Challengers (2024) on Netflix
Tashi Donaldson coaches her husband Art, a Major champion on a losing streak, and enters him in a Challenger event. He faces Patrick Zweig, his former best friend and her former boyfriend.
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- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.0/10184,613 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 2006, Tashi Duncan is a rising junior player and Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig are best friends who have just won the junior boys' doubles title at the US Open. Both are drawn to Tashi, and the three meet in the pair's hotel room, where she sets a contest: the winner of the boys' singles final will get her phone number. Patrick wins it. Tashi goes on to Stanford, where Art also plays, and a torn knee ligament ends her playing career. She later becomes Art's coach and then his wife. By 2019, Art is a Major champion, but age and injury have left him struggling, so Tashi enters him in a Challenger tournament in New Rochelle, New York. Patrick, who lives out of his car and plays the lower circuits, enters the same draw.
Cast
- Joan Mcshaneas Line Judge (New Rochelle Final)
- Connor Aulsonas Leo Du Marier
Show all 20 cast
- James Sylvaas Motel Husband
- Kenneth A. Osherowas Motel Husband
- Jason Tongas Line Judge (New Rochelle Final)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Challengers (2024)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Writer Justin Kuritzkes got the idea for a tennis film from the 2018 U.S. Open match in which Serena Williams was penalized for receiving courside coaching against Naomi Osaka; he had never heard of the rule and found it cinematic that a player could not talk to such a figure mid-match.
- Writer Justin Kuritzkes added a scene in which Patrick and Art kiss at Luca Guadagnino's request, saying Guadagnino felt that 'in any love triangle, all the corners touch' and that he meant it literally.
- Guadagnino considered West Side Story's Mike Faist for Art; his agent insisted he read the script, and Faist agreed to travel to London for a screen test with Zendaya, figuring that if he didn't get the job he still got a trip. He thought the audition had gone badly, but Guadagnino loved his interpretation.
- Zendaya's best friend and personal assistant Darnell Appling played the umpire in the New Rochelle final: Guadagnino had him sit in the umpire chair during a camera test, then asked him to take the part, and sent him to umpire school to prepare.
- Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist trained for three months with former pro player and coach Brad Gilbert; Faist had to gain 30 pounds and, according to Gilbert, ate 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day because the filmmakers wanted him heavier.
- While researching the script, Justin Kuritzkes read Andre Agassi's memoir Open, in which Agassi describes how his then-coach Brad Gilbert entered him into a Challenger event in Nevada; that story inspired Art's arc in the film.
