Netflix Q&A: Break Point With Stefanos Tsitsipas

Stefanos Tsitsipas has long been a fan of filmmaking, as evidenced by his creativity on social media as well as his YouTube channel, so it was no surprise to see the Greek participate in Netfflix’s Break Point filming.

The 2019 Nitto ATP Finals champion was featured in Episodes 6 and 7, with the main focus being his memorable clash against Nick Kyrgios at Wimbledon.

Tsitsipas spoke to ATPTour.com late last year about his experience filming Break Point, why he cares about more than the storylines featured and more.

Watch Episode 6 Trailer:

You always have loved filming and photography and videography. Was there anything particularly surprising from the whole Netflix experience?
How nice they were. The crew is so much fun to be working with. They were not just there to film, they were also very friendly and made the whole atmosphere very genuine for all of us to be part of this. They are a bunch of professionals that are trying to create nice memories with us. And I really appreciated them putting so much work into it. They seem quite smart as well.

Were there any times that you sort of wished the cameras weren’t there?
No, but I had one moment where I actually felt grateful they were there with my match I think with Kyrgios at Wimbledon. It was a moment where [there was] so much drama, and I’m glad they filmed it.

Does it make you thankful that people are going to be able to see what actually happened and what you actually thought?
Yeah exactly, that’s it. It opens for the truth to be told and shared and each person’s perspective of things. It’s good for the sport, it’s good for the sport. Not everything has to be clean and beautiful and elegant…

They’ve been extremely respectful of things and I always told them yes in situations that I was comfortable [in]. They never really crossed any lines and made me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t have moments where I felt like they stepped out of line.

You’re focused on your tennis, you’re trying to win, but then you love this sort of stuff. So how did you balance the two?
I wouldn’t consider it a distraction. It’s something that our sport needed for a long time. People don’t really see the behind the scenes, they only see us on TV performing, playing. Very few of us have YouTube channels where we get to expose some other things except our professional careers and tennis needed some of that open view. Everything is just so private these days with a lot of the players and it’s important to showcase the personalities and the strong-minded people and athletes that are out there.

How much Netflix do you watch?
I had periods where I watched it a lot. I was browsing through different TV shows and movies. Currently, I’m not really following anything specific. But I did watch one TV show that I really liked Man Vs. Bee, Rowan Atkinson recently. [It is] a very high production in terms of filmmaking and I enjoy watching whenever I have free time, whenever I have a bit of time off.

But the thing is, I don’t feel like I’m very productive when I watch Netflix. I’m a guy that always likes to go to sleep that night and feel like I’ve done something productive and important for myself, kind of seize the day as I like to say.

So do you want to binge Break Point when it comes out?
No, I will definitely not be binging anything. I’m watching it the proper way every single frame that’s coming up.

So you don’t want to just see the storylines. You want to see how they edited it together?
Everything. I want to see every single detail that they put in place, every single thing, the structure of it. I’m paying attention to every single thing. It’s going to be very interesting because they’ve been following a few good personalities in our sport. And I would like to further see what stories they were able to film with those individuals, including myself, the variation, the storytelling and also the narrative that they are going to follow.