‘Challengers’ most WTF moments: From Tashi’s knee injury to those sexy churros

Challengers is on everyone’s minds, and for good reason.

Luca Guadagnino’s riveting tennis drama about the relationship between tennis players Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) is already one of 2024’s best films. It’s sensual, it’s heartbreaking, and it’ll pump you full of so much adrenaline, you’ll leave the movie theater feeling like the Energizer Bunny.

It’s also chock-full of moments that’ll get people talking, whether they want to nerd out over a cool craft choice or plot beat, or only want to ask, “What just happened?” To celebrate these moments, we’ve rounded up a list of the 18 biggest, most shocking, most WTF moments from Challengers — and you can bet those sexy churros are on it.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score — and that damn phone alarm.

Challengers kicks off with a techno-flavored bang. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score pulses into earshot over images of Tashi, Art, and Patrick preparing for the final match of the Phil’s Tire Town challenger tournament in New Rochelle. Its thumping synths and volleying vocals turn the tennis court into a sweaty, desire-filled nightclub. But just as the score really gets going — and just as you really get grooving in your theater seat — Challengers cuts it off with Art’s phone alarm. Rude!

These beginning moments aren’t the first time Challengers cuts its own score short. The entire film is built on stops and starts: Music swells, then vanishes, mimicking the pattern of play of a tennis match. But only this opening sequence jump scares us with the blaring of a default phone alarm, taking us from dancing to breaking out in a cold sweat in a matter of milliseconds. Honestly, that’s a pretty good description of the Challengers viewing experience overall.

Zendaya’s onscreen daughter wants to watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

This moment isn’t that WTF in comparison to some of the other craziness Challengers gets up to, but you’re telling me you’re going to make a Spider-Man reference in a movie starring Zendaya — MJ herself! — and expect me not to get distracted? That would be like dropping a Paul Atreides joke in the middle of Bones and All. Clearly, nowhere is safe from the multiverse.

“I love you.” “I know.”

After a humiliating defeat, Art wallows in his losing streak. He reaches out to Tashi for some kind of comfort, but she’s more focused on dragging him out of his tennis spiral. The two are on very different wavelengths, resulting in a quietly brutal exchange.

“I love you,” Art tells Tashi. She responds with a matter-of-fact, “I know.” Han Solo and Leia these two are not.

Art and Patrick watch Tashi play tennis for the first time.

Let’s flash back to 2006. Art and Patrick have just won the boys’ doubles championship at the Junior U.S. Open — but more importantly, they’re now watching Tashi slaughter her opponent in the women’s singles final. The pair might be in the middle of a crowd, but as they watch her play, the world narrows to the three of them: Art and Patrick, in awe of her skill (and her beauty), and Tashi, killing it on the court. It’s intimate, it’s sexy, and it’s surprisingly funny, as Art and Patrick get so into the game that they sync up, from leaning back in the bleachers to whipping their heads back and forth in time with the ball. They’re the “one brain cell” meme, personified.

“I’d let her fuck me with a racket.”

Patrick drops the above line at an Adidas afterparty celebrating Tashi, and while no tennis racket sex actually happens in the rest of the film, his raunchy turn of phrase certainly paints a picture. Good luck getting that out of your head.

The hotel room scene.

Ever since the the first Challengers trailer dropped, people have been clamoring for Tashi, Art, and Patrick’s hotel room hookup. And boy, does it deliver.

The whole scene is full of WTF-ery, from Patrick recounting the time he taught Art to masturbate — don’t worry, they were in separate beds! — to him smacking Art’s erection after Tashi leaves. But of course, the centerpiece of the scene, and the product of all its exquisite sexual tension, is the trio’s three-way kiss, which Tashi quickly engineers into a two-way kiss between Patrick and Art. With Tashi’s knowing smile, Art and Patrick’s roiling desire, and the killer use of Blood Orange’s “Uncle ACE,” how can you not be captivated?

Art and Patrick come up with the racket signal.

After Art loses out on Tashi’s number when Patrick beats him in the Junior U.S. Open singles final, he begs to know every detail of Patrick and Tashi’s date. Well, really one detail in particular: Did the two sleep together?

Patrick promised Tashi he wouldn’t kiss and tell, but that promise didn’t account for tennis-based signals! He abandons his trademark flashy serve and adopts Art’s technique instead, placing the ball right in the notch of the racket, to tell him that he and Tashi did, in fact, have sex. The subterfuge is WTF-worthy enough, but what takes it over the line is Art’s face after Patrick’s serve: He smiles, then drops the facade into something colder and far more jealous.

Patrick’s Tinder date.

In an attempt to find a place to sleep before the challenger tournament starts, Patrick turns to Tinder. He meets up with Helen (Hailey Gates) at a hotel bar, but as soon as he sees that Tashi is staying there, he abandons the date to speak to his ex. He almost leaves the hotel entirely after the conversation, only to realize that he still needs a place to sleep. I don’t know what’s worse: Patrick kissing Helen out of nowhere in a desperate attempt to save the situation, or her kissing him back. Helen, have some self-esteem!

“Your mom looks good.” “I know she does, Patrick.”

Consider this violently whispered exchange between Patrick and Tashi to be their hornier, more Oedipal equivalent of Tashi and Art’s “I love you,” “I know.”

Art tries to snake Tashi and Patrick.

