Zero Sum Game: Netflixs Break Point Aces In The Solitude Of Top Tennis | Tennis

OFick Kyrgios is a professional tennis player, one of the best in the world. He has a loving girlfriend, Costeen Hatzi, and a friendly sidekick named Horse, as well as thousands of fans in the stands cheering on his winning kick. But it may still not be enough, it will never be completely. Tennis is a very lonely sport, he says. That’s what I struggle with the most.

For better or worse, Kyrgios seems to be gaining new fans with the release of the Netflix series Break Point. It is a 10-part documentary that follows the fortunes of the so-called next generation of tennis stars. a band of twenty-something athletes who have challenged Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. These younger players all speak the same language and share the same hopes and fears (the dream of winning a major championship; the terror of not living up to their true potential). But the logic of their profession makes them antagonists, not friends. They talk to the camera, but never to each other.

I play tennis for a living, even though I hate tennis, Andre Agassi admitted in his 2009 autobiography. Mostly he hated it because it was such a damn lonely, repetitive run of travel and training, interspersed with bursts of combat. In team sports, the burden is shared and the glory is shared. Even in boxing, Agassi said, you at least have a chance to grab your opponent. In tennis, however, you stand face to face with your enemy, exchange blows with him, but never touch him or speak to him or anyone else. His book made sports sound positively existential. On the field, surrounded by spectators, linesmen and camera crews, each player remains locked in his own private cell.

The key difference here is that Agassi is one of the game’s all-time greats, a former world number one; winner of eight grand slam titles, while Break Point players are still earning their incentives. They are like mortals encamped at the foot of Mount Olympus, looking at the gods with envy and reverence. Matteo Berrettini is an Italian of great service who looks like a lover of Latin from the central selection; Taylor Fritz is a rich boy from California who dreams of winning his home tournament.

Most notable is Kyrgios, the fiery bad boy of tennis; tattoos are covered and bling dripped. The opening episode touches on his mental health issues and bouts of heavy drinking (although it doesn’t mention his 2021 domestic violence charges). I worry about him every day, Kyrgios’s mother Norlaila says. Because he’s been through some really terrible times.

For most of his competitors, life is probably even more difficult. Sports is a virtual plutocracy. It rewards the best and sees the rest. The top 1% of players claim 60% of the annual prize money; Those in the top 100 earn barely enough to get by. Break Points players are lucky because they are young, talented and comfortable in black. And yet, for some reason, these people still have a weak panic. Maybe they know the clock is ticking; they know their opportunity is limited. This is my time, says Berrettini as he advances to the semi-finals of last year’s Australian Open. Now or never.

Probably never. Failure and disaster are built into the tennis DNA. This is probably what accounts for its existential edginess. Ajla Tomljanovi, Australia’s world No. 43, points out that every tournament is effectively a zero-sum game, a Darwinian free-for-all, where the field of 32 (or 64 or 128) hopefuls is rapidly and industriously reduced. one. He says: If you don’t win the event, you’re a loser every week. Then I think tennis is really cruel. It will go on, with or without you.

All of this makes for a dark, exhilarating ride; in a swirl of luxury hotels and dressing rooms and brightly lit stadiums with nowhere to hide. Players follow a circus in Melbourne to Madrid, living out of suitcases and watching crappy movies on TV, like exhausted tourists on a badly acted cruise. They are living their dream. It resembles a nightmare.

One wonders if this was part of the original instructions. Focusing on a clutch of twenty-something tennis stars, the show’s creators could reasonably assume they were filming the changing of the guard, witnessing the moment these princes became kings. Except that the sport is unpredictable, which is what makes it so attractive, and the best laid plans tend to go awry. In retrospect, this seems to be what happened to the class of 2022 graduating from Break Points. According to history, the Australian Open was eventually won by an aging Nadal. Teenager Carlos Alcaraz has since been crowned the new world number one. So the next generation jumped. Its birthright has been denied. It’s lost and lonely, and the tour has already moved on.

The first five episodes of Break Point will premiere on Netflix on January 13. The last five episodes will follow in June 2023.