Challengers Is the Smart, Sporty, Sweaty, Sartorially Delightful M/M/F Smut of My Dreams

A spoiler-free reaction to this fun rush of a film. Plus, a few other tennis-adjacent movies I love.

Hi hi hi.

In a (not even a little bit) shocking twist, I am OBSESSED with Challengers, the new Luca Guadagnino tennis movie starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist as a trio who meet as teen tennis stars (of varying degrees) and whose lives are intertwined for years to come in ways I won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen it yet.

What you learn from the trailer lets you know that they are entangled in some way, to say the least. But there are many, many layers from the jump—and especially as time goes on. (The movie moves between time periods.)

I promise, no major spoilers ahead, but if you want to know absolutely zero things before you see it for yourself, you have been forewarned.

What I knew for sure after getting home from seeing Challengers Monday night was that I couldn’t wait until Friday to talk about it. My plan was to see it over the weekend, but life got in the way so I made sure I got to the theater on a Monday night for myriad reasons.

A: I’ll be away on a girls’ trip this weekend, so no movies. But, I’ll be near Destin in Florida, one hell of a drug. Thanks for the theme song, Taylor. You might find some fun (via laughing at my shenanigans) on my IG Stories this weekend. Just sayin’.

B: I can see that the internet is talking about it a lot and I don’t like this sort of FOMO. But I also can’t partake in the content about the content until I see it and write about it for myself. I’m D-Y-I-N-G¹ to listen to the Las Cultch ep, as per usual².

Was this the universe saying:

“Okay my lil tortured poet who wrote a manuscript about the tortured poet who broke her heart a long time ago, all because one of her other beloved tortured poets released an epic album with a lot of songs about another tortured poet who fucked her life up in a way that reminded the original her of said past tortured poet? It’s time to have some fun for a minute, sister. Your sad girl music will be there when you return.” ³

MAYBE.

I’ve been excited for this movie for ages. The release was pushed back from last year because of the strike and what I can imagine was the studio going, “We should wait until we can harness the power of Zendaya promoting this film.”

They weren’t wrong about that, but I don’t like waiting for anything.

I also love tennis so much, even though I’m not great at playing it. I did all the lessons and whatnot as a kid and I wasn’t terrible, but swimming sort of took over my life and all the other sports (save softball, eventually) fell by the wayside.

When I first moved back to Indy, I batted around the idea of lessons and starting to play again. I have done neither of those things, but now I’m hype on the level I used to be (slash still am) when I watch a great Slam final.

I grew up watching tennis obsessively. I have the best memories of many Grand Slam championship weekends and I generally find early rounds of any major to be the most soothing background watch around. There’s nothing quite like the sound of the ball perfectly hitting a racket.

I also spent a lot of time as a kid pretending to be one of my faves hitting balls against our garage door. Chris Evert. Martina Navratilova. Monica Seles. Steffi Graf. Gabriela Sabatini. Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario.

Don’t even get me started about Jennifer Capriati, my peer, breaking through as a young teen. As a competitive athlete (albeit nowhere near her level), I envied and aspired to be her, even then I could guess at how fucked up her life must be. It’s the child star thing, but in some ways even more intense. She was like our Gen X Drew Barrymore, but make it tennis, in terms of seeing her massive success and then massive struggles, and always just wanting her to be okay.

But that’s a whole other post…

I felt deeply invested in all things Connors-McEnroe. I hated Ivan Lendl because I was a kid in the ‘80s and he was from Eastern Europe and we were pretty much indoctrinated to hate anyone even vaguely associated with Communism. I’m not saying it was right—it just was.

I little girl crushed HARD on Stefan Edberg. But never slept on my other tennis hotties of my childhood like Mats Wilander, Agassi, Sampras, Pat Cash…so many I could name. Then, of course, years later Serena and Venus and Federer and Nadal entered the chat. For the record, I’m a Fed girlie, but love Nadal. Miss me if you’re a Djokic fan though. JK, but only sorta.

I was also v. obsessed with Nick Bollettieri and his tennis boarding school⁴. Actually, I was obsessed with all boarding schools because of books I’d read and was desperate to go to one, which was never going to happen.

Anyway, this can lead us into Challengers because the two boys/men of this film—Art (Mike Faist) + Patrick (Josh O’Connor) meet as kids at a fictional version of what is obviously the Bolletieri Academy. They’re besties and competitors and doubles partners, who we can all tell sorta wanna fuck. As can fellow teen and rising superstar, Tashi Duncan.