When I first heard about “Challengers,” my first thought was “Oh no.” 

As an ex-tennis player, I’ve grown tired of movies about tennis. Most of them are documentaries anyway, and a lot of them show how hard the life of a professional tennis player is, but still push the message that if you try hard enough, anything is possible. 

“Challengers” took all that and threw it into the trash. 

Following the story of Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), the movie is messy and confusing — just like the relationships between the characters. 

Tashi might seem like the villain in the story — “home-wrecking” the friendship between Art and Patrick and then later cheating on Art with Patrick — but in reality, she is but a tennis player. 

Tennis was her whole life. It was what she was born to do. Once it was taken away from her, she resented both of the boys — Patrick for being the reason behind her injury and Art for getting to do what she couldn’t. She still loved them, but they could never be her biggest love. 

I’m not excusing or justifying any of her actions, I’m just saying I get them. I encountered so many people like her, who lived and breathed the sport. Because while every sport is incredibly hard, tennis is a tad specific. It’s difficult, both mentally and physically, and you are out there alone. It takes a specific character to survive it — and to survive in the world of it. 

Tashi is the tragedy of this movie. A legend who could never be, because one moment took her whole career away from her. And I must say that Zendaya portrayed the moment of Tashi’s injury perfectly. I never suffered quite a traumatic injury myself, but saw many of my friends who did. In many of these scenes I had to look away. So many careers were ended by a single injury, and while tragic, unfortunately Tashi is just one of many.

Tashi managed to stay in that life through Art and she both loved and hated him for it. In the end, she loved tennis the most. 

Art on the other hand loved her more than tennis. Loved her more than he loved Patrick. He played because he was good and he did it for her. He had the talent but he lacked the passion that Patrick or Tashi had. And that’s what made him miserable. 

Now Patrick is what every young tennis player is afraid of. Trying to play while not having enough funds to find a place to sleep. He was a junior star that burned out too quickly. He was overconfident and too prideful to admit it. 

I do feel the need to defend him a little bit, though. Even though Tashi saw him as the reason behind her injury, he objectively really wasn’t — they were both at equal blame for the argument about their relationship. And he lost it all. He lost Tashi, but he also lost Art, his best friend. I am kind of disappointed we never saw why he and Art stopped talking — and I don’t buy the actors’ theory of Art being the true villain, he might’ve been a messy teenager but the other two were messy adults. Art at least grew up. 

But that’s just another part of the movie. that goes unexplained. We never saw how Patrick and Tashi got together. We never saw Tashi through her recovery or how she became Art’s coach. We never saw Art’s injury. And we never saw who won between Patrick and Art. 

The open ending was unexpected but it made sense to me. Not so much to my friends and others in the cinema, though. But it was never about who was going to win. 

No, in the end, Patrick and Art achieved what Tashi was talking about earlier in the movie — the perfect relationship through tennis. For that final rally that we saw, they understood each other perfectly and Tashi got what she wanted. 

I’ll admit that the story might be difficult to understand for those who never lived through that life. That doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyable regardless. 

The story is told through flashbacks, essentially, with the final tennis match being the present. It keeps the dynamic up and moves the plot in an interesting way. 

However, I would like to know the decisions behind the music because I felt like I was in a rave for a majority of the viewing. 

I have to admit, it’s a well-made movie. Surprising amounts of nudity, questionable music choices and camera shots aside — I mean we were a tennis ball at one point for god’s sake —  it truly was a great watch. Maybe a bit “challenging” to understand, but that’s the charm of it.