 So I've just finished binge watching the Breakpoint series on Netflix, the tennis documentary series that we've been waiting for for over a year now and it was very very interesting the way they played it out. Only five episodes, it only goes from Australian Open to the French Open and then the Wimbledon and beyond episodes will be happening I think coming out in June when Wimbledon comes out or when we watch Wimbledon but this is going to be a spoiler review. So if you haven't watched it and you want to watch it and you don't want to give any spoilers away then don't watch this video, come back after you've watched it and then you can be a part of the conversation. If you're not going to watch it and you want to hear all about it, I'm going to give you a little bit of a preview into all of the episodes, the five episodes, who they were about, a little bit of a breakdown into what they were and then at the end I'll give you my critiques of it because it wasn't perfect, I think they could have done with some other things and some of the great things that I saw because it was really really awesome. There was some really awesome parts to it. Let's start with episode one, it was at the Australian Open, the first two episodes were at the Australian Open and it was a really interesting episode. It started with a bit of an introduction to tennis, how to do the scoring, how the draw works, talks about the grand slams, you know what the big tournaments are and you know remember this is not, it's a tennis documentary but it's not for tennis people, it's to get new people into the sport. So I love that it did a little bit of intro into the sport. So after the intro they went straight to the man that everyone knows even outside of tennis, Nick Curios. He was the star of episode one. Now if you remember back last year he actually didn't do that well at the Australian Open and he didn't actually do that well in the singles but he did do well in the doubles which we'll get to in a second. So most of the first episode was the backstory of Curios and they showed the two rounds that he played. He played first round against Brody, they showed a lot of that and then they showed the Mevedev match that he lost ultimately lost to. So it was interesting to see that a lot of behind the scenes of Curios, you know a lot of swearing which was a massive plus for me. I love the fact that there was no censoring in this, the players were saying what they feel and that went through pretty much every player dropped one swear word. Pretty much the entire show, at least one drop of a swear word and everything and I loved it. Even if it was in a different language I loved it. Curios, he was dropping swear words everywhere, I loved it and he lost, you know he lost in the second round. So they focused on the doubles. The second half of this episode was all about the doubles and the doubles triumph with Cockenarkis. They bought Cockenarkis in, great dynamic between those two and it was really that was the top moment for this episode was the fact that he teamed up with his best friend and they won the trophy and that was where the end credits rolled. I mean he won the trophy, the success which we can't say about every episode because every episode some didn't end on a high note but this did. He won the trophy with his best mate, they won the doubles, credits rolled that was the end of the first episode. I love the fact that they talked to Curios' mum and about his mental health struggles and how being put in the spotlight really changed him. That was really interesting to hear from his mum. He also mentioned that himself talking with his team so it was really interesting to see that. But Curios, he was the star of episode one for both the singles and the doubles at the Australian Open last year. Episode two was really really interesting because it started with Djokovic getting deported. Djokovic doesn't get featured in this first five episodes, none at all. That's the only time we hear about Djokovic, the entire first five episodes, him getting deported. But it sets up Baratini's arc in this episode. So Baratini, Tom Manovich, they are the stars of this episode staying at the Australian Open. Start with Djokovic, he gets deported, protest all of that. Then they pan to Baratini and he goes, I can probably win this because I lost to Djokovic at Wimbledon and I would have been a Grand Slam champion if it wasn't for him. So it was a really interesting way to set up that Baratini arc. But we start with Tom Manovich because she didn't do well at Australia last year. She lost in the second round to Bodosa. We actually seen a couple of episodes time and it was really interesting to see her disappointment. I think that was the biggest thing I took away from it was the disappointment of her losing and the rawness between her and her coach. Again, no-sensitive, you know, uncensored. It was awesome to hear just exactly what she was feeling in the moments after