The team that created the hit "Formula 1" was given all the tools to reproduce the result on the tennis court as well: money, camera crews and rare backstage passes - but this car urgently needs to enter the treatment area to become a race car.
"Break Point", the new sports docu-series on Netflix, sat in the stands of the games and the Grand Slam rounds in 2022 and followed the rising stars of the industry (the big stars are probably too expensive), but it fails to excite like its older sister did.
The series should have taken the lead at the very beginning of the comparison.
Tennis is a sport that is clearer and more understandable than the psychometric that the viewer has to go through to understand the rules of Formula 1. Its heroes are not buried inside the cage of the car and the helmet, and the identification with them should be stronger.
The production couldn't have asked for a more convenient draw than to begin enthralling viewers this season, with No. 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic refusing to enter tournaments, much like he refuses vaccinations — and with icons Roger Federer and Serena Williams hanging up their racquets.
But the production that did the unbelievable and turned into a telenovela exciting the remote and inaccessible motor sport, is getting off the TV field when it loses to its original sister.
The magic of "Formula 1: Drive to Serbia" is that for the first time viewers were given a chance to understand how this circus is run - and to fall in love with it.
Wherever you looked in "Formula", you saw fierce competition: between the car manufacturers we all know, between the two drivers within the team, between team success and personal enmity, and of course - for the desired goal of being the best driver.
Each season dealt with the expectations and disappointments that crash into the tires on the side of the road, the political maneuvers within the teams, and the real risk of each driver dying while the rest of the guys continue laps.
Tennis can't compete with that: the big dramas happen mainly in the minds of the players.
"Break Point" has a problem with the thrill pedal - the heroes of the series don't really innovate beyond the fact that individual sports are hard.
It wasn't for nothing that the creators decided that the first episode would open by following the Australian bad boy Nick Kyrgios, the only one who can sweep due to his "McEnroe" story: the perfect combination between virtuosity and a screwed-up head, which prevents him from understanding what gift he received and why he hasn't opened it yet.
And yet, the docu "McEnroe", which came out recently, conveys much more the soul of the wild man in the white sport.
It's a shame that the series doesn't manage to escape the clichés of any individual sport, style "your biggest enemy is you!".
For long minutes, in interviews for the camera, they explain the familiar and well-known that we have heard dozens of times from Andioni.
The confessions are the most distressing part of the series, which is why reinforcement players in the form of past stars Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick and Martina Navratilova were jumped in for interviews.
The small glimpses between the interviews, the relationships between the players and the families and the coaches and the difficulty of women in the profession to start a family and stay at the top, do the job.
For Israeli tennis fans, this is candy.
The white sport is not covered by us beyond a few minutes here and there - certainly not at the level of photography and voyeurism that "Break Point" brings - but according to the five episodes that have been released for viewing (five more will be released in June), this is not a series that "non-involved" people will be attracted to.
"Break Point", Netflix
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