This year's Australian Open tennis tournament has been full of shock losses and withdrawals - and some fans are getting superstitious about one new arrival on court: Netflix.
The final player left standing to have featured in Netflix's tennis docuseries, Break Point, has been knocked out of the tournament in a stunning loss at Margaret Court Arena.
Canadian sixth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime was eliminated by Czech world number 59 Jiri Lehecka in the four-set clash on Sunday, cementing for some 'the Netflix curse'.
"The Netflix curse is complete," said one fan on Twitter.
"Can't spell Netflix curse without Felix," said another.
It was the first time the 21-year-old Lehecka had ever knocked out a top-ten player, continuing his roll in a year that saw him climb 70 places in the rankings.
All ten players who participated in the show were knocked out or forced to withdraw from injury before the quarter-finals.
Sixth seed Matteo Berrettini - and the star of episode two - was knocked out in the first round by Andy Murray.
Felix Auger-Aliassime after his loss to Jiri Lehecka. Source: AAP / James Ross
Australia’s top-ranked male, Nick Kyrgios, withdrew ahead of the grand slam with a lateral meniscus injury.
Sixth seed Maria Sakkari lost to 87th-ranked Zhu Lin in the second round.
World number nine Taylor Fritz lost to 113th-ranked Australian wild-card Alexei Popyrin in the second round. And the list goes on.
As players started dropping out and losing to those ranked beneath them, fans became dubious of the effect the show had on their performance.
There was enough chatter that Tomljanovic herself joined the conversation.
“Can we stop with the Netflix curse lol... it’s just sports,” she wrote in reply to a tweet mentioning the term.
Auger-Aliassime said after his third-round win on Friday that it hadn't even crossed his mind until his partner showed him.
“My girlfriend showed me today. I wasn’t aware,” he said.
“I was aware that players were losing, I’d see players were losing, but it didn’t cross my mind until she showed me the thing this morning. I thought it was funny…
“Maybe the players that lost, maybe they do feel like it‘s connected somehow. I don’t think they do. I don’t think it’s connected anyhow. But, yeah, so funny how things work out sometimes.”
The Netflix UK and Ireland Twitter account also shut down claims, changing their bio to: "The #NetflixCurse is not real".
For what it's worth, there is no such "curse" in Netflix's Formula 1: Drive to Survive which is made by the same executive producers as Break Point.
Lewis Hamilton, who took part in a number of interviews for the show, was F1 champion in 2018, 2019 and 2020, the years covered by the show's first three seasons.
