Just before the season started, Netflix launched the tennis series “Break Point”. The series followed ten of the sport’s biggest new stars, all hoping to step out of the shadows of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Serena Williams. But already in the first big tournament of the year, things went wrong for all the participants. One by one quit or had to retire. Neither of them even made it to the quarter-finals of the year’s first Grand Slam tournament, the Australian Open. Felix Auger-Aliassime, Maria Sakkari, Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud, Matteo Berrettini, Ons Jabeur and Thanasi Kokkinakis were eliminated. Just before the tournament, the three remaining participants in the series, Nick Kyrgios, Ajla Tomljanovic and Paula Badosa, had to withdraw from the tournament due to injuries. Thus, the conspiracy theory of a Netflix curse got legs to stand on. – I just think it’s terribly fun. It creates commitment, and I think tennis benefits from that. Everything that creates a show, such as superstitions and conspiracy theories like that, it creates engagement, says Eurosport’s tennis commentator Sverre Krogh Sundbø, and emphasizes that nothing is bigger than just that – a conspiracy theory. OUT IN THE FOURTH ROUND: Felix Auger-Aliassime is one of the stars of the Netflix series. He survived the longest in the Australian Open, but went out in the fourth round. Photo: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake / AP – My girlfriend showed me that Auger-Aliassime made it the farthest of all, to the fourth round, but had to lose to Czech Jiri Lehecka. Even before that match, the hashtag “Netflix Curse” (#NetflixCurse) took off on social media worldwide. This led to Auger-Aliassime being asked about the curse at a press conference in Australia. – My girlfriend showed it to me today. I didn’t know about that. I knew about the players who lost, but it didn’t hit me until my girlfriend showed me, he explained. TOOK OFF ON SOCIAL MEDIA: #NetflixCurse became one of the most trending topics on Twitter. Photo: @jamesgraysport / Screenshot/Twitter – I think it’s funny. I don’t know, but I don’t think it has anything to do with it. But it’s funny how things end up sometimes, Auger-Aliassime continued, according to CNN. Taylor Fritz was also asked the same question after his match in the first round, and rejected the theory. – Of course I noticed that people withdrew from the tournament, but I didn’t know it was a thing. Like I’m going to lose my fight in the first round because I’m in a Netflix series? I didn’t think about it, said Fritz before he himself went out in the second round. The attention surrounding the curse eventually also caused Netflix to comment on the matter on its Twitter account: – FYI: This is pure coincidence, Netflix wrote. Eurosport commentator Krogh Sundbø agrees. He believes it is not so surprising that the young players do not reach the Australian Open. – We are just not used to there being so much variation at the top, because we have had Nadal, Djokovic and Federer who have been so great. The three set a standard that is absolutely wild. Now we are back to everyday life and there will be more variation at the top until Alcaraz, Rune and hopefully Ruud manage to stabilize the game, says Krogh Sundbø. The same “curse” in Formula 1 However, this is not the first time this has happened. The tennis series is a sequel to the successful Formula 1 series on the same streaming platform. “Drive To Survive” follows the Formula 1 teams throughout the season, and already in 2020 the same conspiracy theory hung over the motorsport circus. When the big favorites Mercedes opened the doors to Netflix during the German Grand Prix in 2019, everything went wrong. First, then driver Valtteri Bottas crashed out of the race, before reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton crashed and ended up in ninth place. DISAPPOINTED: Lewis Hamilton is also claimed to have been affected by the “Netflix curse”. Here from a disappointing third place in Sochi, where Hamilton was followed by the Netflix team, and received a controversial penalty. Photo: Kirill Kudryavtsev / AP Mercedes was followed by Netflix again at the Russian Grand Prix the following year, but then hoped to avoid the Netflix curse. – Last year they followed us in Germany and we had our worst race that season. It was a very entertaining episode, but we hope that this time we can get both good content and a good race, said Mercedes boss Toto Wolff. However, it did not go as planned. Because even though Bottas went to the top, Lewis Hamilton received a controversial penalty and lost important points to Max Verstappen in the battle for the world championship, which he eventually won anyway. Still, they kept the myth of the Netflix curse alive.
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