Top star slams Netflix’s Break Point as ‘staged’
Casper Ruud is among the players who have been critical of the methods of the filmmakers behind the Netflix tennis series Break Point.
Break Point was cancelled by Netflix after two seasons having failed to take off in the fashion of its inspiration, Drive to Survive.
The tennis version of the purported peak behind the scenes at the lives of top sportsmen didn’t really engage fans and Ruud believes the contrived nature of the show contributed to its lack of popularity.
Ruud found the whole exercise far too time-consuming in an already tight schedule.
“It was too much about — I understand that you should try to get to know the other players too much, but it just demanded too much of my time, because they want you to do this and they want to do this, and everything was a little staged in my eyes,” Ruud said at Indian Wells.
“You have to kind of invite them to do these things if you want more screen time. That’s not me.”
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World No 1 Iga Swiatek had previously said that she didn’t appreciate how she was portrayed in the series.
“I know I didn’t give, like, much access, as much as other players. I accepted that I may not have the final voice, but there were some stuff that were, like, misinterpreted,” Iga Swiatek said in her press conference on Sunday.
“My appearance in this series kind of caused some hate towards me and my team.”
ATP Tour star Novak Djokovic was not extensively involved in the series which its producers claim is because they wanted to focus on the next generation of talent and wouldn’t zoom in on the Serbian or Rafael Nadal.
“From very early on, we identified the idea of the next generation, it was never meant to be the Nadal-Djokovic show,” Break Point producer James Gay-Rees said.
“It was never going to be that. Practically and logistically, it was never going to be that, and that was never our intention.
“We would happily have engaged with them a little bit more, but it became pretty clear, pretty quickly that wasn’t the route we were going to take.”
Some players have been more positive about their experiences with the Netflix cameras.
Holger Rune felt that any spotlight on the game would be good for tennis.
“I don’t know. I think, you know, all promotions are good for the sport, you know,” Holger Rune said from Indian Wells.
“I can’t speak on behalf of all the players, but I think, you know, as a player to have the camera in the back, could be disturbing but it was not… Yeah, I mean, there is, you know, I think in general I liked mine.”
