Somewhere, probably hidden in the ESPN archives, is a dusty publicity reel headlined, which says GREAT TENNIS in all caps. He is responsible for the version of this sport that we have ingrained in our cultural psyche. That of the Grand Slams, Swiss elegance and brotherly domination. He runs on pure dopamine, theatrics, nostalgia and pure hype.
He rarely takes into account the hardships of life on the professional circuit. Lonely birthdays and midgame ruptured hamstrings, the heartbreak of cut short careers, daunting paychecks and emotional blackouts. This tennis, the one fueled by endless cycles of constant injuries and defeats, is what he is inspired by. Break Point, the Netflix docuseries that is already available on the platform. An ugly, brutal and cruel tennis.
Over 10 episodes, follow the life and work of some of the biggest members of the new generation of the ATP and WTA. It is produced by Paul Martin and James Gay-Rees of Box to Box Films, and you may know the duo best from their work on their other great sports documentary: Formula 1: Drive to Survive. They wanted to give tennis, often prone to stereotyped clichés and “work hard, dream big” refrains, the treatment it deserved. Show how grueling, unforgiving and disappointing life on the professional circuit can be. Just before Christmas, Martin and I spoke on Zoom, where he was in his car in a Whole Foods parking lot. He and his family had moved to Los Angeles three days before, and his wife and his children were inside buying food. We start with a pressure point: the one that got away.
“Five, maybe six years ago, we spent a lot of time with Andre Agassi in Las Vegas, in Los Angeles, over a 12-month period,” Martin said. In 2009, Agassi, the former world number 1 American tennis player and eight-time Grand Slam champion, wrote his memoir, “Open.” Martin couldn’t get it out of his mind. Followers of the book often have similar reactions. A kind of agape, guttural appreciation for his honesty.
For a moment, Martin and Gay-Rees came close to turning “Open” into a movie. “We came very, very close to it. And then, for various reasons, he fell at the last hurdle.” Martin laughs. “Andre had turned Spielberg down. But honestly, we thought we had it done. And then, at the last moment, he vanished. And that hurt.”
Martin was affected by the opening scene of the book: the 2006 US Open men’s second-round final, in five sets, between Agassi, then 36 and about to retire, his damaged back being treated with cortisone, and a 21-year-old Marcos Bagdhatis. Agassi won. He described how he and Bagdhatis held hands in a semi-conscious state later, watching the replay side by side on their massage tables. “He stuck with me from the moment I read it.” Martin said. “He had one of the most extreme careers, just the ultimate case of the greatest highs, but some of the most terrifying kinds of lows.”
When the possibility of the film fell through, Martin and Gay-Rees swore that if they ever had a chance to show the side of that kind of tennis – the kind that breaks your heart and your body – they would jump at it. The phenomenon of Drive to Survive, which has already been going on for four seasons, was enough for the ATP, the WTA and the organizing entities of the four Grand Slams to sit down and talk with them. Anyone who has tried to get a single interview with a single player before, during or after a Slam – including the author of this article – knows that such a feat is a miracle in itself.
“We hadn’t spoken to any player until this time last year,” Martin says. “So we were really against it. In an ideal world, we would have said, ‘Okay, we’ll get everything set up and do it next year.’ But that option didn’t exist. It was more like going to Australia and finding players who wanted to participate.” . So that’s what the filmmaker did. He hopped on a plane on January 3, 2022 (“I think it was the 3rd”), arrived in Melbourne, and began shelling out the various layers of agents, managers, and question answerers needed to engage players.
I asked Martin if there was any athlete that had surprised him. Yes, he answered him: The American player from Rancho Santa Fe, California, Taylor Fritz. “Taylor was someone who was not on my radar at all,” he said. “I had never heard of him, to be honest. And the first time we met him, there was something immediate about him, a genuine honesty.”
In March 2022, Fritz defeated Rafael Nadal to win the Indian Wells tournament – popularly known as the “fifth Grand Slam” – becoming the first American of either gender to do so in 21 years. Besides, he had done it right there in his home state. Fritz was lucky to be able to do it all. In the morning training session on the day of the final, his ankle hurt so much that his entire team begged him to retire. “We were there with them in Indian Wells,” Martin said. “And everyone told him: ‘You can’t go out and play against Rafa like that. He’s going to destroy you.'”
Fritz’s moment of victory, the play that unleashed in an astonishing series of seconds, was especially memorable: his forehand from the baseline, Nadal’s delay in returning it, the shock of victory when Nadal flies far, far away, past the referee, and Taylor collapses. Tears fill her eyes. “No fucking way,” he repeats over and over again, as he stands up and walks the length of the floor, hands on his head. “No fucking way.” At the award ceremony, Fritz’s voice cracks as he thanks his family, his girlfriend, and his childhood hero, whom he just defeated. Everything seemed great. The up-and-coming young champion, playing bravely through the pain, picking up a last-gasp win that tied it all together.
“People see tennis as a gentle, all-white, strawberry-and-cream game,” Martin added. “And isn’t everything so fancy? No. Tennis is dirty. And it’s tough. We sat down and did probably 25 player interviews at the Australian Open last year. And every one we did, James and I went out of them and we were like, ‘I don’t know why they do it. I really don’t know what the advantage is. Because that sounds like torture.'”
In Break Point, we see accelerated versions of what is weighing on Félix Auger Aliassime in 2022: whether being coached by Nadal’s uncle Toni will help or hinder the Canadian prodigious clay-court chances. Heading into the Australian Open, we hear Nick Krygios admit that he’s two different people, and we hear the anger and pain in his voice as he talks about the racist things people yell at him from the stands. We watch his teammates silently watch his tantrums on the track from backstage. In his best moments, Break Point stays very still. Air and energy fall from the room and the camera does not move. There is no music or images of matches. The shock is in the scenes in the hotel rooms, in the low-voiced conversation that the Tunisian player Ons Jabeur has with her husband (who is also her physical trainer) about having a baby. It is in the conversation that Auger Aliassime has with his sister, holding back tears after losing to Nadal. Break Point live right where there is tranquility, where there is sadness.
In fact, several of the arguments of Break Point are structured around defeat. Several of the players featured in the docuseries, who are not yet widely known, have been subjected to the narrative chronicle of broken promises in their youth careers. There is an unsettling feeling that all of them, even the 22-year-olds, are running out of time and stamina left to win a Grand Slam.
Martin’s use of the word disgusting describes it all. “As a child I played sports all my life,” he says. “Tennis would have ruined me. Tennis would have ruined me mentally.”
