Three tennis shows and movies to stream on Netflix

You know you want to watch a lot of tennis stuff, but to start the year, many of the tournaments are in a different time zone than the Western Hemisphere. You might be willing to stay up late to watch the matches, but you need something in your downtime too. But what?

Luckily, Netflix has a lot of options. While these are mostly documentaries, there are fictional pieces sprinkled about. The best ones are the docs, though.

Below is a list of three must-see docs for tennis fans. Each is, in fact, worthy of multiple viewings. Stuff is easy to miss, you know.

Three tennis documentaries to stream on Netflix

Naomi Osaka

If you love Osaka, you will love this documentary. This is also not a by-note doc where you get some conversations about the player and a lot of praise and the whole bit just seems like a lot of fluff. Osaka is complex and so is the documentary. Being a top-ranked tennis player might be fun, but it certainly has its pitfalls.

Plus, Osaka has been open about her mental struggles with handling fame, the stress of constantly playing, and the expectations that come with success. She is a multi-time major winner, and she might never get back to that level. She won't give up, though, and the doc tells you why.

Guillermo Vilas: Settling the Score

Vilas would have been the top-ranked player on the ATP tour in 1977 had the same point system used today (a best-of-18 tournament result) been used in the mid-1970s. Then, the point system was simply an average of all results. If a player won a Grand Slam, great. But if they then lost in the second round, their ranking was crippled.

In 1977, Vilas won 16 of the 31 tournaments he entered and won two majors. That is part of the narrative of this documentary, as journalist Eduardo Puppa fights to have 1977 re-ranked based on the current system. The other, and better, narrative is watching the arc of Vilas's career.

Break Point

There will be no more of this series, sadly, and the first season is better than the second, but the way the show is structured is interesting. Some episodes feature one specific player but still find room for a few bits of others. In the second season, there is too much focus on American players as well.

Still, we get a glimpse into lots of lives of players, and that makes the docuseries worth it. Watching Aryna Sabalenka also makes her look more human, for instance. Maybe some other service will try to create a season 3 elsewhere.

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