:54.304)
Yep.

Torrey (10:58.857)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (11:02.837)
Smacks Ega in the mouth in the coming out of that second set, runs away with it, Iga's pissed, but then when you see her get into a set that goes one, one, two, one, two, two, two, three, three, three, it's like, okay, you've settled. You've taken that punch. Can now can you pr can you get yourself into a tight situation and then produce the same way you did at the in the in the first set? And she did. And I thought that was like

Torrey (11:18.507)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (11:28.47)
Right. And she did that. against against the Lena said Lin, you know I mean? Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (11:31.849)
Against against a pros pro. And at that point I was like, I don't care if she wins the tournament, it doesn't matter. I saw what I needed to see. I've seen I've seen some I've seen some game saw clarity once again. And now I've seen some resilience in some pressure situations and some ugly situations. And then you go, okay, we're we're two weeks out from the US Open and I like I like what I'm seeing right now. This is different than what I've seen the last six or seven months.

Torrey (11:46.73)
Yep. Right. Mentally. Yep.

Torrey (11:58.202)
I I 100% agree. And the clarity, I think, can't be overstated. The the different ways she can match up and still stay aggressive was also good to see. I felt like old EGA 1.0, 2.0, whatever version you want to say it was, ego had two ways to hurt you. One was the return of serve and just taking away all oxygen off of your service points.

breaking you. And then pretty much getting to her own service games with some smart first strikes and pretty much, you know, running away with the score, right? She was that consummate 6-0, 6-1, 6-4, you know, 6-2, 7-5. You know, if you faded, it would be 6-2. But if you didn't fade, you could take her to a breaker and she just edge you out with consistency, quickness, and just high percentage play. Then people started catching up to it, or she didn't have such a great service game. So therefore she would get broke back.

And then at that point you'd be in a dogfight. And I always felt like old Ega, older Ega, she's not that old, would start to fade more about her own pissiness at herself than even the tennis she was playing. She was disappointed in herself. It showed in her game, it showed in her attitude, it showed in her, you know, in her dogged determinedness that she's known for. Like the win had to be there to, in a sense, to continue to propel her.

To the next win. Not necessarily the process was so sharp that she knew I'm just gonna stick with this process and it and I trust it. And it's gonna give me what I need night in, night out. You know, forget the result. I see a player now that's trusting the process more. I see a player now that understands why she wins. I see a player now that, quite frankly, as I said, has had to win different ways and doesn't take that as a loss, sees that as a benefit, and I

can play different ways and beat you. And I can play and not play my best and still beat you. And I can still be aggressive even though you had a bigger ball than me, right? And I can come forward and hit through you when necessary, even though I don't possess the biggest forehand or whatever shot on the tour. And I feel like she's really coming into her own now or the second version, second iteration or whatever of her game. And she just really looks confident and looks like, you know,

Torrey (14:21.476)
the the belief is back and and you can't say enough about that for a player at this at this level of the game.

Alvin Owusu (14:28.606)
Yeah, and you know, a couple of episodes or a couple of weeks ago we had Matt Futterman on and you know we talked about his book, The Cruelest Game, which is out now. and he helped me kind of complete this idea that I've had for some time about the three year the three year peak. And I always say like a a player's most players tend to hit their peak and they kind of stay around that area for about three years and then they they they usually stay there and what looks like they're coming down is really everyone else catching up.

I'll use Taylor Fritz as the perfect example here, right? Taylor got to three in the world. I don't think Taylor Taylor Fritz is markedly a different player or worse player. I think other players have just caught up and gone past him, right? And and and Matt Matt Futterman this idea in his book was really about the best players, the greatest players, force themselves to reinvent themselves. And that helped me complete my thought in that it's not a three year peak, it's a three year cycle.

Torrey (15:07.877)
Agree with that. Agree with that.

Alvin Owusu (15:26.856)
And realizing that the the player you are today will probably service you for about three years. And then if you are one hundred in the world, that might be okay for a while. But if you continue to get better, it cycles on the way up, cycles on the way up. And then if you stop and you don't continue to cycle and go up, others will then catch you. And you have to force yourself to, okay, I might be winning this way now, but I know that if I'm hitting my ceiling, I need to do something different to then

Torrey (15:38.19)
Yep. Sure.

Torrey (15:43.886)
Right. Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (15:55.763)
usurp the best version of myself. I think that's what's happening to Ega right now. It's not necessarily a different or better version of Ega. It is, yes, it is that version of Ega k had ran its course. And I'd like to hope. I don't know yet. This is one really, really good tournament. Like I'm not even going to say let's what see what happens in Cincinnati. I don't necessarily I'm not even going to say let's see what happens in New York because often we go

Torrey (15:57.828)
Hundred percent.

Torrey (16:04.726)
Right. Not a metamorphosis so much as it

Alvin Owusu (16:24.796)
one step forward or two steps forward, one step back, right? yeah, and the and the and yes, and the margins the margins of the women's, especially top of the women's game, so thin right now. Like i this can mean everything, it can mean nothing, right? more likely it probably means nothing. But given her track record, like we're talking about somewhere between difference between eight in the world and five in the world and then five in the world and one in the world. Like if we're able to cycle up. what you're explaining though

Torrey (16:27.201)
Yeah, for sure. Have a other players have good weeks, right?

Alvin Owusu (16:52.672)
When you were talking about her ability to win in different ways, it's a it's kind of two part. It's one, a it's a belief in sometimes players believe in their tennis. And if the tennis isn't there, they go, it's not my day. The next step of that is I just believe in myself to figure it out. If my tennis, if this version of my tennis is not here today, well then I will need to I would need to try a different version. We call that B game, right? If this is not working, we try something else.

Torrey (17:11.446)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (17:16.642)
Right. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (17:22.632)
And I believe that I will figure something out to win this match. And I we'll talk about this other player later, but like that is that is Coco Golf to a T. Coco will figure she will figure that shit out. She will make enough balls until she figures it out. And Iga's starting to show a little bit of like in this last week she showed a little bit of Coco. A little bit. Like to against Diana, it's this. Against Alina, it's this. Against Marta, it's this. And that's

Torrey (17:25.109)
Yep.

Torrey (17:34.228)
100%.

Torrey (17:43.467)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (17:51.488)
Kinda how it has to be, I think.

Torrey (17:53.195)
It is. It is. And you're a better, more complete player if you can do that. I also feel that you as a player have to shed metamorphosis style the way you used to win, as if that's the only way to win. And I feel like it's something very interesting when you see players go through these levels of of adaptation and and and these new iterations of themselves, right? Because

They have to reinvent almost out of necessity. But you and I both know, being lifelong tennis players, change is hard. You know what I mean? You've grooved a stroke, you've grooved a footwork pattern, you've grooved a spot so well, and you've gotten so good at it that you do it over and over and over again. And for it not to work is traumatizing, earth-shattering, and everything because.

You know it's always worked, and so for it not to work as well, let alone not work at all, from time to time. It's like the world's coming to an end. And I think so. Then you have to redefine what works, redefine you know, what you are as a player, how you win, how you match up to players, and so on and so forth, and then fight some of the things that weren't working in certain instances, her hard rip cross-court just to go through you on the open stance, and start to say.

Is there another way? And can I can it ever get to the level of comfort and success that the other way was when I was winning, right? And so there's always that part to it. So that's what's really fun to see. it's funny, I kind of see this going on with Coco now. She has improved her game. Now she has to fully complete the circle of trusting said game, trusting said forehand, trusting said serve, trusting the footwork to go at.

go after some of those balls. And in addition to liking her backhand step in cross court, right? So I start I'm almost seeing her a different route to the same apex, but she is having to when she's playing well and serving well, she's looking really good. And then you see other times that she still has that tendency to wait around for the mistake that may not be coming. And now she has to deliver the goods to trust and to force said mistake. And now that the foreign is there, right?

Torrey (20:20.482)
and if you miss a forehand, it don't mean the forehand's gone. You just miss one. You know what I mean? Same with the serfs. So it's kind of funny to see. And Ega took those lumps I felt over the summer. sorry, in the spring, late spring in the clay. And now good for her to be, you know, cashing in on the all the work she put in, you know, what, four or five months ago. You know what I mean? So it was really been really good to see and good for her team and her camp to keep her positive and working through that. They this was well deserved for her.

Alvin Owusu (20:48.095)
Yeah, and the kind of last thing about Ego before we move on to Coco, 'cause I do want to talk about Coco, is like this is the thing that I continue to harp on with with Iga. All that she has you know, has she she has completed lost my words. all that she's achieved in her career, right? All happened before the age of twenty four. I think she was twenty four when she won Wimbledon, right? And so everything else happened be between like eighteen and twenty four.

Torrey (21:18.109)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (21:18.207)
That's all. She had a whole ass grand slam career before hitting her peak years. I would expect her best tennis. I would expect anyone's best tennis to occur between on the women's side between 24 and 27, right? That's the so when you when we start thinking about, okay, she hit the highs, she she got a little early, she got dinged up, or everyone else, the game caught up.

Torrey (21:22.162)
Yeah.

Torrey (21:38.301)
Right. Early.

Torrey (21:43.804)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (21:44.958)
Okay, now we're gonna really understand the mettle of Iga Swiate as a as an overall tennis player. Like when we start thinking about her entire the entirety of her career, we're in the middle of it right now. I expect another five, six years to come. Okay, if she is going to be able to like write a second version of her the chapter two of her career or whatever, then it's going to have to be the comeback, right? Like, okay, the the tour changed. Okay, now I make the changes.

Torrey (21:49.84)
Right.

Torrey (21:56.25)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (22:13.629)
And now I and now I come for everyone else with a different a slightly different version of myself, a a new and improved version of myself. And I I just I'm excited about the prospects of that because I think we all not gonna say deserve that, but like she's so young and she hasn't necessarily done anything wrong. Yeah. So that's what that's why I'm like, okay, now she's twenty five, she just turned recent, she's on twenty five. Game on. Like let's I expect her to get better.

Torrey (22:15.676)
Right, right. Sure. Right.

Torrey (22:32.688)
for sure. For sure.

Torrey (22:38.468)
Yeah. Yeah. for for sure, for sure. And and to your point, and you expect any player at that high of a level to be caught because what they're doing is so good, people will start emulating it, right? And so you have to now understand that, you know, what what's that expression? The flatteries the greatest something something form of whatever it is.

Alvin Owusu (22:43.115)
I expect it. I expect it.

Alvin Owusu (23:04.917)
Form of yes.