she lost that second round. And it was a bad loss, you know, the score was really, really one-sided. So it was really interesting to see that rawness between her and her coach after the match. Then we get to Baratini. Now these two were in a relationship at the time. They're not anymore, but at the time they were. So Tom Manovich does feature throughout the entire, pretty much the entire episode until the very end because Baratini still played in the tournament, still did well. So Baratini pretty much fast-forward straight to Alcarez match in that third round. That battle in that five-setter, which was, again, an absolute epic. And they showed a lot of that footage, which I loved. Now Alcarez isn't featured in these first five episodes despite him doing some pretty amazing things. They don't talk about him much. This is pretty much the only time he gets a mention and he gets airtime in the first five. He beats Alcarez, Baratini beats Alcarez and they fast-forward to the semi where he plays against Rafa Nadal. And again, it's interesting. We'll find out this as the series goes on, but they kind of paint Rafa, not as the villain, but as the man that keeps ruining everyone's chances. So he's the one who spores the party. That's what we find with Rafa. It's like, you know, because they couldn't get Rafa for this. If they got Rafa for this, then they probably would have been able to, you know, tell his story. But it's all about Rafa stops players winning. You know, he takes the trophies from him. So that's what happened with this one. It didn't have a high moment really. I guess the high moment was, you know, the backstory of these two players, but unfortunately it ended with Baratini losing. And that was a pretty bit of a downer ending. But you know, that's what happens, you know, not everyone can win in tennis and they picked a certain amount of players. They got lucky with a few and some of them lost. And unfortunately, Baratini was one of those. On to episode three now and we go straight into Indian Wells, which is the next big tournament on the calendar for the ATP and WTA. And it's really interesting. It started with everyone leaving from Australia, as if they went straight to Indian Wells. Now, we know that there's about a month between each, but it was interesting how they cut that to make it look like it went from Melbourne to California. And I love that. I thought it was awesome. It felt like the season was much quicker than it was. And in this episode, they focused on Zachary and Fritz. Now, Fritz being the California kid, he was the home home, home favorite, I guess. And Zachary, who was trying to get to a big final and they both did that. So they picked the right players to go with. And it was really interesting the dynamic. We'll start with Zachary because Zachary, they talked a lot with her coach. And there was a lot of back and forth with the coach behind the scenes, which I really loved. And this really was an episode about the coach-player relationship. Because we saw that a lot with Fritz as well in this episode. We'll talk about later. But it was all about Zachary trying to get past her semifinal problems. She made a lot of semifinals in 2021. She didn't make too many finals. And she wanted to convert that into trophies. And this was really about that success of getting to the final of a big trophy. And they really built it up to she played against Bedosa in the semifinals. So Bedosa, who is going to feature in the next episode. The defending champion of Indian Wells. Zachary beating Bedosa was kind of like the highlight for Zachary in this episode. Getting to that final, it was the crowning moment of this episode for her. Ultimately lost to Shriyantek. Again, they don't really talk about Igor Shriyantek in the first five episodes until someone plays her. Which is really weird because we already know that Shriyantek dominated that first part of the season. They don't talk about it much. But anyway, so Shriyantek featured a fraction as like the one who beat Zachary as Rafa did against Baratini in the previous episode. So it was a little disappointing. But it was great to see that sort of triumph for Zachary and also that coach relationship which I really like to see the behind the scenes of that. Heading over to Fritz. And it was about him being the hometown favorite, you know, the California kid. He went to this tournament as a kid. This was his slam, his home tournament. And really went through the motions of that. He played Roublet. They fast forward straight to Roublet in the semifinals. They didn't show much, you know, first round action from Fritz. Straight to the semifinals. And he beat Roublet, gets to the final. And of course, he has to play Rafa. And just before the match started, he was practicing and he got injured. And that was the best part of this episode. Not because he got injured, but the best part was seeing the behind the scenes. But back and forth, the coaches are saying, don't