Canadian tennis pro Felix Auger-Aliassime is one of the best players in the world. Of course someone like him, currently seventh in the world rankings and playing at the Australian Open, has to go to the press conference regularly. Auger-Aliassime won again on Friday, with a 6-1, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 win over Francisco Cerúndolo, the 22-year-old from Montreal reached the third round. He was then asked how he mentally went into this Grand Slam tournament, whether he remembered that he was in the quarter-finals last year. And he should explain what that was like at the end of 2022 when he won the Davis Cup. In the middle of it all, a reporter called and apologized for a “silly topic”. He wanted to know if there was a lot of talk in the locker rooms about the “Netflix curse”.
Various professionals, who play leading roles in a new documentary by the streaming service, failed in sport at the important tennis event in Melbourne this week. Of ten main players, only Auger-Aliassime remains.
Half the internet was full of smug comments on Saturday about the “success rate” of the break-point protagonists, the name of the series, of which the first five parts have been published, with the second coming later this year. “My girlfriend showed me this today,” said Auger-Aliassime, “I thought it was really funny.” He was referring to a photo collage of ten heads, nine of which had a cross over their face. Only with him there was none. He’s still in competition. “Maybe the players who lost feel there’s a connection, but I don’t think so.” Auger-Aliassime summed it up with amusement: “It’s funny how things sometimes develop.”
The tennis series should build on the success of the Formula 1 documentary “Drive to Survive”.
“Break Point” was officially presented with a celebration before the Australian Open. After the Formula 1 series “Drive to Survive”, which was a huge success, especially in the USA, a tennis relay was also set up. For a season, selected players with whom Netflix explicitly signed contracts were accompanied by cameras and microphones. The professionals are shown behind the scenes, in hotels, in private situations. The advertising effort was also enormous, and at the start of the tournament in Melbourne almost everyone involved spoke about their participation in the project, which was unanimous: It’s a great series! So you celebrated yourself, but then, for whatever reason, things didn’t go well for the cast.
He was still convincing on the floor: US tennis pro Taylor Fritz at the presentation of the new Netflix documentary “Break Point”. At the Australian Open, he lost in the second round.
(Photo: Kelly Defina/Getty Images)
Nick Kyrgios, the eccentric from Canberra, decided not to take part just before the start; he was hurt. The same happened to the Spaniard Paula Badosa. Matteo Berrettini, the handsome Roman, then lost in a dramatic five sets to Scottish giant Andy Murray, who is nine years his senior and has an artificial titanium hip in his body. Taylor Fritz, the sunny boy from the USA and a bit of a secret favourite, surprisingly failed because of the Australian Alexei Popyrin. World number two Ons Jabeur from Tunisia was knocked out against Czech Marketa Vondrousova. Australia’s Thanasi Kokkinakis (against Murray), Norway’s Casper Ruud (against American Jenson Brooksby) and Greece’s Maria Sakkari (against Chinese Zhu Lin) also suffered defeats.
Netflix, which is said to be already working on a second season, commented on this development with humor: “The “Netflix curse is not real” was written in the header of the British account. And the company proudly referred to Auger-Aliassime’s victory and said: “We said so.”