Torrey (23:07.726)
People will start copying what you do because it's working so well. How many people? I mean, from Jasmine to to to what's my girl's name from South Carolina? great returns, used to be top ten. No, thank you, Emma, have copied the return style. Ivan Jovich and others are all return specialists now because of what Iga has taught slash showed the way of taking the darn ball.

Alvin Owusu (23:09.546)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (23:21.94)
Navarro.

Torrey (23:36.927)
well inside the baseline, taking away all oxygen as a game style, let alone as a tactic. And so I feel like now that that has happened, you know, everyone has kind of caught up to it. You now have to come up with something else if you are able. And I think that's the other part of it. We have to understand, all aren't able. And to be able to do that and to have the goods to do it again, Alvin she's pretty special. She may have yet another three-year quote unquote cycle at the top of the game. And

It'll be it'll be wonderful to see.

Alvin Owusu (24:08.831)
Yeah, check I mean I I I highly encourage everyone to check the records. I've gone on record. Check the check the backlog. All my all of my EGA stock, it's sitting back here in this corner. I've been collecting it. Everyone's offload has been offloading. I'm like, no, no, no, give it to give it to I'll take it. I'll take it. I will take it. It's sitting back there. I am ready. I am personally ready for it to happen. And not only because I want to be right, but also I just never felt like giving up on her was the right thing to do 'cause again

Torrey (24:15.944)
No

Torrey (24:22.184)
Yeah.

Torrey (24:36.642)
Sure, way too early. Way too early. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see if she can return back to number one. I think that may be where, and it's not to say that it's a bridge too far, but it'll be interesting to see. Will she win a slam again? For sure. Will she get back to number one? That's gonna be that's gonna be tough. And that's gonna be tough for any of the current eight right now. But I hear your point, and I think it's well taken. Here's what I love about her game: it's coming.

Alvin Owusu (24:38.099)
Way too early. Way too early.

Torrey (25:06.389)
The second iteration is filling out things she didn't have before. And so now it's anybody's game, anybody's business. Here's the interesting man what we're saying. We said this earlier before we started before you press record.

It's not happening in a vacuum. Other players have to now decide to downshift and go through their second iteration or not. You know, other players are now having to decide: do I do this now and pay it forward, or do I just ride what I have and just and just keep going? There's some older players that may can't change too many things at this point. There's some players in the middle that have showed some solid promise that also got to the finals of this tournament.

That could still do some things a little differently and go through their second version of themselves or third. there's one Coco Goff, who's still completing her arc, if you will, into her iteration of her of next iteration of herself. And to me, where all those meet is they have four check-in periods every year that last two weeks in Melbourne, you know what I'm saying, in Paris, in London.

Wimbledon Park and in NYC, baby, you know. so we're we're gonna find out how that check in is in the in the next few weeks. But it's also gonna be really interesting to see what iterations do when they face each other. And now we're really gonna I think we're gonna I think we're in for pretty if if if the national bank open presented by Rogers was any indication of how stacked the women's game is right now, buddy, the US open is gonna be

Be absolute fireworks.

Alvin Owusu (26:48.733)
Yeah, and I like the way that you put that, like and I think we look at it the same way. Grand slams are effectively check-ins, right? We don't play, you know, I'm I'm I'm big time, make the make the tour finals matter, right? But like it's kind of in jest because they don't matter, right? The the the the the something's in the oven. The bread's already in the oven at that point, right? but we we look at these grand slams as check-ins and we're just kind of checking in for what? We're checking in for development, right? What is what has changed.

Torrey (27:14.591)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (27:16.265)
What changes have players made? because at the end of the day, we're we're tennis fans. We love the tennis. And tennis requires players to continually can consist consistently change and make adjustments to in in order to continue to, you know, go after their goals. And I I I think it's interesting, like I don't know if the question is will Ega get back to number one? I almost think that that's irrelevant.

Because which which we will get to later with in the Arena Sabalinka section here is that I once we get to our next world number one, I think we're gonna see one change hands a lot because of the parity in the top eight right now. And number one ranking yeah. Well Yeah and

Torrey (27:41.907)
I I agree.

Torrey (27:53.332)
Yeah.

Torrey (27:57.827)
Well the whole game. You know, the whole the whole to top the top twenty is is is rough. So you know the top ten and the top four and six, good lord, it's it's so tough right now.

Alvin Owusu (28:08.136)
And the ranking is just a compilation of it's really like what does it take to be number one in the world? You need to win one slam that generally, you need to win one slam that year, and if you win two, you're gonna be number one number one. If everyone wins one, you need one plus like three Masters one thousands, and that'll that'll get it done, right? Our last seven women's grand slam champions have been different. Seven. Seven. So that tells you that okay, okay, Arena is still working with math here, but

Torrey (28:21.394)
Three, one thousand more. Right, right.

Torrey (28:28.69)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (28:37.106)
Arena needs to win Cincinnati. Right? I mean, Elena's on her ass. Like that like if if Rebecca had won this tournament, she'd be rule number one. That's not that important. I'm just saying that when we get ourselves through New York, like obviously math is math. Arena's defending a lot of points. And if she does not win the tournament, then she will not be rule number one. And I think we're just getting ourselves into a situation where like this is probably going to be our future for a little while. And so I I'll I'll twist the

Torrey (28:53.158)
Yep. See what number one. A hundred percent.

Torrey (29:03.419)
I agree.

Alvin Owusu (29:05.566)
I'll twist that statement a little bit and say not question, but like will she get to number one? Like that. I don't really I don't know. That's math. But will she continue? I think Iga has done the com the cycle, right? Or she has made that next cycle when she is back to competing for Grand Slam titles. And I think that's at this point of the iteration of the tour. You Yeah, it's not necessarily like

Torrey (29:29.625)
Right. A at any point it's it's it's the it's where you wanna be. Right. Right. You you can't right, it's real, right? A hundred percent.

Alvin Owusu (29:34.333)
Is she gonna win it? It's like it's her the field, or it's like if she doesn't win it, it's a loss. I just wanna if she is in the conversation for being a legitimate threat at winning the tournament with five other women, then that's where we are. And I think that's that's probably the target for this fiatet camp. Should be the target. That would be the that would that's if I were in her coaching staff and no one would hire me. that's what I would set the goals, like competing, legitimately competing for Grand Slams moving forward.

Torrey (29:50.457)
Hundred percent. Or or or should be.

Alvin Owusu (30:03.42)
o over the next few years. let's switch gears. Cocoa golf is a is a favorite topic around here and I feel like we it's a it's a great time to talk about cocoa. I can zoom into like specifically one spot that I I was I got a good look at Coco and I was like, We're on the path. We are on the path. That match against Lena Rabakin a couple of nights ago she lost the match. Fine. That we'll come to Rack in a little bit and

Torrey (30:10.405)
Yep, love cocoa.

Alvin Owusu (30:32.286)
Why I'm also very impressed with her right now. but to your point, your earlier point, Coco now has these, let's just call it we're we're in full on Coco two point right now. And there's this book that my kids used to read. It's called Giraffes Can't Dance, right? And in this book, this giraffe feels like the giraffe is a thing and then it doesn't know how to dance, and then someone tells the giraffe, you just gotta

Feel the rhythm, feel the flow. And then at some point the giraffe learns how to start moving its body. And then the giraffe is feeling comfortable moving its body. Now the giraffe is dancing. That's kind of the go get the book on Amazon, whatever. Or don't. I just told you the whole story. But that's now Coco was like, I don't have a forehand. I need to fix the forehand. Brad Gilbert says just roll the forehand. Coco's like, I don't want to roll the forehand. Now she's hitting the forehand, hitting the forehand, hitting the forehand. Now it's now it's looking for forehands.

Torrey (30:58.927)
No, no, no, no, no.

Torrey (31:26.467)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:26.546)
And now it's like, well, what do I do when I find the forehand? I start building around looking for forehands. And now I'm seeing Coco, she took one ball. This was probably, I can't remember if this was late second, early third, rips a forehand from the middle of the center court, two feet behind the baseline, rips it cross court. Elena goes forehand line, and then Coco rips backhand cross-court. And I was like, that's the winning pattern right there. Because most players can't.

Torrey (31:29.687)
Right.

Torrey (31:43.416)
Center shot. Yep.

Torrey (31:53.035)
that yeah. That's it. That's it. That's right. all stop. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:56.373)
Do that. You rip forehand. Exactly. You're gonna, as Rebecca Zoom goes, okay, check backhand. That's the safety spot. I can recover, get myself back into this rally. Not many players have the ability to go bigger off the backhand side. I'm like, that's that's Coco 2.0 right there.

Torrey (32:08.951)
Right. That's right.

Torrey (32:13.879)
your your what you're what you're speaking to to me and I was writing it in some of my notes. So every player that has weapons has has the

The the whatever you want to call it, the the the to form the weapons or in the sequence they need to get them in to use them often. It's easy for a player in the tennis court to hit a ball that you're not expecting to go back behind you, but often it's really no one at that level has a weakness per se. They don't have a preference to dictate off of that side, or they have

A proclivity so much on the other side that they will use other ball to set up said side. Few players have that comfortability on both sides. Rebecca is one of the few that does. We'll get to her a second. Coco has never had that ability on that side. She's always just wanted to get in backhand matchup. She will go line on you in a second just to get said backhand, and then almost, in some cases, almost overhead off the backhand because she knew that was a shot she had to hurt you off of.

I'm gonna tell you another place that she's starting to really tag the forehand Alvin that people don't understand. And y'all know you saw it in that same action with the landlord back in it. Her forehand return is becoming big. She can rip the forehand return. She always takes returns. Even if she rolled it, bugged it, blocked it, whatever. She's starting to hammer it. When I see Coco starting to step into the forehand.

Not just take the open stance and use the pace that's been given, not just reset down the line, but to step in and dictate it cross-court through the court, knowing that you're going to come back to the backhand side because you have no time. That's when I know she's doing well. The second thing I think I will I will start to know: will she take that same center shot inside out and then come forward and get her volley slash swinging volley? If she

Torrey (34:16.008)
Which to me is just it's the next level of her forehand being right there. Right now she's still looking for the backhand, which she should. She's got a world-class backhand. I mean, since why not? But there's a what's what's that fork commercial? Whoever said that sh works smarter, not harder, wasn't aware that you could do both, right? No, you weren't. We're not understanding that you could have a forehand weapon and a backhand weapon and still be Coco Golf. And I think that's what we're heading into. If it if anything

Alvin Owusu (34:17.79)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (34:43.174)
I felt like she got a little overly aggressive in the second set, right? Stepped the toe a little bit. And I felt like she kinda regressed a little bit to the old Coco and started kinda rolling some balls in the third. But I really felt it was more her indecisiveness, not being as clear with her intentionality. But it wasn't necessarily a skill set that was not there. It was more about a conflict internally, which do I trust right now? And that's a good place to be right now if I'm Coco Golf, because I'm gonna

I'm gonna I'm only gonna get better with it. I'm only gonna trust it more and have it have it be really tested and really galvanized, you know, in in the future. I re I was really impressed with how she went toe to toe with Rebecca in times past. Coco has never gone toe to with anybody because that form was always something she had to hide, defend, run through. Her passes were there. She could make a good ball if she had to, but she couldn't hurt you repeatedly. She's hurting you repeatedly now. And it's fun, it's fun to see come in that morning.