As Zendaya has said time and time again on the Challengers press tour, Art is a snake! And as he and Tashi begin to practice together at Stanford, we see that snakiness in full effect. Art suggests to Tashi that Patrick isn’t in love with her — who says she wants that? she counters — and later tells Patrick that he doesn’t think Tashi is serious about them. It’s hardly subtle manipulation, and both Tashi and Patrick know exactly what Art is up to. For Tashi, it’s infuriating, but for Patrick, it’s exhilarating, as jealousy and desire intertwine.

Sexy, sexy churros.

Art’s snakiness and Patrick’s exhilaration combine over a snack of sexually-charged churros in the Stanford cafeteria. These cinnamon sugar treats are far from the only phallic food in Challengers — hot dogs, bananas, and suggestively-sipped Coke bottles all make appearances. But nowhere else do we see Patrick and Art chomping down on each other’s food, or wiping sugar off of each other’s cheeks. And who could forget Patrick pulling Art’s stool closer to his with his foot?

Here, their repressed desires for each other simmer just under the surface, the closest they’ve gotten since the hotel room. Once again, Guadagnino strikes the perfect balance of sexy and funny — one that will leave you craving fried dough.

Tashi’s knee injury.

After a harsh argument with Patrick (aided in no small part by Art’s snakiness) disrupts her pre-game stretches, Tashi takes the court at Stanford. For a moment, it’s as if we’re back at the Junior U.S. Open: She’s totally in the zone, attacking the ball in time to Reznor and Ross’ banger “Yeah x10.” Then Tashi slips, her knee pops, and she falls on the court in total agony.

If you’d seen any Challengers trailer, you knew this was coming. Yet in every screening I went to, audiences gasped and winced at this moment in particular. Perhaps it’s the visceral close-up on the knee that does the trick, or the loud crunch that breaks us out of our dance music trance. Or maybe it’s the tragedy of the injury that really gets us. In just one second, Tashi loses out on a lifetime of doing what she loves. Even if you disagree with her actions in the present, how can you not feel for her?

“You’d have a better shot with a gun in your mouth.”

Tashi utters this scorcher right after slapping Patrick halfway across New Rochelle, and while it is certainly one way to respond to someone asking for your coaching help, I wouldn’t say it’s the most constructive.

The sauna scene.

It’s been years since they last spoke, but Art and Patrick finally collide in the most unexpected of places: a sauna. However, there’s no sense of reconciliation here, nor any of the playfulness we saw in their younger scenes. Instead, Art brushes Patrick aside, telling him time and time again he doesn’t matter.

“I’m just stopping by,” he tells Patrick when Patrick points out how humiliating it is he’s playing in a challenger tournament. “This is where you live.” Harsh.

Tashi and Patrick’s Atlanta affair.

Turns out, Tashi and Patrick didn’t have an entirely clean break. Years before New Rochelle, and not long after Tashi and Art’s engagement, the two had a one-night stand at the Atlanta Open. (They start making out mere seconds after discussing Art’s dead grandma, mind you!)

Making matters worse is the fact that Art briefly sees the two talking, only to notice after a brief chat with a fan that they’ve disappeared. Tashi tells Patrick that Art doesn’t know about Atlanta, so he clearly never brought it up — but how did it impact their relationship? Or his game?

Tashi asks Patrick to throw the match.

Tashi and Patrick have one more tryst, the night before the Phil’s Tire Town final, and that whole encounter is full of WTF moments. Tashi makes Patrick pose as her Uber driver, he calls her a MILF, Tashi spits in his face, they make out in a windstorm in front of Tashi and Art’s Aston Martin ad…

But perhaps the most WTF moment of all is when Tashi asks Patrick to lose to Art the next day. This is Tashi “I want to see some good fucking tennis” Duncan we’re talking about here, the fiercely competitive woman who puts the sanctity of the game above everyone. No matter how much she needs Art to win the challenger — which would put him on track to perform better at the U.S. Open — this isn’t something anyone would ever expect of her. Patrick tells her this, saying it’s worse than the cheating. It’s unforgivable.

Patrick gives Art the signal.

We all knew this moment was coming, but that doesn’t make it any less delicious. Patrick switches up his serve during what would have been match point for Art, using their adolescent code to signal that he and Tashi slept together.

Art’s reaction — a loud, penalty-inducing “fuck off” — is to be expected, but what really makes this scene is the build-up. Patrick’s hesitation, the repeated slo-mo, the starting and stopping of the score… If you thought the tension in the hotel room sequence was exquisite, then this whole scene is damn near heavenly.

That ending.

Patrick’s signal is what Art needs to find his competitive edge again, and their tie-break gets off to a rapturous start. They’re playing their longest rally yet, they’re trading volleys, and they’re grinning like best friends again. They’re having fun, and everyone around them knows it: Tashi finally looks impressed by the tennis on display, Reznor and Ross throw some strings into the score, and Guadagnino kicks it into high gear. The audience is the ball! Now we’re the players! Now we’re the court! Now Art is leaping over the net, about to smash the winning point down on Patrick! Instead, he falls into Patrick’s arms and the two embrace, while an ecstatic Tashi lets out a primal, “Come on!”

Who won? Who cares! Art and Patrick finally played some of that “good fucking tennis” Tashi always wanted from them. It went beyond individualistic play and became a relationship, where Art and Patrick connected and went somewhere special together. Remember what Tashi said about her best rally with her Juniors opponent Anna Mueller? “It was like we were in love.”

Come on, indeed.

Challengers is now in theaters.

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Belen Edwards

May 1, 2024 9:00 am