play. Fritz is going, I have to. This is my home. This is my dream. I have to play this. And seeing that back and forth between the coaches, like I said with Zachary, this for a different reason. Both Paul Anacone and Michael Russell both saying, you can't play. What if it gets worse? Fritz is like, I don't care. I'm playing. I have to play. And ultimately he won. And he beats Rafa, the guy who also was injured, but they don't talk about that that much. But they talk about a lot of Fritz's injuries and what he overcame. And that was, again, the highlight was the win. Him lifting the trophy and then the credits rolled. And that was episode three. On to episode four now, and we skip over a lot of the season straight to Madrid. So we missed out on Miami, Monte Carlo, and Stuttgart for the ladies. So a lot of big tournaments were skipped over from that mid-March to almost early May. I mean, we went through, we just skipped in time, big time. And it starts with Bodosa and Jabur. They're the two massive features for this. We start with Bodosa and we go through her kind of struggles because she had such a great year. She was number two in the world at the time. And then all the pressures that come with that. And she was the hometown favorite. She was the Spaniard playing in Spain in Madrid. She was supposed to be the favorite to win. And of course she lost early. She lost pretty early. And they talk about her struggles with depression, which I thought was really, really interesting to hear that it's not a weakness to struggle with depression. Whereas most sports struggling with mental illness or anything to do with your mentality should not be spoken. And she was very open with it and it was very, very interesting to see that. And I love seeing that part of it from her point of view. Then we go to Jabur. And again, we see the backstory. This was really fun to see the backstory of Jabur. We didn't get too many matches early on with her, but we did get a lot of match footage from the quarterfinals onwards. But I love seeing the humble beginnings of Honstabur and the small team because Tunisia doesn't have a tennis, I guess a tennis fund that they can just give to players to become professional tennis players. So she had to do it all on her own. And I love seeing that like, you know, humble beginning story coming through, you know, to become a professional and ultimately a top 10. So we get to the quarterfinals of the Hellop match where she played Hellop. And Hellop had actually beaten Bodosa. So they did show Hellop a little bit earlier. So it was kind of like the player that beat the other player. Now you've got to play them. And Hellop was kind of the lady to beat, I guess, in Madrid. That's what they set her up to be. And it was really interesting to see how Jabur beat Hellop. And then they went on to the semi-finals where she beat Alexandrova. And then the final. They kept on talking about how she was the first lady from Africa, the first Arab woman and the first Tunisian to make it to a 1,000 final. So it was all about breaking records for Jabur. And then the final. It went three sets. It was epic. And just like the previous episode with Fritz, it was victory for Jabur. And that was where the episode ended with the triumph of the episode being Jabur winning. So that's where it was really interesting this series, how we ended sometimes with, you know, with triumph, luckily, I guess, for Fritz and I guess Curios at the start of the whole thing with the first episode. And then Jabur lifting the trophy. So again, it was all leading up to that glory. And then the credits roll. Then heading into the final episode of part one, episode five, it was the French Open. It was called the King of Clay. Now it wasn't based around Rafa, but it kind of was. So it wasn't about Rafa directly. It was about Rafa indirectly. So it was about FAA, Ojalia Seym, and Kasparud. And they played Rafa at the French Open. So it was... There's a lot of Rafa in this one, right? There's a lot of Rafa. But not about... Again, it was about painting Rafa as the villain. He was the guy that was going to take the trophies from everybody. And, I mean, spoiler alert, he won the whole thing. So he did take the trophies from everybody. But they started with Felix Ojalia Seym. I really liked how they went into the relationship between him and Uncle Tony. And then they talked about how the media went, because eventually Rafa played Felix. And Uncle Tony didn't want to go and didn't want to support any player. He just wanted to sit there as a fan because he didn't want to pick a side. And the media blew it up and made it really interesting to be like, you know, Uncle Tony picked Rafa over Felix. And Felix is paying Uncle Tony's bills. But to see Felix say, no, no, we knew this was going to happen. If I ever played Rafa, I wouldn't... I knew he wouldn't be on my side, but we knew that coming in to getting Uncle Tony. That's what was really, really cool to