Which I think is another part of her game, that because the form was there, she she really couldn't have really come forward a lot because she was always coming in off on a roll. She wasn't coming in off a drive. And I feel like she's starting to tag the ball good enough now to use her hands and her comfortability around the net and to do that to me. Now we c there's yet another iteration that Coco could still use if she if when she fully gets this, you know, gets this the clarity down on the on her one two punch on both sides.

Alvin Owusu (36:08.647)
It's gonna be Coco Navratilova. She's start serving Vali and just like just carving people up. it's very similar to it's very similar to the ego point that I made earlier about like you know the player is in flow, you know they understand when they hit ball X with the intention of looking for ball X plus one, and you can see them start to adjust with their feet for that like I've hit the shot and now I need to get in position for this next ball because I've this is the pattern I'm expecting.

Torrey (36:12.85)
Yes, certainly could.

Torrey (36:25.618)
Right.

Torrey (36:30.93)
That's right. Or for force that ball, right?

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (36:37.235)
Feel free to redirect me on this one, but this is more of a technical thing with Coco in her forehand. I know we talk a we people talk a lot about her grip, but one specific difference is that I'm starting to see is Coco has always gone

Maybe she's always gone bigger swing to try to get bigger ball. And when d when facing pace, you can't go bigger swing, you got less time. It does to me look like when she's getting into the prep position, she looks more let's say right hand, left hip looks more connected and she's realized that like I don't have to swing bigger.

I can just go semi, you know, semi open and use my my my right hip. I'm kind of doing this backwards because I'm left handed, but my left hip to then mm yank that thing. And it's not a bigger swing. It's like the hands are almost staying in place. It's almost like a almost the ATP foreign, if you will. Like everything's kind of staying here, but then the hips start to go and it just drops and boom, goes. Yeah. Is that a am I making that up or have you noticed something similar?

Torrey (37:23.046)
Right.

Yeah, I should.

Torrey (37:34.224)
Correct.

Torrey (37:43.142)
No. I think I've not only have I noticed it, I think the I think she's starting to notice it, which is the thick is the thing, man. That's the most important piece. She rolled so much, Alvin, that I feel like I wanna I to mention two things with this that and perhaps the listeners and viewers can can understand this with in their own tennis or maybe their kid playing tennis or just from watching.

Alvin Owusu (37:54.537)
That's the most important thing.

Torrey (38:13.797)
As you take the bracket back, one of the simplest things that comes to me now after years and years of coaching, the more I drop the racket, and the more I raise the racket on the finish, the more topspin I get, right? We understand that. The loop aids that concept, right? And the higher the loop, the more I drop, the more I raise, the more topspin. At a certain point in time, I'm getting height.

With spin, and I interpret that as shape. It might be too much shape from time to time, but it's still shape. At some point, I don't realize that I don't have to go up six feet to down below my knees to get to my shoulder. I simply have to be above the ball, slightly below the ball.

Alvin Owusu (38:46.941)
Mm.

See where you're going.

Torrey (39:09.556)
And the connect, and the same concept holds true. I just get a little bit more drive with said shape. And my shape is still spinning, it's just a lot more through the court. When you don't ever have a huge forehand, you don't understand that concept. You think the height, the loop, the backing up of the foot, the buggy whip, all of it have to all be there to hit spin and hit heavy and get the ball to jump.

And because it works, the ball goes up, it goes up, people say it gives you, it gives you time for the on the rise backhand, right? It gives you what you needed. And therefore, you don't ever trust anything else. How many balls with that Millennium Style forehand has Coco hit? I'd probably say a thousand or two. And probably a lot of them within the last six months to a year. So we have to now get enough reps at said forehand for that.

thing to really become muscle memory and really get tried and true. And yes, there'll be a missed time ball or two here and there. That's the first thing. Understanding that you can still apply the physics of low to high without the link, without the time, without the back foot, without having to slow it down as well. You can actually time it well just a little, again, a little less raise, a little less drop, boom, you still get the same effect at the end. Arguably better if you can time it well.

The second thing you mentioned was what I simple expression I use, especially when I'm teaching little kids. you hit a ball to get a ball. And it's a very simple concept. I hit a ball to get a ball. Often people think, especially when they're learning and when they get halfway decent, they go, I'm trying to hit a one of it. Well, that's that's your problem, right? What you're really trying to do is to get the next ball, right? from a guy that I know way back when I was working with Sko, he had this great riddle, he would always ask me, What's the most important shot in tennis, right?

Everybody says, it's a serve. it's a forehand. yeah. He says, No, he says, no, you think it's just it's the next shot. Right. And so the neck that became almost a mantra for me after I fully understood and really put that into my coaching vernacular. You hit a ball to get a ball. So now, Ega, we mentioned before, Coco is now hitting a ball to get a ball. And now she's able to actually connect and get the one-two punch, right? A building ball. And really, what is a second building ball? It's offense.

Torrey (41:33.064)
Because you didn't neutralize it. So therefore, I'm getting another one. And at that point, two building shots equals offense. Coco's got pretty good violets last time I checked, was a good doubles player last time I checked. And so therefore now she has the finishing shots, which most players don't necessarily have or or or want to use. And she just needed a little bigger weapon on that side so that she didn't have to overplay or have to constantly reset and try again.

And to your point, I feel like she's starting to really click on all six cylinders now. Looks good.

Alvin Owusu (42:05.052)
Yep. more is not always better. We don't need more shape. We just need up. We need enough. Up, below, back up again. And that can happen in a very tight window. See Roger Feder. Extremely heavy ball. Not a very not a very elaborate swing. Up, down, up again. yeah, so with with with Coco, it's like, you know, you all you really want, and I think you could probably say the same thing for a lot of these players, and if you listen to this podcast with any regularity, this is like beating a drum. It's like

Torrey (42:10.868)
We need a note.

Torrey (42:15.296)
Whenever we exactly.

Alvin Owusu (42:35.392)
we're just looking for some for progress. That's all. Like, 'cause tennis tennis players keep evolving, so we just went looking for the for the for the evolution and the progress. And on this particular check in point, it's like, okay, Coco is continuing, you know, everything we've seen over the last, I would say, six, eight, maybe nine weeks, it's it's building on top of each other. Right. She's sh she's gotta figure out what to do with the weapons now that she's starting to build the weapons and that is another that's another thing. But

Torrey (42:38.144)
Yeah. Love it.

Torrey (42:45.429)
Right.

Torrey (42:57.662)
Doing doing well.

Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (43:04.858)
Love to love to see it. Elena Rabacna, who Coco lost to in the in a in a fantastic semifinal match. and Elena came out, you know, that that match ended late. She came out seemed a little bit dead rights against Ega. and Ega was was ready for it too, so that's a bad combination. But I I did I don't think Elena played well all week and yet I could I'm I couldn't be more

impressed with what she was able to produce. The amount of times that she was able to bear down and especially get herself into third sets, get past some shaky tennis to find to find championship style tennis in the back end of third sets. I was like, she's nothing better than winning matches when you're not playing well.

Torrey (43:34.142)
Sure. Right.

Torrey (43:50.077)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (43:58.297)
Nothing better than getting to the finals of a Masters 1000 when you didn't really play a completely great match any any way on the way there. Right. And and so when I look at that, I go, yeah, okay, this is good. She's she's I would yeah, I would like her to play better. She would love to play better. But I'd also hate to play well and lose. So I'll take playing poorly, staying mentally with it.

Torrey (44:06.119)
Any any of the six, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (44:26.48)
And then still being able to execute when the chips are down and get myself across the finish line. that is what champions are made of. Like literally winning, you know, winning on your bad days. Your your example of, you know, in a grand slam two weeks, seven matches, you're you're gonna have some days that are great, you're gonna have some days that are bad. You just kinda wanna be able to ride and weather that storm. She weathered that storm on a slightly smaller scale and got herself into a position. you know, some

Torrey (44:34.812)
Waiting on bad days. Yeah.

Torrey (44:50.767)
Yeah. G gave us a chance to win it, sure.

Alvin Owusu (44:52.7)
Get yourself a chance to win it. She didn't she didn't necessarily beat herself in the matches where she definitely had opportunities to do so. And for someone who do ha does have two grand slams in the bag, one being this year, has gone to toe toe to toe with Arena Sablanka and all the best players in the world and and been victorious. It's like it's like, yeah, let's not like we're forgetting about her. She's within points of usurping Arena for the number one number one ranking. it just feels like we're just so blessed right now to have

Torrey (44:56.24)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (45:21.884)
I mean, we've gotten through I think three players in this rundown and there are still two left to go on the women's side and it's it's kinda silly how how t how tough the top ten is right now. It's so tough. It it's so tough. I'm having I'm having so much fun. But with Elena, it's it's always it's I I feel like with her, like we we know what she is. Like we know what she is. It's it's

Torrey (45:26.821)
Yeah, yeah.

Great. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (45:47.259)
It's a little bit of like, Yeah, would you like a little more space on the forehand side so it becomes a little bit more dependable? actually let's go there. I'm talking about that. Elena has this thing on her forehand where she likes to pull that left arm in as she starts to collapse on the forehand, right? And we always generally wanna teach like two hands out to the side to create the space so that we can let the you know, the the that dominant side, swinging side come completely rotate through.

Torrey (46:11.503)
Right. She almost initiates it with the left hand pull. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:14.244)
Right. And so what I what I find that is I was kinda like really, really harping on it this week. I'm like, so what's the problem with that? It's not really just an aesthetic issue. It it's more of a I feel like that's why she doesn't she's not able to get a lot of shape when she's pulled out into the into the deuce corner. It's like there's not a lot of space left to rotate what she's kind of engaged in a little too early. also it's also like when she's pressed, middle ball specifically.

