Challengers(2024)

Submitted by Jeremy

The film jumps back and forth between the past and present, so this is the chronological series of events:

Art Donaldson and Patrick Zwieg (Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor) have been best friends and fellow tennis players since they were 12. In 2006, after winning a junior doubles match, they meet the talented up-and-coming player Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), and they both fall head over heels for her. Patrick succeeds in winning Tashi over, but after she suffers a career-ending injury, she and Art cut ties with Patrick due to his behavior towards them. Art and Tashi later form a relationship, and she becomes his coach, but Art knows that she and Patrick still had an affair when he was competing in Atlanta in 2011.

By 2019, Art and Tashi are a wealthy power couple, but it is strongly suggested that she doesn’t return his love and is only with him because it’s the only way she can stay connected to tennis. Patrick has since gone broke and is living out of his car, hoping for a comeback. He tries to get Tashi to coach him, but she rejects him. When Art tells her that he plans to retire after he competes against Patrick in a Challenger match in New York. She indicates that she will leave Art if he loses, and she later secretly meets with Patrick to get him to throw the match before she has sex with him again.

During the match, Patrick wins the first set, and Art wins the second. Patrick starts trying to lose on purpose until he uses Art’s tell (holding the ball to the racket’s neck before serving) to let him know he and Tashi had sex. After letting Patrick catch up to him, the two get into a more heated game, which reinvigorates Art’s passion for the sport. Before the two can collide in hitting the ball, Patrick catches Art before he falls over, and the two embrace each other while Tashi cheers along with the crowd.