The Promise and Pitfalls of Netflix’s Canceled ‘Break Point’

The tennis docuseries struggled to capture the inherent drama of tennis. Plus, Novak Djokovic’s shock upset and Rafael Nadal’s next move in this week’s mailbag.

Editors’ note, upon publishing: Questions in this mailbag were lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Hey everyone. As we near the turn at Indian Wells …

• Here’s the latest Served podcast. Yet again, the guest steals the show. Andy Roddick talks with his longtime coach, Brad Gilbert.

• Here’s a Simona Halep Q&A from the other day with her lawyer Howard Jacobs.

• We’ll have an Indian Wells wrap-up next week (and on the podcast with Andy)

Meanwhile, a few Q&As …

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• We had more than 15 questions/comments about the news that Netflix will not order another season of Break Point. Plenty of blame to go around. Plenty of dumb luck. It would have helped if certain stars had been more accessible.

One takeaway: Truth matters. My initial review of Break Point—and I was hardly alone here—could be simplified to “This is not for hardcore fans, but that’s fine.” I’d like to retract that. If there’s a tennis show for a wider audience, that’s great. But if those who follow the sport closely take offense at the errors and inaccuracies, it sets the tone. Imagine if Drive to Survive featured F1 races held on the wrong side of the track or misused terminology. To mix racing metaphors, the project would not get out of the starting blocks. When Break Point features deuce points played in the ad court; or devotes an episode to a player twice accused of domestic violence and not only neglects to mention it but paints this player as a misunderstood hero, well, you’ve lost the room—and with it, your credibility. Hard to create a mainstream success with true fans poking holes in the canvas.

Alexander Zverev is set to face trial later this spring after being accused of physical abuse :: Taya Gray/The Desert Sun/USA TODAY NETWORK

I’ll zig instead of zag and offer some positives.

1) This whiff does not preclude another network, studio or streaming service from attempting a similar series. Tennis is chock-full of plots, narrative tension and characters. There is the international audience that the streamers, in particular, seek. Someone can still get this right.

2) While it’s not a Drive to Survive series, there are several other tennis-themed documentaries in various states of production. Name a player and the odds are good they are being trailed by a film crew. ESPN premiered an upcoming tennis-themed 30 for 30 in Seattle a few weeks ago; it will air this May I am told. A scripted project developed by an A-list Hollywood star was recently greenlit. The Zendaya film Challengers comes out next month. (Full disclosure, I am involved in a super awesome tennis doc, which I’ll be able to address more fully soon.) The point being: Tennis is having a bit of a cinematic moment, even with the disappointment of Break Point.

3) I wonder if we have overlooked a major reason Break Point failed: Tennis needs no curating. Look at recent storylines. An Italian skier’s choice to pursue tennis is validated as he wins a major. The best-ever is still at it, at age 36. The next-best is still at it, at age 37. A contemporary plays on with a metal hip. A Wimbledon champ is popped for doping—taking supplements at the behest of her coach; who also promotes events and runs an academy. But wait! Her ban is knocked known by nearly 90%. A Ukrainian all but singlehandedly funds her country’s federation in a time of crisis … we could go on.

Tennis needs no ginning up. Bless “misunderstood” Alexander Zverev and Nick Kyrgios’s tortured existence. But the “real” storylines beat the embroidered ones and the made-for-TV arc.

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Weirdly I’m not surprised by the Djoker result tonight….

JB, PDX

• A few of these rolled in after Novak Djokovic’s shock loss Monday to lucky loser Luca Nardi. I keep thinking of this story (and can’t remember where I heard it, or I would attribute it accordingly). But I was told that before the 2023 U.S. Open, Djokovic went to the referee’s office and wondered if he could get clearance to wear a glove during changeovers that lowered his body temperature. The request was denied, but to me, this was so revealing. Even at his age, even with the most majors, he is still innovating and improvising, trying to find hacks and incremental advantages. Yes, 37 is a big number and yes, to traffic in cliché, time is undefeated. But I don’t know how you start writing the guy’s career obit based on 90 days of substandard results. You have to think he will go to any (legal) lengths to resume winning.

Different verse, same hymnal …

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Hi Jon,

At this point it seems certain that Nadal knows his hip/body won’t hold up for the duration of a professional tennis tournament.