I started to notice like she's kind of always gonna go line. And that's kind of like if you're if you're looking for it, it's like that's where that's where the technical side starts to impact the tactical side. Is that is that a is that a fair, relatively fair assessment?

Torrey (46:50.84)
Wait.

Torrey (46:58.955)
say so i would also say it also attacks it also dictates her targets better as you know alvin you don't ever want to make it a habit of going against your body how your bodies turn how your body is sitting how your body is aligned don't hit across your body the wrong way right if i'm set up here with my left shoulder in front clearly my right shoulder has to finish to that side the cross court in that case is going to be easier if i'm a little wider it's easier to go line and so on and so forth

I feel her biggest issue to me isn't necessarily spacing, it's predictability. She's too predictable. However, to your point, that technical, if we're gonna call it a thing, maybe prohibits her from being able to change more often. She's also a very tall young lady, and so she's always gonna be having has gonna have a space issue from time to time as the ball's coming at her at 90 plus miles an hour, right?

So, which is why you see a lot of players starting to go through the middle on her quite often because of that same issue. So, to your point, she goes lying a lot on that on that body ball, late will go straight. I say that a lot, a lot of my players when you're a little late, the ball is gonna go straight. You just have to. It's not there's anatomically speaking, that's all you can do. And I feel like that's what's hurting her. I also feel like then in her mind, she has created this this thing, this one-two punch that almost always comes from the cross court ball.

Alvin Owusu (47:59.995)
Right, yeah.

Torrey (48:24.895)
And she's just so long and fairly fast and mobile for a girl, six feet or six one, whatever tall she is, to be able to cover the next down the line backhand. Because the cross is harder to cover when it's hit well than the down the line. The downline's got to get there. And she's tall enough and fast enough to do so. What I find with Alana Rabacina is she is needing to go through her next iteration. She's not completely comfortable coming forward. She's not so completely comfortable.

Changing whenever she wants. She does so when she has to. And mind you, she does so often when she has to, but she doesn't do it on her own, which means the predictability, as I said before, starts to be somewhat known. There were some points in that matchup with Iga. Iga had already jumped to the cross court and almost overran the ball because she just knew where Elena was going. And I was like,

When the person's beating you to your intended target before you even hit the ball, that you might be a that might be a sign you need to start getting in your, you know, moving the ball around a little bit more because they are they know where you're going before you do. And I think that's something that I feel that Alana needs to continue to work on. And her next iteration of herself, because she's such a big ball striker and she's so tall and good on both sides, she takes away time.

Well, what is the ultimate ball that takes away time? It's the volley. It's the ball out of the air. So if you're gonna do all that and still have the ball bounce and pound again, you're giving a person that likes to counter punch or counterpunish, like I coco can do, you're gonna give them that time to get back in the point. And now you're gonna have to do what you don't wanna do, which is take a lot of risks on the move or on the run. And that to me is where Elena's gonna have to now go through her next iteration of herself, where she will in fact come forward.

Take the ball line, go line twice for all I've, you know, as far as far as I'm concerned, to really stretch the court and use her size and her wingspan to her advantage. Right now, in my opinion, she's playing a very high percentage game. If you can hang with her. Well, guess what? She also has raised the level of the game. And people are now starting to realize, well, I can hang with you. If I can, if I can just get your ball back a few times. Her serve wasn't as phenomenal as it as I've seen it in the past, maybe.

Torrey (50:42.888)
Maybe it was it was time, maybe all the maybe all the the third set matches. I think she had four out of six three set matches, Alvin. I think she, you know, of of the six she played. So you're looking at that also being a thing. And again, where is she serving to? Slices out wide and a lot of and a lot of flats and and and and balls down the T. So you're gonna get these balls that are either gonna go hard body on her or go back cross. And if she's going back cross back to you, she is creating her own predictability issue. and it's almost a bit of a conundrum. It's almost like

Alvin Owusu (50:48.313)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (51:12.763)
She's gonna go big, cross. They're gonna be a little late, go down the line. She's gonna go back cross on that next ball. And at that point, it's it's almost like a you can see why she A has gotten good at it, but you can also see how it gets predictable. And people start to realize, but you're not gonna hurt me on that ball, and you're rarely gonna go behind me. So guess what? I'm gonna sit over there, I'm gonna camp out on that on that next cross-court ball and be waiting on you. And if I can get that ball wider on you, or I can go behind you.

Or I can go line on you twice. You aren't that fast. And now, guess what? I'm gonna use your pace against you. And that's where I think that's what Iga did to her in this match. And Coco Darnier did it. She had just had had kind of put it together, you know, and maybe gone line a little bit quicker in some of the points instead of just trying to hammer cross, which is obviously a pattern that that Atlanta likes.

Alvin Owusu (52:04.645)
Yeah, and I I'm glad you were talking about that. I was thinking of a couple of different instances from earlier in the year against Jessica Pagula where I can remember distinctly, like it felt like Elena was like couldn't hit herself out of a paper bag. She was just like she was ripping, but it just kept like kept s it seemingly Jessica was there every single time. Corner was a corner to corner. It was like it's like, does Jessica know something? Does she see something? Like that she just kind of feels like she knows exactly where Elena's gonna hit the ball.

And like running it down's not enough and she got herself into a couple tiebreakers like on the back ends like tight second sets and then Jess just didn't have the firepower to close like close through. You can't run your way down. You can't just run through, you know, winning thus many batches. But yeah. Yeah, yeah. At some point you do get tired and you do have to sting, at at some point. but yeah, it's it it's interesting to see because from an age standpoint, we talked about Iga and we talked about Coco who are

Torrey (52:49.476)
returning those kind of shots, you know.

Alvin Owusu (53:02.887)
twenty he gets twenty five, cocoa's what, twenty-one, twenty-two, she's still extremely young. There are still there's still room for the iterations. When you start talking about Rebecca who's 27, and later we'll get to we'll get to Arena who's 28, it's like, okay, we're we're kind of there, it's on the edges. It's on the edges, right? and another player who is in that kind of same age age category who I do want to talk about her game, not necessarily on the not just on the edges, but also

Torrey (53:07.503)
Twenty twenty.

Torrey (53:13.535)
Torrey (53:21.711)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (53:32.826)
in the corners. There's just a little thing that I saw. Naomi Osaka. I feel like like one of the things that we don't talk about enough with her comeback and how it how it can't be that instant is the it's the mobility part, right? And it's not just the straight the straight on speed. obviously like, you know, the more the more of the post the post pregnancy weight that she's able to shave off, the faster she's able to move around the tennis court, right? That's just that's it's physics.

And you can tell that she's getting fitter and fitter kind of month by month. And she's also getting into the corners better and better kind of month by month. But specifically getting into the corners where I'm starting to notice this week she was able to create more shape from the corners. And I I relate that back to the speed part because in order to get into the corner and create shape, you not only need to be able get into the corner, but you need to get into the corner, you need to be able to load.

Torrey (54:17.807)
Yeah. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (54:31.813)
And you gotta get low, right? And that just takes a little more time. If you're late, yeah, and and strength. Yeah, and if you arrive a little late, you can't you don't have time to get down. You're gonna you're gonna hit thick in the corner and you know, that's usually going line. But I I saw more of the old able to check into defense, Naomi this week. who did she lose did she lose to Rebecca? Was that the was that Yeah.

Torrey (54:33.231)
That's right.

And and physicality, a hundred percent.

Torrey (54:58.101)
Lost her she lost to Rebecca. In three.

Alvin Owusu (55:01.347)
In the corners, hitting four hands, open stance, hand just low enough to find shape. Backhand side, left hand just low enough to find a little shape. And I'm like, she's able to get low enough because she's there fast enough and with enough time to drop. It's a little thing. But again, with with these top women, the the margins are so thin that the ability to to hit that ball with shape.

into a corner as opposed to hitting that ball fat down the middle is the difference between you resetting versus you getting a forehands shoved into the deuce corner, right?

Torrey (55:34.829)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (55:40.983)
Right, that's right.

Alvin Owusu (55:42.937)
Again, I'll reiterate, I'm so excited about where the weapons game is right now.

Torrey (55:46.429)
my goodness. Look look at your look at your look at your four. I looked at the quarters all the way through. Right. And really you could say the same thing about the round 16, because that was that was some great tennis as well. from from Benchic to Osaka to Coco to Rabakina to and Alexandrova who beat obviously Sabolinka to Alina Svidolina to Schneider who took out JPEG to Sviantec. I

That's a pretty good quarter, I mean, if you think about it. And two of them upset the that's right. Two of them upset the seats, the the the higher seats. So, you know, in in JPEG and in Sabalinka. So which are the only two names missing from that from that group. So I just say it to say, you know, I was so impressed with the quality of the tennis. And to your point, the margins are thin. The level is so high. That's why the margins are thin. And you literally have to beat a player.

Alvin Owusu (56:18.468)
What grand slam was that?

Torrey (56:43.593)
two or three different ways for the they're gonna counter the first two, you know, in addition to what they normally do well. So they're that's when all the matchups really happen. So I'm I'm like you. Naomi showed me some vintage Naomi Osaka tennis. She's also showing me that she can strike down the middle more and use her center shots better. She's always had a good live arm. when she starts to serve consistently like she's capable, to me that's where I see her next

Upswing is can she continue to serve like she when she won her four slams, she was serving lights out. I mean, just flat. She knows return grace, she's fast. As you get older, you know, post post you know, you know, post pregnancy weight or not, doesn't matter. Can you move? You know what I mean? And often some of these, some of the, you know, as we all get older, forget forget the mother part of it. As you get older, we get a little so we get a step slower, right?

you those that first one or two that Sheriffova won, she was like seventeen, eighteen. You know, when she won the next few, she was twenty she was twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven. Had been she's now she's now a woman, not a not a not a teenager. And so you've got you've got weight, you've got strength, you've got size, you know, and you're not as swift a foot anymore. You're just not. So from a physics standpoint, from an age standpoint, the whole line. So to me, to see her being able to get some of that old Naomi back was

impressive to see her to your point get better in the corners and because movement was such a big part of game. Her serve is still there, her returns are still there. She has better touch and feel than you think. If she can continue to get that serve placement as it used to be, which I gotta think is of all the things to get back, that's something you can practice and get back is the is to hit your spots. That to me is

You know, she's only getting better each tournament quality wise. Forget the results, quality wise. She's on a pretty good run here, Alvin. From last year, US Open to this year, she's improved a lot. And her quality quotient is through the roof right now. She's she was right there with Rebecca. I mean, she was right there. I mean, I think, I want to see she won the first, lost a second and a breaker. You know what I mean? Six, four, seven, five, and the third. I mean, that's that's that's going the distance. You that's going the distance for sure.

