Is There a Netflix Curse? Tennis Fans Blame ‘Break Point’ For Ruining Players’ Chances at Australian Open

When we say a docuseries did more harm than good, we typically mean it glamorized an awful person or perpetuated lies about a serious history event. In the case of new tennis docuseries Break Point, however, it seems there might be a Netflix curse. So far every single rising tennis star featured in Break Point Part 1 has flunked out of the 2023 Australian Open. In some cases, it’s due to lingering injury, but the rest of the players choked in early rounds. The last man standing — Felix Auger-Aliassime — made it to the Fourth Round, but his loss to Czech player Jiri Lehecka was considered a massive upset.

Is it true? Is there a Netflix curse on each and every tennis player featured in Break Point?

Produced by the same team behind Netflix’s juicy racing docuseries Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Break Point follows 15 of pro tennis’s most exciting up-and-coming stars. The premise of the series is fairly simple. As a generation of tennis icons like Serena Williams and Roger Federer retire, there’s a tight window for new superstars to emerge as rivals for aging champions like Rafael Nadal. Who has what it takes to knock the remaining greats down and win a Grand Slam in 2023 and beyond? Break Point Part 1 followed* Felix Auger-Aliassime, Paula Badosa
, Matteo Berrettini
, Taylor Fritz
, Ons Jabeur
, Thanasi Kokkinakis
, Nick Kyrgios
, Casper Ruud
, Maria Sakkari, and Ajla Tomljanovic
 over the first half of the 2022 season to find out.

*Aryna Sabalenka, Sloane Stephens, Iga Świątek, Frances Tiafoe, and Stefanos Tsitsipas are due to get the Break Point treatment when Part 2 premieres this summer ahead of Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Those episodes will follow the back half of the 2022 season.

As early as January 19, tennis fanatics started noticing that the crop of players featured in Break Point Part 1 had been doing, uh, not great so far at the 2023 Australian Open. The #NetflixCurse began circulating on social media along with images of the rogue’s gallery of Break Point stars being summarily crossed off one-by-one. The implication? If you’re a tennis star who took the time to sit for glossy interviews for Netflix’s new series during the 2022 season, you’d choke at the 2023 Australian Open.

After the first two rounds, only two players from Break Point remained: Maria Sakkari and the aforementioned Felix Auger-Aliassime. Sakkari would be eliminated in the Third Round to Chinese player Zhu Lin, while Auger-Aliassime would hold on the longest. The curse hit him over the weekend in Round Four.

So is there a “Netflix Curse”? Is every tennis players who appeared on Break Point doomed to fail? Well, Netflix’s official UK and Ireland Twitter handle has already weighed in by literally posting “#NetflixCurse is not real.” followed a tennis ball emoji in their bio. Could it merely be that the producers of Break Point picked the wrong crop of players to follow? Has anyone profiled by Break Point survived so far in the Australian Open?

What about the five players yet to be majorly featured in Break Point? The ones producers are saving for the Wimbledon/U.S. Open episodes due to drop this summer? Well, Sloane Stephens was eliminated in Round One, Frances Tiafoe in Round Three, and Iga Świątek made it to Round 4.

The good news? Both Aryna Sabalenka and Stefanos Tsitsipas made it to the quarter-finals. That means that the Netflix Curse hasn’t felled them quite yet. Of course, that might change in their next match.

As for how the tennis community is feeling about Netflix’s Break Point in general? This tweet from a fan just about sums it up: