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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Break Point

Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios in Break Point.

Box to Box Films, the production company behind Formula 1: Drive to Survive, the enormously popular racing docuseries from Netflix, spent 2022 filming a quieter sport: tennis. Break Point goes behind the scenes of men’s and women’s professional tennis, dropping in on all four Grand Slam tournaments played last year. If you’ve already watched the matches in real time you can anticipate Rafael Nadal’s early domination at the Australian Open, Nick Kyrgios’s career-best run at Wimbledon, and Ajla Tomljanović’s herculean battle against Serena Williams at the U.S. Open. But much more goes into aces and overheads than what ESPN broadcasts. The series lets us into the loneliness of the solo competitor on a professional tour, even as it spotlights rising stars on the circuit—Frances Tiafoe, the son of a janitor at a tennis academy, and bad boy Kyrgios. —Jensen Davis

Photo courtesy of Netflix