Alvin Owusu (59:00.996)
Yeah. And about your previous statement about the like that bang up quarterfinal. You know who wasn't in that quarterfinal that we that we did not mention? The last two Grand Slam champions. Like we still omitted they they weren't there and it was still a lights out quarterfinal. also not there was one Arena Sabalenka. Okay. I feel like we've had this conversation. We had this conversation before we hit record.

And so I don't necessarily know where we're gonna go right now. All I'm saying is what am I saying? The thing that I've said before, let's start there, is that if the okay the three year cycle, right? Now we're calling it three year cycle, right? If we we had the we had the arena Savalinka kind of three year cycle that had her kind of stuck behind Iga and then she got serious about a few different things in her in her within not just her camp.

But that's kinda like when she brought on Jason Stacy and they started to kind of focus in on the her ability to let go of some of the things that were inhibiting her as a tennis player. And none very little of it was technical outside of that serve issue that they that her and Gavin worked through. And now we we get to the number one spot and we get ourselves into this next three year cycle. Okay. Now here we are almost dead on three years. It'll be in a couple of weeks that she became world number one and she is on the precipice of

Potentially losing that world number one ranking. Again, not the most important thing, except for from one, the only place to go is down, right? And so here we are at the peak of her career, the prime of her career, twenty-eight years old, four time Grand Slam champion, been number one for I don't know, hundreds some odd weeks in a row. If if I told you all that and I said at some point what was up must come down, what does the coming down look like? And I think we talked about this

mm months ago. It's not going to be a fall off the face of the earth, right? It's gonna be right. It's gonna be a just a slight degradation of of her previous style of results where Arena Sabalenka was kind of, you know, a banker to make semifinals and finals of pretty much every event she showed up to. Can't do that forever. So what does it turn into? It's like I'm missing a couple semis and there, dropping losing the quarters. It's not losing the first round, but it's like now we're losing the quarters, sometimes around a sixteen. And now we've put together a

Torrey (01:00:59.728)
Sure. Sure. No no crash and burn here.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:25.23)
A bit of a run here of not semi final appearances.

Torrey (01:01:27.556)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:31.652)
I don't think it's an Arena Sabalinka thing per se with her tennis right now. And I'm not. Yeah, and the thing is it's not a, it's not a her consistency week in, week out was her biggest, is her biggest attribute. Her her mutant ability. It's not the thing that it's not the obvious thing. It's the thing that's hiding the background. The obvious thing was like big surf, big, big forehands, like it's extreme intensity. Like that was the obvious thing.

Torrey (01:01:35.874)
Right. It's the l caught up, like you said earlier.

Torrey (01:01:49.124)
Sure, her her mutant ability, so to speak.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:01.839)
But the the mutant ability is the ability to do it week in, week out and continue to show up. But like we've talked about the very, very thin margins on the women's tour, it takes one slip, one half level, one quarter level of a slip for those semis and finals to turn into quarters and sixteenths.

Torrey (01:02:20.546)
Yep, agree.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:22.145)
And I think, like any other human, because she's still a human, we do get to a certain level of satisfaction with ourselves. And I do not I do not blame her. And I maybe I'm speaking out of turn here. Because you normally we talk about the tennis. But I don't think this is necessarily about the tennis. I think it's about a n it's about searching for the next cycle. I think we've come to the end of this particular cycle. And I believe Arena Sabalanka still has great years left in front of her.

Torrey (01:02:35.417)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:51.727)
But she is at the crossroads right now where she needs to decide does it mean enough to me?

Torrey (01:02:58.786)
To go through another cycle. Yeah. Don't I don't know if she has another reinvention to go. I think I think she's pretty much maxing out what that is. I think the focus and the not taking things for granted on the other side of the net is her next ability. We're gonna talk we're talking total quality control here. You know, the what is it, the six

Alvin Owusu (01:03:00.313)
To go through another cycle, to reinvent herself.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:08.079)
That's also a thing.

Torrey (01:03:28.337)
Six six Sigma, thank you. Right, right, right, right. She's gonna have to lean so strong in the six sigma that she can't take a player having a good day to think that she will fall off. I will finish her off in three. She's got to match up quicker. She's got to do some things, not just for the four to six players that are nipping at her heels that are that two or three of which that could take the ranking from her at any given time, but the I'm gonna say the next eight that could beat her on a given day.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:29.199)
Six sigma lean production, yeah.

Torrey (01:03:58.175)
when she's not playing lights out and they're having one of their good days, as Ekaterina Alexandrova did this tournament here in in Montreal. So I think what I'm looking at, Alvin, is I don't think she can make that next iteration physically. I think she can make it mentally and start to really, really just just really get really fine-tuned with that. The other thing I think is that to your point, the other players have come up. She's been dominant for so long.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:16.27)
Right.

Torrey (01:04:28.468)
The players almost as a result of her dominance. I remember saying now, imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Right? So, or or is the so the the whole the game, every there are other bigger hitters now that do what she's done. And so at some point, now that you've been that person, you now have to have the ability to now add the next piece, add the next level, add the next nuance.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:35.126)
Imitation, there it is.

Torrey (01:04:56.115)
to said part of your game. I think Arena has got minimum two slams left. When they'll be, I don't know. I want to talk to your point about what does it look like. It

Alvin Owusu (01:05:08.389)
Wait, wait, whoa, whoa. Minimum two slams left, what i w she's gonna win two more is what you're saying.

Torrey (01:05:13.759)
That's what saying. I think she has two more slams that she can win in her foreseeable future. I think it'll be I think it will be in the next two years. I think after that two years, life results, potentially lack of hunger, maybe, if I to your point, if we can kind of look at that that far, may not be there as much as before. And I think she's always one who's worked really hard, played really hard, right? And so when she and and parties a little hard, which is great for her, which

Alvin Owusu (01:05:17.891)
Okay. Okay.

Torrey (01:05:43.547)
I think she's going to now at that point says, look, I've done what I can do. I poured everything I could into this thing. I think she's got two more years. Here's what I think it looks like. She goes every year winning a grand slam, and then usually gets to almost every semi-or final, to your point. And then she doesn't. Right? This may be the year she doesn't win that slam. I think that will kick her into the into the that'll be the gut punch she needs to kick off the next iteration, right?

And I think that's why this next year will be a absolute breakout for Arena Sabolinka to to completely dive back into Arena, be refocused and do her thing. and for that reason, I don't wish anything on any player. I just I think that'll be what she needs to kind of be a little bit of a wake up call and do her thing. should she win it, then it tells me that there's two or three years, not just one to two years left in the tank because she's still doing what she's always done, which is

Come through with the US Open, have a decent year. She had a couple of blips on the radar, but nothing really that serious, and she's still playing Grand Slam champion level tennis. I'm just not so certain that her form is looking so great right now to do that in the next three weeks. Now, the next thing you mentioned to me, which I thought was important, is the three-year cycle. Again, it doesn't happen in the vacuum. Does she, Arena Sabalenka?

Have another iteration to go? Does she have something that she's not doing well? The answer to both those things, I don't think is to me is no. There's nothing she's not doing well. And there's not much more she can do. So that's where I feel like it's gonna be a little bit more maximizing what she can. She can on the focus side. And I also think it's gonna have it's gonna come down to the schedule being a little bit more streamlined to really help her to do some more things and to not.

You know, and and to really, you know, she started off the year, if I'm not mistaken, Alvin, she did win the Sunshine Double. You know, so so she was she was she was playing great or early on. Yeah. Yeah, she's gotten engaged, she's you she's she's she she's she's had a great year. I mean a phenomenal year. So I think where I'm looking at is is that you know, and and those things as as they do, life happens, right? They've taken some emphasis off the yellow the yellow tennis ball right now, which is I'm I'm so happy for her that she's happy, right?

Alvin Owusu (01:07:46.233)
Gangbusters. Gangbusters. Finals Australian open to yeah, yeah.

Torrey (01:08:08.921)
She deserves it. She's worked hard. She's continued. She's entertained beyond my wildest expectation of Arena. And I'm so happy that she's played only wish her dad was able to watch her, you know, reach the heights that she that she did before before he passed. So with that said, I feel like either way, she does well. She wins now and she continues, or she loses now, and it's the wake-up call. It's kind of what I'm going with this. And I feel either one will help.

We'll we'll we'll substantiate what she's always done in the past. And I think she will set the bar pretty high as she decrescendos on the way out. And who knows, maybe maybe at 30 or so, maybe she calls it a day. And you know, maybe who knows? Maybe the next phase next phase of Arena's life is is beckoning. So who knows? I'll let her decide that. What I'm saying is is I feel that she will extend that three-year cycle at least one, two more years. And that's what Great One's doing. I think she's a great one.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:05.135)
put this all in a in in into context here, right? I'm just a guy. We're just two guys shooting the shit talking about tennis on the internet, right? It's tennis players are people who are doing this job within this period of their life and using this sport to this is the point where they can maximize their they will make they will make ninety-five percent of their income in these ten years that they're gonna make in their entire lives, right?

Torrey (01:09:22.331)
Early potential.

A hundred percent. Hundred percent. And in this particular point in her next couple of years could be her highest earning. Off court off court in particular, right? You know.

Alvin Owusu (01:09:32.973)
Right. Yeah, she's she's starting to she has started to get all the things in her life that she has always wanted, right? She she wanted to be number one, she's number one. She wanted to be a Grand Slam champion, she's been a four she's a four-time Grand Slam champion. I think even more importantly, she wears number one quite well as someone who is comfortable and aspires to be what the kids would call the it girl, right? She likes to be the it girl. She a aspires to be the it girl. I would say

Torrey (01:09:52.226)
Does.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:03.164)
She it seems like she always had a little bit of a longing of like what Naomi had, I deserve to have that. And and they're different players from different markets and there's a lot that goes on into that. But along with that comes the all the fantastic sponsorships. She's a Gucci gal now. She is a she is a Gucci spokesperson. I feel like

Torrey (01:10:10.358)
Right. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:28.352)
It don't get much better that Gucci on one on one wrist and Rolly on the other. It's a it's a hey, don't tell me, don't tell me I haven't done the job. Okay. That's the that's the job, right? When tennis ratch is like, you know, get rich, die, trying. Like it that is part of being a professional athlete and entertainer, right? She has done that. She got the guy, right? She has done that. Now she's gotta go at some point plan a wedding. Someone in her team will be planning a wedding. But as we start to

Torrey (01:10:28.376)
That's big time.