see, like Felix go, no, no, we knew this was going to happen. This is not a drama. This is not a problem. Yeah, I would love to have you in the box, but we understand. So it was really cool to see, like, all this drama build up and then all of a sudden Felix goes, no, no, no, it's not a problem. And I love that. I love that. It just shows how, like, things get blown out of proportion and, you know, we don't know anything at the end of the day. The player knows what's going on. So once they build up that match between Felix and Rafa, they played the whole thing out, the five setter. So it was a really, really interesting kind of, I guess, match play. There's not too much match play in this whole series, but they picked the right matches to watch. And this one was epic. Rafa wins, ultimately. Felix, they go through his backstory a little bit as well. And his dad was a coach and his dad was really strict on him. But again, you know, Felix ultimately lost to Rafa, and then we moved on to Kasper Rood. So Kasper Rood, who made the final of the French Open, this was really interesting because he was a part of the Rafa Nadal Academy. So they talked a lot about how he grew up idolizing Rafa, how he, you know, again, it was indirectly about Rafa. It was indirectly about Rafa. And how Rafa was the man to beat. They showed a little bit, I guess, a little bit of footage of Rood playing all the way up to the final. Not really, though. I really wish they had shown him play Runa. I think that would have been awesome and really dramatic to see that, but they totally ignored that. They just went, oh, he won the quarterfinals next. And then they got to the final. It was really, like, this episode was the weirdest one because, again, they couldn't get Rafa for the series. And he lost, ultimately, lost to Rafa. So again, just like episode two, this felt like a bit of a letdown because you're like building up to the final and if you hadn't watched it, you would have been, ah, the guy that we were meant to root for lost. And again, at the hands of Rafa. So, again, we'll get to that in a second, but Rood getting to the final, FAA getting to the fourth round, both losing to Rafa. Not having Rafa available to make comment. But again, it was really interesting to see. The main thing was mainly to see these guys, how they idolized Rafa and how they were indirectly, I guess, connected to Rafa through Uncle Tony or Tony Nadal being Rafa's uncle and old coach, working with Felix, and then also Rood being a part of the Rafa Nadal Academy and knowing Rafa behind the scenes a lot as well. So that was really interesting, but it didn't really end on a high note because there was no one who really won. They both lost their matches at the end of the day. So there are the five episodes. Let me know down in the comments below what was your favorite episode and what was your favorite moment of the episodes. The things that I think they could improve on though, I think that we missed out on a hell of a lot of goatness. We had a lot of Rafa, but not really, we need Rafa. We need to talk to Rafa. We need Rafa to be a part of the second series. Djokovic was only mentioned once. That was really interesting. I think, you know, not having Djokovic, I guess play most of the start of the year was a problem. Maybe we'll see him later in the year, but Djokovic was only mentioned when he got deported, which was really interesting. And another two big things that I thought we missed, Svjontek at the French. They didn't mention anything to do with the ladies at the French Open. It was all about Rood and FAA. They didn't even mention who won the French Open ladies. So that was a total miss for me, completely ignoring the women's tournament and Svjontek's run. I mean, Svjontek was on fire and they really talked about it once because she was playing Sakkari. And Madrid, they didn't talk about Elkaraz beating Nadal and Djokovic. Now, it's because they didn't have Elkaraz to interview, I guess. He might be in there later. But it's, again, that was a massive miss. They didn't talk to, you know, they didn't even talk about Elkaraz winning Madrid. They didn't talk about Elkaraz beating Nadal and Djokovic back to back on clay. Again, a massive miss there for me. But overall, I loved it. I thought it was great. Overall, and I'm excited for the next five episodes. I think the next five are going to be epic. I think we're going to get more Svjontek. We're going to get more Elkaraz. Probably some Djokovic as well. Kirios comes back for Wimbledon. So he was a real star in the first episode. Didn't see much after that. But let me know down in the comments below. What was your favorite part of this? And let me know if you want me to go into more detail. Because I can talk about this for 30 minutes if you want. But we're trying to do a little bit of a brief summary here. But let me know down in the comments below what was your favorite episode and your favorite moment of the first five.