There’s a moment in Challengers, the new movie starring Zendaya as a once-great tennis phenom named Tashi Donaldson, where she is asked to describe what the sport is to her.
Challengers, Tashi and the film’s director Luca Guadagnino have plenty to say about that metaphysical quandary.
Challengers may not really be a tennis movie — but it has plenty to say about the quintessence of the sport.
“You have to know them so intimately that you can trick them, because that’s how you win points in tennis: you trick somebody.
“It is his own kind of mind game that he’s doing, right?” Kuritzkes says of 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic.
(Memo to those tennis snobs: so are you, and everyone else who is not an elite player.
He had played as a child in and around Los Angeles, a hotbed for young tennis talent.
Two players at the opposite ends of the sport — or, at least, that’s how he imagined they were seeing it.
In the recently released film Challengers, which stars Zendaya as the former world tennis champion Tashi Donaldson, there’s a scene where she’s asked to define tennis for her.
This takes place in a sport that creates phenoms with the spontaneity and gentleness of a nuclear reaction, back when her character was the newest big thing.
To Josh O’Connor (The Crown) and Mike Faist (West Side Story), she says, “You know what it is.”. Her co-stars, or co-moons, as it were, are two young talents in her sphere of influence, competing for her attention.
“That is a partnership. “.
This is the time of year when tennis players of all stripes, from pros to weekend hackers, will be talking to each other because the game of tennis is as much about philosophical debate about the nature of the sport as it is about fuzzy balls and contentious line calls. Tashi, Challengers, and the movie’s director, Luca Guadagnino, have a lot to say regarding that philosophical conundrum. They have much to say about the violent, high-stakes state of flow that occurs between two players as they rhythmically pound and patter a ball back and forth across a net during a high-stress match.
Although Challengers isn’t strictly a tennis movie, it discusses many aspects of the game’s essence.
Some things you often hear when the topic arises among people who play or coach tennis for a living, or have dedicated their lives to it in some other way:.
You cannot touch your opponent, even though you would if you could. It is similar to boxing or some other type of hand-to-hand fighting. You would yank their throats apart.
It’s a way for you to express yourself.
It’s racquet ballet.
Psychological warfare is what it is.
Searching for moments of perfection that, for the majority, either never come or are so uncommon and exhilarating as to inspire desperation, is a form of socially acceptable masochistic torture.
Even though the topic of “a relationship” hasn’t received much attention in this conversation, it is still powerful and thought-provoking, particularly in light of the tennis love triangle, which is centered around the frequently toxic relationships that occur both outside and within the game. Screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes was initially drawn to this dynamic when he took on the project.
While playing a match can take hours, you’re completely focused on the other player, which fosters a deep intimacy that Kuritzkes describes. Kuritzkes played a little as a child but became enamored with the game after watching the 2018 U.S. S. One of the most dramatic matches of the modern era was the Open women’s final between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka.
Since tricking someone is how you win points in tennis, you have to know them so well that you can pull a fast one on them. Knowing them well is necessary for that. “.
Kuritzkes last weekend discussed his particular interest in matches in which one player is perfectly content to view the first game, or even the first set, as an information-gathering exercise—even if it means losing for a while. Imagine Novak Djokovic in nearly any five-set match up against a novice opponent. He could bumble his way to a 6-6 victory in an incredibly awkward, even amateurish, struggle with the opponent and himself. To devastatingly expose his analysis, he wins two more sets and seven points in a tiebreak, demonstrating that he is not struggling but rather computing.
If he fails at the first, he will almost certainly demonstrate that ignorance is dangerous.
“It’s his own unique mental trick, isn’t that right?” Kuritzkes asks of Djokovic, the 24-time Grand Slam victor. “He’s telling that guy, ‘I’m willing to lose a set in order to learn more about your playing style.'”. It’s an interpersonal relationship, and it’s incredibly charged and intimate. “.
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What is the most difficult aspect of playing Novak Djokovic, according to the players?
Tennis snobs will launch their customary attack on Challengers, claiming that the actors’ bodies doubles combined are pathetic imitations of the world’s best players.
(Note to those snobby tennis players: you and all other non-elite players are just like you. Move past it. ).
This is the case with every tennis film, quasi-or otherwise—be it Wimbledon, a 2004 Kirsten Dunst vehicle, Battle of the Sexes, which chronicles Billie Jean King’s match against Bobby Riggs, or the 2021 Oscar winner King Richard, which tells the story of the Williams sisters’ creation.