Torrey (01:10:32.13)
Yeah, rolling on the other. Yes, sir. Yes sir. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:56.962)
take that along with your point of her game style doesn't really leave a lot for

Alvin Owusu (01:11:06.18)
Complete evolution. I agree with you when you say we have probably evolved to the the upper ends of her what she can get done with the racket in her hands, right? And the rest of it is gonna be on the margins with how she starts to approach tennis, making that change, which is probably the same thing that happened four years ago, right? The one thing I am concerned about is her match count. She is she can trim the schedule on her own, right? To preserve her body. That's one thing.

Torrey (01:11:15.756)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (01:11:29.236)
Mm.

Torrey (01:11:35.904)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:36.515)
Very similar to what, you know, the the top men are are starting to do, have been doing for the past few years, but the that's with an understanding that it only works if we hit a certain match count, which means you need to win. Right. And what I'm starting to worry about right now is the match count. Right. And not only with the with the match count, it's not like she needs to learn how to hit forehands and backhands in match situations. It is more matches, executing gives more confidence, helps me be more confident when it matters. And

Torrey (01:11:46.922)
You're winning. Sure, sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:06.284)
When I look at her match count and since, you know, losing the round of sixteen at Wimbledon to Naomi, which was two months ago, right? She only played three matches. She's only played three matches. Like she's she's she's put a lot of emphasis on okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna curtail my schedule and then I'm going to maximize it when I get when I'm on the court, which means back to back one thousands, I need to get I need to get 10 matches in. Right. She got three in this week.

That is also obviously a a function of losing early means you don't get the matches in. Okay. How do we get to ten? I mean, we gotta win Cincinnati. And maybe the number's nine. Okay. It ain't it ain't five. It ain't six. It it it's not that low because there are other players getting getting reps in. Like from you know, Jessica having a pretty good run at DC, obviously not even playing her best tennis, gets to the final. Obvious Alex Ciala, who we haven't talked about today, getting to the final.

Torrey (01:12:46.976)
Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:03.81)
Naomi got to the s got to the Semis, right? And then Naomi made a another good run here. And you're seeing players start to rack up matches here. I'm not really thinking about the US Open quite yet. I'm looking at Cincinnati coming up here, or that we've already started. It's like she ain't got maybe she doesn't need to win it, but I think in order for

Torrey (01:13:06.269)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey (01:13:20.755)
G get some confidence from it to take into the open, get some matches to your point.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:23.82)
And and maybe even hold off the blood in the water. Like let the everyone else know, like no, no, I haven't felt I haven't fallen off. That was just a that was just a blip. I s I I still got it. I want that. Things are better when when Arena Sabalinka is winning and winning deep in tournaments. But I am now I'm concerned because I don't think we should be this feels like not a position that I we want to be in. I say we as if I'm like I work for her or something. I don't.

Torrey (01:13:53.103)
Yeah, yeah, I I I get like just like you were taking on all stock, people are selling for you know for for for your girl Ega. I am I am doing the exact same for Arena. I think Arena is is she's exactly where she needs to be. Last time I checked, she's still number one in the world. Last time I checked, she's still defending champ of the US Open. Last time I checked.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:54.08)
but you get me.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:18.02)
That's sure.

Torrey (01:14:18.884)
she still she did win a sunshine double and got to the final of of a slam earlier. And while the last handful of you know months have been no doubt very exciting in some ways, right, with her recent engagement and what have you, as well and which which takes its toll. But you can't you can't take that part out of it. I think that I I I feel like w even watching her play, when she buckled down and won that second set against Ikatorina, I said to myself,

Her only mistake in that match was thinking that Ikaterina would go away. That was her mistake. It was like, okay, I'm back. And you may fade, right? Ikaterina didn't fade. She hit some lucky shots. She hit some great on the runs. She hit some shots. But here's the thing Karina, you know one in the world. They're coming for you. They will always come for you. You are their career win. And you have to take that on. You've always known that.

But you now have to understand you are the target everyone is searching for. It comes with the number. And you now have to do that, especially later in your career now than even earlier when you were trying to be that person. They are, you are the benchmark. You are the torch bearer. You are you are all you are the face of the WTA tour. And what is the one thing everyone wants to do with the face? They want to beat the number one player in the world. Period.

So you gotta think they're trying to beat you May tenants. They're trying to, they're trying to out outwork you in the gym. They're that you are the benchmark they are aspiring to get to, let alone all the off-court achievements and things that she has now. So that's why I say mentally, she's gotta really just dial it to really just lock in and figure out, you know, let me let me not sleep on anybody and have a healthy respect for all of them. But just know.

that I have set the bar pretty high and now they are starting to hit at that same bar. And I have to look at everybody out there as they now are doing what I've been doing for the last three, four years. They are doing back to me. And I've got to be ready for when it happens.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:28.001)
And there's two ways to look at this situation, right? Two statements. One is you get into a match like that or you get into a place like this and Irina can go, Why are these girls always playing so well against me? Or we can go, man, these girls are getting a lot better. I need to step my game up. What do we need to do to to pick it up? And I I I I feel like the default is to the f is to the former when it needs to be towards the latter. And that's the mental part that you were talking about. Like that's where the

Torrey (01:16:51.853)
For a sure. And and and at the lab. Hundred percent. That's right.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:57.527)
That's where the on the edges come in. Let's let's let's switch let's switch gears kind of completely. I wanna I know we've done we've done an hour and almost twenty minutes of WTA talk, but we're gonna just switch it up. Wanna talk about a little bit of the men side. Big Ben, Captain America, back to back defending defending his title in in Canada. didn't drop a set. Right? I would say the banner wins are probably

Torrey (01:17:16.281)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:26.967)
The one against Vonsecka looks sexy. the one against Menschik was was was pretty Ben played well. Jakob didn't look great.

Torrey (01:17:29.187)
Yeah. Good mess there.

Torrey (01:17:34.127)
Pretty routine. And Minch and Minchik was and Minchik was was spent from his two or three three setters and and bo Botic, you know, probably took it out of the one before. But to your point, it it st still wasn't a fault of Ben's, right?

Alvin Owusu (01:17:47.052)
Yeah, and that's the but then like even you can even make like some okay, the match against Lerner, Lerner didn't look like he was at full pelt, but then the match against B Nock, Ben played fantastic. But the point is, like these are the kind of matches that and I was talking to someone in DC about this, it's like it might have been even been Flutterman and it was like for someone as highly ranked as Ben, you would expect him to get through a match against like someone like tabillo, right? Like three and three.

Torrey (01:17:53.103)
Sure. Sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:13.655)
Like that's the one that you gotta just kinda get through. We don't need to be dragging this out into three sets. And I think what we saw here by him going through all of these players in straight sets is that's a step and that's a big step in the right direction. And I think it's really, really important for Ben to reestablish the baseline of like not the baseline on the court, but the baseline of I am in the group of these players.

Torrey (01:18:17.494)
Sure.

Torrey (01:18:22.486)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (01:18:27.489)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:43.371)
and up, not these guys down here. Right. Exactly. And I think that's I think that's really, really important. Like when the fonsecas come come come call in, he has to put them he has to be able to dispatch them and say, No, no, no, I'm the line.

Torrey (01:18:44.908)
Outside looking at yeah, yeah.

Torrey (01:18:57.448)
If if he is true top five normal material. And I've you know I've I've I've gone on record with this numerous times. much to the ire of my of the of said co host of this show, certain players have to they you have to be, Alvin, you have to be. That that's what comes with that number. I'm gonna take this from two angles. Number one, Ben has never been that player to me, he's always been a

Alvin Owusu (01:18:59.786)
If he is Yes. Yes.

Torrey (01:19:25.919)
Good player on a good day when he's serving well and hitting the ball well. And he's always been, in my opinion, extremely average when he's not. He's had great wins. He can have great wins. He has huge upside. I've also said on this podcast numerous times: he's still getting good at tennis. He just is still finishing, getting good. And you can't understate that as if he was this top.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:44.297)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (01:19:51.814)
phenomenal junior that won four junior slams and and you know and killed it in college for all four years. He did junior tennis for a hot minute. He did college tennis for a hot minute and boom. Before you know it, the guy's getting round of 16 of Aussie wa on a rocket lacing down the line stupid shot selection balls that just went in. And look at that. I made it. And now here we are we've asked this young man who had a phenomenal tournament

To now be a phenomenal pro. And all that it comes with, he's always been willing to put in the work. He competes like nobody. But doing the thing night in, night out, day in, day out, winning those routine matches has is is something that he's just now completing the iteration, right? Given our previous analogy. Now, I will also say my favorite match of him from this entire tournament.

Came against Learner 10. You know why? He tends to do terrible against other lefties. And he played great. Not great, like he blew him off the court. He played smart. He didn't try to out hit Lerner, which he's done in the past. He didn't try to just go through him and hammer all forehands. He trusted his backhand. He hit a slice when he needed to. He came in quite a bit. He had high first serve percentage. And he

showed learner, learner, if I don't give you the pace to beat me with, you can't go through me. And he even showed that, which is what I was hoping he would kind of learn with the clay court swing and just realize how to set up more points and just not always have to hit the go button on the darn big forehand. And I feel like he's trying to do that. His returns are so much better. His depth is getting better. I still think it's still got a lot to go.

But that just tells me his next iteration is just getting better at all the same things. And I was very impressed with Ben this tournament because not because of the win and not dropping a set. That's that's more happens than it is that you control it. But I was just impressed that he's getting better at the little things. He's getting better at not missing the routine balls, not missing the simple, Alvin, the simple.

Torrey (01:22:12.272)
return of serve misses and short and block and balls middle of court and getting ran and so on and so forth. He's starting to play quality top five tennis where you're gonna have to play your best ball just to take a set off of him, let alone the beat him. And that and that's that in itself is a is a is a progression and and a level that you reach when you get to that point.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:34.304)
Yeah, and I you know you take a step back. It's like, okay, when we start talking about the cycles, okay, Ben hit the scene in twenty twenty the two? Late twenty twenty two, made that semifinal run, Australia in twenty twenty three. So let's let's call let's call it we've we were about three that's about three years. Right. That's about three years. Okay. Now he's had a couple runs at this. What does the next version of Ben look like? Is it I mean, god it's it's a rocket, right? From nothing to

Torrey (01:23:01.199)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:02.956)
Top ten effectively and it's now like, okay, if we're gonna go from five into top three, how do we get there? 'Cause the only other direction is getting past, right? And which is kind of wild when you start to think about a guy who's like still learning, as you said, learning how to play tennis, right? At this level. At the the obviously, sorry, let me I thought that goes without saying.

