The AdS/CFT correspondence establishes a string representation for Wilson loops in N = 4 SYM theory at large N and large 't Hooft coupling. One of the clearest manifestations of the stringy behaviour in Wilson loop correlators is the string-breaking phase transition. It is shown that resummation of planar diagrams without internal vertices predicts the strong-coupling phase transtion in exactly the same setting in which it arises from the string representation.