As an American tennis legend who has coached Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick, and Coco Gauff to Grand Slam titles and persuaded the actors in Challengers to treat the racket and ball like a baseball bat and pinata, there’s only so much that even Brad Gilbert can do in this situation.
It is peculiar to watch practice scenes where Zendaya and Faist feed each other slow balls from the middle of the court as part of drills that are almost never done by elite players. Though unintentional, the mistake is corrected. And Zendaya undoubtedly committed herself to mastering the distinctive footwork and body motions of elite players:.
In a press conference held over the weekend, she stated of the movie, “I couldn’t define what kind of movie it was like; it was funny, so funny, but I wouldn’t say it was a comedy, but there was drama, but I wouldn’t say it was just drama, and it had tennis, but it wasn’t like a sports movie.”. “.
It’s difficult to ignore the question of why these characters are tennis players at all as the rivalry between O’Connor and Faist’s characters develops and the love triangle involving Zendaya’s characters takes shape. Might they have been rival authors, mathematicians, or musicians as well?
I think.
The film’s narrative, however, has remained true to this alluring game and all of its quirks and contradictions from the beginning, when Kuritzkes started to conceive it, to the present day, when Zendaya has been appearing at tennis tournaments in Indian Wells and Monte Carlo wearing dresses akin to tennis attire and shoes whose heels are tipped by tennis balls.
Rewind to that 2018 U.S. s. Finalize openly. Williams was attempting to win the record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles championship, which she would never be able to attain. All that will be remembered is Williams losing to Osaka, who had made a name for herself that year, in straight sets, 6-2, 6-4. However, Williams’s outburst when the chair umpire penalized her for coaching her from the stands, which was then against the rules but is now permitted, will always remain.
Kuritzkes neglected to watch or give serious thought to tennis for years. He had grown up playing tennis in and around Los Angeles, which is known for producing young players. Because, well, they were all better than he was, it seemed like. That is not a cause for regret.
Then he discovered that he was watching that U. s. Williams’s emotional breakdown after discovering the open final almost by accident, she claimed the chair umpire had wrongly accused her of cheating.
The interpersonal dynamics and ramifications of the situation left Kuritzkes speechless.
On your side of the court, you’re by yourself. The only other person in the enormous tennis stadium is equally as concerned about your well-being as you are, but you’re unable to communicate with them.
What if you need to talk to them about something really important that has nothing to do with tennis? What if it was something that involved the two of you, the person across the net, or both of you?
How do you conduct that discussion?
Kuritzkes began experimenting with those concepts. He also began to watch a great deal of tennis.
Another game he can still clearly recall is the Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in 2019. Back then, Djokovic could only prevail in a fifth-set tiebreak if the score reached 12-12. The camera kept panning to Federer’s wife, Mirka, as Federer wasted two match points at 8-7 and the match moved into the tennis equivalent of penalty kicks in soccer. After suffering an injury that ended her own tennis career, she went on to assist her husband in becoming one of the greatest players of all time, a storyline that is reminiscent of Zendaya’s in Challengers.
He claims that he was unable to understand why she was yanking out her hair.
“I thought to myself, ‘Well, he has 20 Slams, you guys have all the money in the world.'”. This should just be another day at the office, so what’s the deal right now?
Kirtzkes saw the Swiss legend again the following year at the Australian Open.
In the quarterfinals, Federer was facing Tennys Sandgren, an American journeyman. As Federer, who was getting older and more injured, managed to save seven match points and win the match in five sets, Kuritzkes witnessed a match of epic proportions.
Though he was fighting against the end of his light, Federer looked flawless as always, while Sandgren played the match in ridiculous shorts and a sleeveless shirt with logos slapped on it to make some quick cash.
It seemed to him that two athletes were observing the game from different perspectives.
Kuritzkes remarks, “It felt like these two guys were playing for their lives, each in their own way.”. “And that’s because Sandgren knew that if he can’t beat him now, when he’s hurt, his career is done,” and Federer knew that if he couldn’t beat this guy, his career was done. Because of this, it seemed as though they were both experiencing an existential crisis and that there was a great deal at stake for them both in terms of their lives and how they would develop. “.
Existential moments can occasionally truly occur. After losing his last competitive set in singles on Wimbledon’s Center Court, 6-0, to Hubert Hurkacz, Federer was eliminated in the following round, never returned to the Australian scene, and hardly participated in any other tournaments until 2021, when he tragically suffered a knee injury.
Since then, Sandgren hasn’t said anything noteworthy that doesn’t involve criticizing vaccinations or expressing sympathy for demonstrators who attacked the U.S. s. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Think of it like a big and small tennis relationship.
Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures is the source of the top image.