Torrey (01:23:03.821)
A top two.

Torrey (01:23:10.661)
Right.

Torrey (01:23:17.701)
Correct. Correct.

Torrey (01:23:26.001)
A at at the pro level. Right. Hundred percent. Sure, right. And and but but it it's but it's a qualifying statement, right? Because I've always thought Ben was an overachieving top ten, maybe even top fifteen or so in the world player. That may and that's not a knock. That's realistic. His results, save for some of his high end wins and results at a slam or two, are closer to top twelve to top fifteen in the world than they are top five.

He just has happened to have some really good results against other top five and top six players. And I also feel like everybody is a step behind, numerically and statistically, Carlos and Yannick right now. And he was in that cohort, which is a bigger cohort, I might add. And therefore he's been in that conversation. Having said that, I feel like Ben, let's just say for just to give him his give him his props, he's been an overachieving top ten.

And and I don't and I mean no shade. I think that's actually a compliment. At least that's where the that's the place where this is coming from. But to be a ten to five is a massive undertaking, as is five to three, as is three to two and two to one. There are steps to be taken, and every level up, it's like going up another, you know, another hundred feet near the top of K two or or or Mount Everest. I you you don't you don't get there by accident and you darn sure

Plot yourself very carefully on the way up to that spot. You don't just look at there, happen to you on the top of Mount Everest. Here I am. No, no, no, no, buddy. You months, years planning. The execution gets you to the to Mount Everest. You know, it's it's because of how hard it is to do. So top 10 overachieving, he's five, six, give or take, whatever numeric qu qua number he reached. Now he's at that point where he's staying there and improving. And that to me is huge.

And he's doing it on regular days, not just playing well, right? He's also been fairly healthy, which has been nice. Where unfortunately for Taylor and other players like him in that rank, same range, they may be on the way down. A little bit, a little bit dinged up, a little knee thing a little shoulder thing there. They're getting older. Ben still has that in his favor. He's still continu considerably young, all things being considered. He's also tennis young, which means his body's not so beat up as some others' bodies are, which I which I kind of like.

Torrey (01:25:49.611)
Now we are getting into the true. Let's see what this young man can do his next three years. Right? Now I think, and I told you before, I think that's why I thought he had the best chance to reach top five or the next potential American to win one, because all of this stuff was still new to him. And he and he's had some pretty good success up to this point. So I'm really looking forward to Ben starting to add. Alvin, if you if you looked at every one of his matches, and I know you've looked at ones other same.

I could place a ruler, right? A ruler on my TV. And I could tell you that Ben's depth is still not where it should be for a top two or three player in the world. On three to five shots a rally. He only has seven, eight balls a rally, Alvin. I you're talking about half. You know, so with that said, what if he added six more foot of depth on that forehand with really got his legs under? What if he got that backhand really dialed into a spot, not just an area?

Alvin Owusu (01:26:36.459)
Right. Sure.

Torrey (01:26:49.343)
Right, where he was able to dictate play, get the inside in that he wants, get the inside out he wants, get that point on the line that he's so good at, and be able to now work in the volley, be able to serve and volley when necessary, because he's got pretty good hands, and obviously he he loves he loves the net in general. And he was able to break you consistently once to twice a set for anybody outside the top 20, and maybe once a set on average for anybody from top eight and out.

Alvin, you are now looking at a player that can be top three in the world. And in my opinion, that's where he is trying to get to. And I think he can do it.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:27.746)
Those are I mean, you listed three things, which is like, I gotta do three more things, but those three things are extremely difficult. Extremely difficult.

Torrey (01:27:34.867)
Very difficult, but doable if you put the work in. We're not saying he has to get a serve. We're saying he has to get spots better on a serve. We're not saying he has to get a backhand. He's got a good backhand. And it's gotten a lot better. We're saying he has to get better depth on the backhand. We're not saying he has to he has to get a return. He's got good returns now. He has to now bank on returns.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:54.723)
That's the one I would push back on. The returns are still that's the that's the bit that's the one that gives me the most pause. It's like

Torrey (01:28:00.924)
And that's fair. But he's a big server that never had to break. And now he's learned that he needs to break. And that is serving wise. I know I was growing up as a big server. I never worried about returns. I was always like, heck, I'll take him to a breaker, big deal. He now has to see the returns as his next big mountain to climb. And I feel like he made a good start this tournament in particular. Doing so. I've also think his then he didn't he win the Clay Corps tournament. what was it? It wasn't

It wasn't was it Stuttgart Munich? What what one of th one of those terms of the class? I was impressed with that. He'd be Kaboldi in the final, I remember. He was returning well. I remember saying it then. To me, as his returns go, which they can only get better, more depth, more, you know, more variety, but more importantly, more depth and more and more solid. Alvin, I'm telling you, the kid is getting it. All he has to do is buckle down and do it more.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:31.966)
I he wants to guard Munich, Munich was the big the five hundred he wanna clay, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:54.9)
Let's let's let's go to the return a little bit because I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few weeks and I'm like at some point TH and I need to have a conversation about return theory. And this is I mean, we've already gone an hour and a half and I told you this might be a two hour podcast. So either you're welcome or I'm sorry or you're still here and whatever. I don't care. It's fine. there will there will there will be pieces all over the internet too, but like for our for our ride or dies, if you're still here, I mean drop one of these in the in the comment section for me.

Torrey (01:29:03.101)
Yep.

Torrey (01:29:13.522)
Break it up in break it up in halves.

Torrey (01:29:22.408)
No, no doubt.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:24.17)
Return theory is kind of the, you know, the underpinning of having what we'll call good returns, right? And that is there's a combination of a few things there. And I know we can you'll you'll go here with me, we can we can unpeel this onion, but there is an intent of what I'm trying to get done on both first and second serve returns, depending on the player that I'm playing, right? The type of serve that I'm facing. And there is this intricate mental gymnastics of trade-offs, right?

Torrey (01:29:53.542)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:54.048)
Guy has big has a big kicker. Okay. I got two options. I can come all the way up and I can short I can kind of short hop it, take it off the rise, and I can start to find direction with my hands. Downside of that is I'm now inside the court. If I miss my spot, I'm on defense on the very next ball, right? Or I can back up. I can take the I can go, okay, I'm gonna take this ball when it drops. I gotta back up way behind the baseline. You see players do this a lot and

Torrey (01:30:11.036)
Sure. I'm true. A hundred percent.

Yep. There we go.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:22.709)
Ben did it in Munich on clay, right? And at that point the the onus on you is to make sure that the return is qual like well hit, deep, heavy, heavy, because you are you're putting yourself in a very defensive position off the very first ball unless you hit that return quality and you have to make sure that it's it's struck well enough so that the the server doesn't have the ability to come in and knock off that first volley as well, like certain volley off of it, right?

Torrey (01:30:31.504)
Right. Heavy.

Torrey (01:30:46.3)
For sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:30:48.713)
Okay, I feel like he's hitting that serve out wide, that angle, like I gotta cut that off. Okay, which means I need a hedge. Does it mean I jump all the way out there? Do I jump out there short? Do I jump out there deep? There's all these little things that come into what I like to bucket as return theory that get gets built over, you know, lots of testing over time. And that goes all the way back to probably 16s when the guys start really start start to pump it, right? We talked about.

Torrey (01:31:08.996)
Over time.

Yes.

Alvin Owusu (01:31:18.271)
all the miles he doesn't have and the reps he doesn't have, I think this is where it shows up the most. And this is the one that's gonna be the hardest to make up the deficit.

Torrey (01:31:20.004)
Sure. Yep.

I agree.

Alvin Owusu (01:31:30.139)
That war that's the one that worries me and I think that is the limiting factor of that of that five and in. Because as you're getting more reps, those guys who already have those reps are also getting more reps against your serve, which he's also putting a lot of a lot of weight into.

Torrey (01:31:46.746)
Sure, sure.

Pressure on to 100%. Let me let me pull you back a little bit. If the if the WTA tur I'm gonna say parody was the same on the men's side, you would have a phenomenal point that I would agree with already. But that's not where we are. If Ben were not left-handed and six foot four, six foot whatever tall it is, I would also say, hmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:31:56.544)
Hold me back.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:05.697)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey (01:32:19.45)
That's a possibility. But he's left-handed and tall. And so the 86%, whatever percent of the tour that is right-handed go that kicks height-wise, but I'm saying the kick out wide isn't as big of a deal because of his left-handedness. And the fact that he's not learner T in height, I'm saying is a counter in addition to him being left-handed, is what I'm saying. Number three.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:28.289)
They're also but they're also tall too. So I'm gonna take that out. They're also tall.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:43.071)
Okay. Okay, fair.

Torrey (01:32:48.17)
He doesn't have a flaw. It's just not a strength yet. If you told me he'd had a jacked backhand, funky wrist, one hander, something, I bet, yeah, it's gonna take a while to fix that, let alone turn into a string. Kid's got a good backhand, got a good feel, got a decent block, got a nice slice, and he rips the forehand. Dare I say he don't use his legs enough in a lot of his shots that he really could. Which to me tells me that it is simply him continuing to learn.

You mentioned the return matrix, which I think is a great way of coining it. I always count and I tell my top juniors this you've got three basic returns. You've got a reset return, it's a clay court style heavy ball. You've got a counter and you got a punish. That's it. Don't don't think anything more about it. If the guy is an absolute gunslinger, you need a block.

At the highest level, it's the stab block that a c made famous by Novak Jokovic himself, who would block that ball that would be your ace, that he would make you hit a ball within two feet from the baseline that would come in on a rainbow that would land on two feet from the server from the baseline at six miles an hour, sitting about eight feet in the air, for you to have to hit a ball that could go through them on. And he would steal your ace once again. I feel Ben.

His counter has gotten a lot better, although the depth could continue to improve off both sides. I think his reset's getting pretty good, as seen by his clay court success. And he's never really a great clay quarter up to this point, but he's only going to get better at that as time goes on. It to me is his punish return that actually needs the most work. And I look at a guy, does he punish elsewhere? Does he have a decent online backhand? Does he have a big forehand? And the answer is yes to both. He just has to get more reps and put more focus on doing it. So even still, when I look at the things that he has to gain.

