After being available for rent for the past few weeks, Prime Video dropped a surprise that Challengers is out on the streaming platform. Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes, the romantic sports drama released earlier this year. It chronicles the love triangle that developed over the course of 13 years between Zendaya, an injured tennis star-turned-coach; Josh O'Connor, an ex-boyfriend who played on the lower circuits of the sport; and Mike Faist, her husband and a tennis champion. As the final two players meet on the ATP Challenger Tour, the plot intensifies.

Zendaya's role as Tashi Duncan and the film's core conflict

Luca Guadagnino's imaginative film Challengers features Zendaya as Tashi Duncan. She, a tennis prodigy turned coach, is a formidable presence on and off the court. Tashi's plan for his redemption takes an unexpected turn when her champion husband, now on a losing streak, faces Patrick, his former best buddy and Tashi's ex-boyfriend. When their pasts and present collide and tensions are high, Tashi must ask herself, "What will it cost to win?"

After MGM purchased Kuritzkes' screenplay in February 2022, they quickly cast the film and hired Guadagnino; Zendaya, O'Connor, and Faist trained for months with Brad Gilbert, a former tennis player and coach, to prepare for their parts.

The 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike delayed the film's original September 2023 release, but it finally made its debut in April 2024. Critically acclaimed and commercially successful, the film made $94.2 million globally.

Inspiration behind the screenplay

Serena Williams' 2018 U.S. Open match penalty for receiving coaching from the sidelines inspired writer Justin Kuritzkes to create a tennis film. He found the idea that the athlete couldn't converse with such a prominent character during the match quite dramatic, as he had never heard of the restriction before. "What if you really had to talk about something important beyond tennis? Something going on with you personally?" As part of his research for the screenplay, he read Open, André Agassi's memoir, in which the tennis great describes how Brad Gilbert, his coach at the time, entered him in a Nevada Challenger event. This was the driving force behind Art's journey throughout the film.

"Tashi was always a Black woman," Kuritzkes wrote, revealing his knowledge of the characters' backgrounds. For as long as anyone could remember, Patrick was a wealthy Jew, and Art was a moderately well-off White American male. It was strange to him that there wouldn't be any Black characters in a tennis movie, considering that is the story of American women's tennis, if you look at all of the big superstars from the past decade.

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