So how to craft his exit from the game? Perhaps a wildcard entry in the French Open, hope he gets a winnable first round match, win that match, and retire on the spot. What say you?

Merci,

Dominic Ciafardini, NY

• Roddick and I have hit this point hard on the podcast, he says pluggingly. It’s like timing the stock market. It’s so hard to do—this business of crafting a storybook ending. Some depart too early. Some overstay. There are so many variables. Health, results, desire, domestic capital. Nadal has likely played his last match on a surface other than clay. Given his fragility—we’re going on two years since he’s played a significant event free of pain—he gets a few reps on clay. He makes Roland Garros—the site of so many of his conquests—his final event. He gets the thunderous send-off he deserves.

I feel a bit sheepish here. He may never play again. He may win a 15th French Open and mic drop. He may get another surge of motivation and finish out the year. But right now, I am getting Andre-Agassi-at-his-last-U.S.-Open vibes. Nadal will be the toast of Week 1. If he can fire up something (Agassi d. Marcos Baghdatis) for the memory banks, so much the better.

Nadal withdrew from Indian Wells the day before his first-round match :: Mike Frey/USA TODAY Sports

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What is going on with Sofia Kenin? She won the first Grand Slam of the decade, and made it to an additional Slam final that year. She looked like she was primed to be a major rival to Osaka, Świątek, Barty, Sabalenka, and Gauff this decade. She even beat Barty in Australia when Barty was world number 1. However she hasn’t won a singles title in 4 years now.

What do you think she needs to do to become competitive again?

Raymond

• How to answer this delicately? Start with the positive. Here is a player without a kill shot, without a real weapon or physicality, who not only won a major, but—and she doesn’t get enough credit for this—reached the final of another. She could retire tomorrow and would go down as a great overachiever and talent maximizer. A lot of players with a lot more inherent gifts (and size) should be envious of her accomplishments.

Yet, to Raymond’s point, to traffic in understatement, Kenin has not replicated her success of 2020. On the spectrum of recent majors, this is more Emma Raducanu (lightning in a bottle) than Iga Świątek (the spigot is tapped). And here’s a player who could probably benefit from hearing another voice. She has had undeniable success with her father as coach and confidant—this is not so much a “closed circle” as a closed line—but that kind of intense relationship can come with complications.

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• Finally, some of you will know the name Franklyn Ajaye. He was an A-list comedian in the 1970s and 80s—Jerry Seinfeld still remembers his bits—and running buddy of Richard Pryor. Franklyn is also a tennis fan and we have struck up a friendship over the years. He lives in Australia and sent this insightful riff on a prominent Aussie player:

Hi Jon;

People always talk about Kyrgios squandering his immense talent, but years ago he gave a valuable insight in an interview when he said, "I don't love tennis", and I understood him immediately. Nick Kyrgios was paradoxically born with a great natural talent for tennis without the requisite accompanying love, and passionate obsession for playing the game.

I could relate to him because I know this from personal experience. I was a very good, well respected comedian who didn't love it like my peers--who have often told me they thought I was the funniest. I used to say to myself if I'm this good without loving it, how good would I be if I loved it. But I could never make myself love it and retired from stand up as soon as financially able. And I don't miss it to this day. The people who reach the elite status in every endeavor including sports, and all the comedians interviewed for my book "Comic Insights" have an obsessive, passionate, won't be denied, single-focus love for it. You have to be all-in.

Basketball is Kyrgios' love and passion, but he's not good enough for the NBA, so Kyrgios practices and plays tennis because he has to, not because he wants to. Paula Badosa said of tennis in "Break Point" "It's like a drug", and Felix Auger-Aliassime memorably said "You have to eat it, sleep it, and s...t it." Rehabbing from an injury or childbirth to play again at the elite level is grueling, tedious, painful, and torturous for someone like Nadal, Thiem, Wozniacki, Svitolina, Osaka, Kerber, Badosa, and Murray etc., who all love and live for the game, and are willing to move heaven and Earth to play, but for someone like Kyrgios who doesn't have that love/obsession it's nothing less than ditch digging drudgery and hell on Earth.

The love for anything or anyone is something you either naturally have or you don't. You can't fake or talk yourself into it. I know because I tried. Kyrgios is often compared to McEnroe but despite McEnroe's tantrums and temperament he had, and still has something that Kyrgios doesn't--an all consuming love for playing tennis.

Cheers, Franklyn