Untold - Breaking Point (2021) - Another one from the Untold series and another tennis doc. I am not a huge tennis fan, but I will watch a match if there is a lot of buzz around it. I hadn't heard of Mardy Fish before, but like the other documentaries in this series it was very well presented with great interviews. Having watched the Naomi Osaka documentary previously and followed her withdrawal from the French Open, this was an interesting watch.
Mardy Fish came up through the tennis ranks as a teenager with Andy Roddick. The two were close friends and Fish even lived with Roddick's family for a time. Fish was on the edge of the pro-circuit for years when things seemed to come together for him and his career really began to gain some traction. As he achieved success on the court the pressure began to build and he began to have panic attacks until he eventually had one in the middle of a match. And ultimately he decides to pull out of his match against Roger Federer at the US Open in 2012 because of his Severe Anxiety Disorder.
If a player is sidelined due to physical injury that seems to read fine, but if mental health is cited as the cause it makes you weak or that you simply don't want it bad enough. We definitely saw a lot of that type of reporting when Osaka and Simone Biles withdrew from their respective competitions. I just don't understand that stance. The interviews in this give you a good idea of the mental toughness you have to have to be at the top of the game and there is no way it isn't taking a toll on them each and every day. The window of opportunity in professional sports is small, but after that passes these people still have a life to live and enjoy away from that stress and pressure, why would anyone feel comfortable calling into question what an individual's limit is? Mind boggling.
I watched this on NEtflix.
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