Serena Williams has spoken: Challengers is a good depiction of tennis because the three main characters are all recognizably annoying. For example, both Roger Federer and Art are wife guys. Williams reviewed Luca Guadagnino’s tennis film for Vogue on April 26, and, while she was pretty happy with the film’s version of the tennis world, she ran through the types of players that she sees the main characters as. Her most cutting analysis was about Art, played by Mike Faist. “A lot of male tennis players really rely on their wives and girlfriends,” she says. “Just look at someone like Roger Federer: He used to actually hit with his wife, Mirka, and they were like glue.” Honestly, if we were Federer, we’d be crying and throwing up.
As for Tashi (Zendaya) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor), Williams is just as incisive — it seems pretty clear that these characters (1) were accurate and (2) annoyed her. Regarding Tashi, Williams notes that the character gets “under your skin.” “Tashi was just mean, for lack of a better word,” Williams said. “But it’s true that when you’re really competitive, you have to make tough decisions, including in your dating life. You have to find someone who really understands your mind.” And, for Pat, Williams mostly just expresses pity. “I’ve seen guys like that before,” she writes. “There are players who really struggle, and sometimes end up living in their car.” Whew! Congrats to Justin Kuritzkes for writing a movie so spot-on it made Serena Williams shade real-life tennis players.
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