This week on Cinematic Underdogs, Harry LaBollita, Nick Morelli, and Aaron White of Feelin Film' join the pod to discuss Untold: Breaking Point. As our third entry into the fantastic Netflix-produced docuseries, this episode chronicles Mardy Fish's poignant rise, fall, & eventual search for equanimity. If you've never heard of Mardy before, you are not alone. For most of his professional tennis career, he flew under the radar, consistently bested by his childhood best friend Andy Roddick. Then, nearing 30, something clicked. Seemingly overnight, Mardy transformed his work ethic (sleeping in an hyperbaric pod, trimming 35 pounds, and practicing militantly), and he career went into supersonic overdrive: shooting straight to the top of America's rankings.
However, this sudden and precipitous rise came at a cost — crippling Mardy with a severe mental health crisis. He first suffers tachycardia (likely due to psychosomatic stressors) and soon confronts a sequence of paralyzing anxiety/panic attacks. Suffice to say, "Breaking Point" could not be any more relevant to the long-overdue emergence of mental health conversations in the sports world. It is a heartwarming story of friendship and perseverance that tackles many of the issues endemic to this specific sector of American culture: from the unfair pressure we impose on athletes to the inhumane assumption that athletic superstars are somehow impervious to external critique.
Mardy Fish is clearly not alone in this battle for mental health awareness. Along with Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka, and Kevin Love, his story is a stark reminder that we need to look in the mirror and increase our collective empathy toward the mental duress and traumatizing pressure that professional athletes endure.
Please do yourself a favor and check out Untold: Breaking Point on Netflix, and then supplement your viewing with this wonderful conversation.
