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The tennis world has been confused by the much-anticipated Drive to Survive-style Netflix documentary focusing on the sport, Break Point.
Talented Aussie controversy magnet Nick Kyrgios is the centerpiece of the early stages of the series, an understandable decision given the amount of attention and interest he receives both in and out of the dressing room.
But with the first half of the series airing this week, followed by five episodes in June, it seems that any attempt to provide real information about the sport or its stars has failed.
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After seeing the cameras in action for most of the past year, it’s surprising that there isn’t more explosive behind-the-scenes footage, Times Stuart Fraser wrote.
Inevitably Break Point kicks off the profile-based format with its most interesting personality in Kyrgios. Starting the year at the Australian Open, it builds a likable profile of the erratic Australian as he races to a first grand slam doubles title with partner and close friend Thanasi Kokkinaki.
We see fist bumps with Andy Murray as they pass each other in the corridor backstage, pre-match chats with Liam Broady ahead of their first-round singles contest and even a video call with his girlfriend Costeen Hatz where he’s having trouble urinating. for a drug test.
There are very few new revelations – again bearing in mind that this is a first look at tennis for many viewers – but it’s still interesting to hear Kyrgios and his co-stars expand on their past struggles.
In the series, Kyrgios recounts the chaotic start to his career, including how manager and close friend Daniel Horsfall had to track down the Canberra native on his phone after big nights of drinking and partying.
Some mornings I had to physically go and find where you were, says Horsfall.
In which hotel did you stay, whose house did you stay in? Before the tournaments… before the match.
Competing players are also interviewed about Kyrgios – which should make the series interesting, but it doesn’t seem like it.
He’s not a bad guy, Greek star Stefanos Tsitsipas says in the series, which premieres on January 13. He becomes nothing more than a devil when he enters the court.
But it is an exception to the otherwise ignored rule.
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The Telegraph’s Simon Briggs was too opinion that the series was missed.
He thinks it’s strange how Kyrgios’ reputation is leveled and Mr. Spiky is made into a stuffed toy, while other known battles during the 2022 tennis season are ignored.
After all the hype surrounding this project, Break Point was expected to delve beneath the surface of Planet Tennis and reveal the feuds and factions beneath. Perhaps it was these high expectations that made episode one’s gentle, nonchalant tone feel like a letdown, he wrote.
In those odd situations where a little aggro flares up, it sets off a wave of excited necks among fans and the media. That’s something that would never happen in a less polite sport like boxing. That’s why it’s strange that the Breaks Points producers missed two raptures in the first half of the season.
I’m not just thinking of the Kyrgios-(Michael) Venus showdown (in their Aus Open doubles quarter-final), but also the French Open and tennis’ best attempt at Scandi noir.
Why the fight between Denmark’s Holger Rune and Norway’s Casper Ruud, which Rune claimed to have shouted Ja! on his face, can’t see? However, the fifth episode of Break Point contains Ruud’s argument at the French Open. Unfortunately, Ruud didn’t argue with Rune but with his countryman about the delay in the training period caused by the weather.
Demon on fire before Australia Open | 01:24
It’s not just inconsequential squabbles, but some of the biggest stories of the year – eerily similar to how the F1 series has at times completely failed, including Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.
For example, Rafael Nadals two Grand Slam wins at the Australian and French Opens, as well as Novak Djokovics visa saga, which saw him notably banished before the season-opening Grand Slam tournament, are over.
The veteran Nadal was by far the star performer in the first half of 2022, winning two grand slams, but the lack of exclusive time with him forces producers to use audio from press conferences, Fraser wrote.
It is also disappointing that Djokovic’s ten-day visa saga in Australia, which is by far the biggest tennis news of the year, does not offer new insight. As a result, this is completely covered, with only a few minutes of mild coverage at the start of the second episode.
All in all, it adds to the feeling that this project is ultimately a sanitized public relations effort. While this was a similar complaint in the early stages of Drive to Survive, there was enough compelling material to sustain the series and maintain interest among new audiences.
Unless the next installment of five episodes in June can do this, this Break Point’s opportunity has been well and truly missed.
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Meanwhile The Guardians Xan Brooks suggests the series achieves one important goal – to make the top level of sports more like a nightmare than living a dream.
Failure and disaster are built into the tennis DNA. This is probably what accounts for its existential edginess. Ajla Tomljanovi, the Australian ranked 43rd in the world, 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 quickly and diligently shrinks only. 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 whirlwind of luxury hotels and dressing rooms and brightly lit stadiums with nowhere to hide, he writes.
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.
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