We're not saying, yeah, he didn't have a big forehand, though. He's got a huge forehand. He just now has to find ways to, to your point with the matrix, get himself in more 30 alls to get 3040, get himself to more love 30s instead of 15 alls, so he can use that chance, that second serve chance, to put more pressure on you. I'm gonna add one more thing, not just the three types of returns. Yeah, and I'm and I'm I'm categorizing, paraphrasing to keep it, to keep it, you know, to keep it succinct.

Alvin Owusu (01:35:06.208)
Yeah, sure.

Torrey (01:35:10.355)
There is also a type of returner. There is the I make all returns. I don't go for a ton, but I don't miss returns, right? And there is the River Bowl Gambler. I make returns, I make you play, but I go for them when I can to put pressure on you. And if you're having a bad serving day, those are kind of guys, and it's down 40, 15, 40 love. They'll let you get the ace. They're like, good, good job. That

Alvin Owusu (01:35:16.501)
Right. Yep. I don't miss them. Yeah.

Torrey (01:35:38.503)
I'll let you have that game. I'll come back at you the next game. And I'm gonna hold enough that I get six chances to break you. You know what I mean? I think Ben has to start going from the Novak joke of a school of returns and say, what if I had great returns, though? What if the bar was great returns, not be decent, not be okay, not win a tournament? No, great returns. And that's my bar. It would take pressure off my serve. It would help me to truly because.

Where I'm trying to go, I have to have great returns. And then I could be able to take that as my next year mission. It's gonna take two years, but my next year mission, because after three, where's he wanna go, Alvin? He's wanna go to two and one, right? So it's not like he will not need the return at that point. And I feel to your point, I agree with you 100%. It's the one that may give you the most pause. I think it's the one skill that along with his depth that will give him the most upside, should he, and I'm gonna say when he.

Alvin Owusu (01:36:09.13)
Yes.

Torrey (01:36:36.871)
gets it down. His depth and his returns will be the defining part of his career. I just think that he'll get it sooner than we think he's gotten everything else. And I feel like he gets those two things down. And they're very simple to understand, hard to master, but very simple to understand. It's not like we're having him work on shot selection or creating the continental skills or or getting comfortable coming forward. He has it already. If anything, he's a little bit more erratic with when to do it, but he knows what to do.

Those two are skill sets that he's just not good enough at yet day in, day out. And if he can get day in, day out good, Alvin, I'm telling you the kid could be three in the world within the next calendar year.

Alvin Owusu (01:37:17.108)
And that's the there's the there's one thing that you mentioned that I go Okay, this is this is the point this is where I get off the boat. You start talking about the things that he that he has and the technical the technical skills that you you didn't really recognize any holes there. I'm gonna go back to the the comment you made about the backhand. Ben Ben's backhand is very short. He muscles it. He goes from he goes from here, contact direct across.

Torrey (01:37:40.859)
Muscle. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:37:46.891)
There's not much right hand extension. And this is important. Right. Well, I mean that's the thing though. Like you know, yeah, le yes, he is lefty. I'm also lefty, so I'm hitting the back end. He's heavy lefty. Yes, he's very lefty. Yes, he

Torrey (01:37:49.235)
Sure. He's a leftist.

Torrey (01:37:56.207)
Well when I say lefty, certain leftists can be true left hand that the right hand every left his his right hand isn't isn't as pronounced, it's not as dexterous for lack of a better word.

Alvin Owusu (01:38:04.446)
Yes. And that that shows up in a couple places, one of them being the return on the ad side, but I'm gonna start with the the backhand in rallies. He loves to go cross court. He will go down the line, but he does not go down the line with the stick. He usually goes down the line slice to then create look for the forehand. Why is that important? To be able to go down the line with that backhand on the f on the on the on the fore right lefty, sorry.

Torrey (01:38:20.591)
Right.

Agree.

Alvin Owusu (01:38:31.676)
It's a lot of extension and that's a lot of right hand finish, right? Where else do we need extension and right hand finish? On the ad side return, when they go hard to the backhand and you go right leg, straight to right hand and just go with it. That's the one. When does that show up? That shows up on breakpoints, right? Yeah. And that's and this is that's the like the it's that specific.

Torrey (01:38:35.224)
Agree, agree. On the return. All off the hard back end.

Torrey (01:38:46.586)
Boom. Yep. Yep.

Agree, agree.

Alvin Owusu (01:38:59.496)
It's that specific where one technical I'm gonna call that a technical change can make a an extreme difference in two tactical places. But hey, he's a he

Torrey (01:39:04.346)
I agree.

Torrey (01:39:09.474)
Agree. I I also think his left foot is way too c closed on his normal backhand. His backhand line to me is more of a slap and it pulls inside all the time. I think he steps across and goes way too closed on it. He's ran around a lot of balls over the years, right? Because he had a big forehand. So that's that's a big part of that as well. He could clean that up. Brian, if you're listening, would do the lesson for free. We would I'll I just need 30 minutes with the brother. It's all I need. Fix that left foot.

Get him be able to go a little more. His that open stance isn't isn't bad at all for a player of his level, but he just tends to step across, which won't let that right hip release to truly hit the clean down-the-line strike. To me, when a player gets, and you can you can you can appreciate this, Alvin. I go always as often as I can with the outside foot going to that side, right? If I'm right-handed, obviously, on my forehand.

I'm gonna go right foot first, right? If I'm gonna own the backhand, right? And this is what Yannick Center does so so so well. He goes left foot first on that backhand. He hits as clean an open stance as he does a step in. And when he goes step in, he has the ability to hold it just long enough that you don't know if he's gonna go line or across. You know who else did that pretty well? Was guy named Joe Novak Djokovic. And I will say, ironically, Alcaraz is

Alvin Owusu (01:40:20.532)
Hold it. Yep. Hold the hands.

Alvin Owusu (01:40:31.55)
And Andre Agassi as

Torrey (01:40:32.974)
Agassiz was phenomenal at it. He could just hold it so long. Marty Fish is another one, had a phenomenal hold. Marty's backhand was ridiculous. David now banded. You get my where I'm going with this. They all had the ability to set up on the left, right handers, hold, step forward, not across, and would hit line anytime they needed it. You look at the guys that don't have such great backhands. They tend to step across, they tend to close off their stance, they tend to

Alvin Owusu (01:40:38.043)
yeah, yeah, yeah, Marty.

Torrey (01:41:02.771)
Step small left, big right, and therefore they're pulling across their body. Now, if they had a big enough four and they got away with it, up until a certain point. Andy Murray, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Andy Murray would had a great backhand. So reason I say this all is I think some of this is also footwork, because now that you had the feet, and he's a tall kid, in a more of a balanced situation, he can actually rotate the body, the hip and the shoulders could come through, and now he can actually drive and

Alvin Owusu (01:41:29.044)
Yeah.

Torrey (01:41:32.458)
Hit a clean down the line. We hadn't even talked about that part of his game. But I feel that's also that's his Coco Golf second iteration. Can he have the darn backhand that you have to respect, which will bring you back to the forehand, takes pressure off the forehand, and takes pressure off the sneak and serve. And I think just like Novak would cut off the corners on you on the wide serves and go back hard middle and almost backwards on the middle, because he's already in the middle of the court when the ball comes back.

I feel like if Ben were to attack the returns like that, Alvin, this young man still has plenty left in the tank. I hear you. Will he get it? Are they technical flaws that he will have to master and will he be able to do it at this level? I think the answer is yes, because he's still so relatively new that he just may not know it. And B, well, as he's working on it, it's not like you're telling the guy who's been out there he's 33.

You know, and you gotta remind him, no, no, no, he he don't know it yet. And I feel like he will get better at that. And and as he gets better at that one, he's gonna be good enough to extrapolate it to other things. And it will then take over into the backhand return, the backhand step in, the backhand approach, right? And I think at that point, you know, the the kid's not slow on he's not short on racket speed. So it's just a matter of him aligning his body a little bit better to to be able to use it more efficiently.

Alvin Owusu (01:42:55.722)
Yeah, and we're not talking about like going from eighty in the world trying to get in the top fifty. We're talking about what's the rank like six in the world, seven in the world right now. Sure. So you're

Torrey (01:42:59.767)
You got that right. Six in the world actually. Three. Which is which is arguably is hard, but you already have some confidence there, you know.

Alvin Owusu (01:43:08.99)
Yeah, so let's put it all in context. Let's put it all context. we had a couple things sh somehow we had a couple things left on the on the list to discuss. I feel like we cut it right here. I got I got nothing left. I got nothing left. That was fun. We

Torrey (01:43:11.667)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey (01:43:18.811)
I think it's a good yeah. Shout out to B Nock for a great tournament. Shout out to to Ho to Hodar playing some good tennis as well. Shout out to a lot of good tennis this was week by some players. I thought the whole tournament was man of some good tennis and I think and I think we're gonna be into we're we're gonna have a phenomenal, phenomenal US Open if everybody shows up and is healthy. I kinda like this is me personally.

And I'll say this in closing. I kind of like everybody else getting a little bit better and not and and the tournaments being well attended and well represented without the big two. Me personally, I feel like they're gonna mess around and let the rest of the guys catch up as they're gonna do anyway. But they're gonna catch up in their absence. And buddy, it's next year would be. I know what you're saying, but I'm just telling you, it doesn't take long. It does not take long for them to catch up. And I really hope you saw how shaky your boy center looked at the start of Wimby.

Now he ended up finding his form. But you and I both saw three, two or three very shaky matches from a guy that's literally what we would have thought was be a was a light year ahead of everybody else. And he looked very vulnerable. And I think Carlos, just through the lull and the inactivity alone, will will take a while for him to get back. Will he will he still be Carlos? 1000%. But it'll the the tour's gonna catch, they're gonna continue to catch up as they often do.

And I think that's what's gonna it's neat that they I say not not a neat thing that they're out. The the tour's progressing without them and it's gonna be they will be at a different point than when those players were last there is what I'm trying to

Alvin Owusu (01:44:57.745)
know if the tourist the tourist still moving we are still being entertained by these players there are still players to entertain us i i just don't know if they're progressing because when carlos and yannick play they win we have not seen there's been no evidence that that the other players are actually getting closer we've only seen that someone someone has to win these tournaments like and when they don't show up anyone can win these tournaments that that I think I'm I lean more towards that's what we're being

Torrey (01:45:23.751)
I feel like they're catching up and I think the distance was vast. So let me say that also. I think that distance is closing now, is is is what I will say as I said in closing.

Alvin Owusu (01:45:27.87)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (01:45:42.131)
We shall see. I'm Alvin. That's Tori. Best of three. We are out.