Alexander Zverev's appearance on the newly-released second season of tennis docuseries Break Point on Netflix has caused a stir among tennis fans.
Zverev was not featured in the documentary's first season, giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the tennis tour. But the German is among the new crop of stars, including Coco Gauff and Carlos Alcaraz, who have been poached to take center stage in its second season.
The producers devoted an entire episode to narrating the German's remarkable comeback from a horrific ankle injury he sustained at the 2022 French Open. The episode, titled "Unfinished Business," also centers around the intriguing rivalry between Zverev and former World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev.
Although Zverev is one of the world's best tennis players with an incredibly vast resume of accomplishments at just 26 and even earned his peers' respect by being voted into the ATP Players Advisory Council, he doesn't quite command the same fanfare with the tennis watchers.
And this is evident from media outlets and tennis fans who took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to show their disdain for the German's appearance on the show. The outrage is directly connected to Zverev's recent accusations of domestic abuse, which were not covered in the episode.
For context, Zverev was fined by a Berlin court in late October in light of those allegations of physically assaulting his former girlfriend and the mother of his child, Brenda Patea. He has denied any wrongdoing and has disputed the penalty.
Tennis fans felt entitled that this subject should have been afforded screen time, but it was not a surprise that it did not, with one user writing, "Shit, so it's just as we feared, a whole episode just on him without even a mention of the abuse allegations. They really couldn't find anyone less controversial that agreed to be filmed?"
Another wrote, "TWO former girlfriends actually, one being the mother of his child that he seemingly has no intention of taking responsibility for because his career is way more important," pointing out that this is the second time that Zverev has faced such allegations.
The ATP has not issued any sanctions towards Zverev so far, and one fan was not happy that he was being peddled to promote the sport. The tweet read, "I'm not even angry or disappointed, I'm downright disgusted at how they can promote someone who should be in prison for his actions towards his two ex-girlfriends and not actively participate in the tour."
While season one was positively received, another fan expects the second season to flop, adding that Coco Gauff's US Open run in the series only got half the screen time, "46 minutes on an alleged abuser without ever mentioning the allegations and only 20 minutes on Coco’s USO run? Oh hell nah. This needs to flop real bad."
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