Netflix's New Documentary 'Breaking Point' Detailing Mardy Fish's Rise In American Tennis Along With His Mental Health Battle is a Fascinating Watch
I don't know about you, but any well-made sports documentary that hits the streaming services I watch without even a second of thought. Obviously you know I am this crazy tennis obsessor so you put out a documentary on the rise of Mardy Fish and Andy Roddick as they took over for Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi as the best American tennis players? Oh yeah, sign me the fuck up.
As the United States Tennis Association set out to find the next wave of tennis stars in the country, Roddick and Fish stood out as the future. Roddick and his electric serve quickly opened eyes and anointed him as America's best chance at a star. Mardy Fish was good, but he really was just meant to be Andy Roddick's pal who was just lucky enough to playing professional tennis and travel the world. Roddick's dad was out of his mind and basically allowed Fish to stay with them and train from sunrise to sunset in order to get his son to be the best he could be.
Mardy was this normal dude who wasn't going to do anything special while Roddick rose to number 1 in the world. All of a sudden it clicked for Fish in 2009 and he changed everything about his life. He lost all of his weight, transformed his body, his game, and his mind to become the number 1 American tennis player and number 7 in the world. It finally all happened for him. I don't want to give away too much from the doc so I'll leave it at that.
The documentary also zeroes in on mental health and Mardy's battles with severe anxiety that he experienced later in his career. Really gives you an insightful look into the stress these players go through and what it takes to be that great. Really could not recommend this doc anymore.
Fish was just on ForePlay and talked about the doc. This part about playing Federer in Halle showed you how ridiculous it was playing that man in the mid 2000s.
“I played Roger [Federer] in a 2004 final, I think it was a grass court tune up tournament in Holla, Germany and he was up 9-0 in the first 9 games. So 6-0, 3-0 and I’m thinking to myself, ‘this is not good.’ These people paid a lot of money to come here and this stadium’s packed and this is supposed to be a final and this is not good.’ I guarantee, I swear to this day I think Roger let me hold out because he sort of understands there’s sponsorships and people there and stuff. He’s like ‘I’m not gonna lose to this guy ever so I’m just gonna let him hold serve and it’ll be 6-0, 6-3 and a comfortable win for me.’ I’m telling you, I swear to you that’s exactly what happened. He let me win 3 games in the finals of a grass court event.