‘Challengers’ Ending Explained — How Do Things End in This Ménage à Tennis?

Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for ‘Challengers.’

The Big Picture

• Zendaya stars in
  Challengers
  , a film combining sports, comedy, and drama.
• A complex love triangle unfolds through intense tennis matches over a decade.
• The final match reveals deep emotional connections, raising questions about desire and winning.

Challengers, the latest from director Luca Guadagnino, is a sports film, a romantic comedy, and a thrilling drama fueled by some of the most understated mind games to hit the screen. Zendaya stars as Tashi Duncan, a budding tennis star who becomes entwined with Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), a close-knit pair who start as friends who share a similar competitive nature. To call it a love triangle would be putting it far too lightly. Challengers frequently jumps forward and back in its timeline, spanning over a decade in the lives of its three debilitatingly passionate leads.

In 2006, Art and Patrick make a move on Tashi simultaneously, culminating in a tepid three-way encounter in a hotel room, with Tashi offering her phone number to whoever wins the next day’s tennis match. Patrick wins, and before long, he and Tashi are dating. After suffering a career-halting injury, Tashi ends her relationship with Patrick, and Art is there to swoop in. Over the coming years, Tashi transitions into the role of Art’s coach, ushering him to stardom in the professional realm, all while his friendship with Patrick dissipates to nothing. By 2019, Art and Patrick find themselves competing in a challenger match, with Tashi (now Art’s wife) staring daggers on the sideline. The ending of Challengers, set around the most intense game of tennis these two have ever played, delivers a satisfying conclusion to the pent-up aggression and adoration that’s been building for the past two hours.

Everything Builds to the Final Set of a Challenger Match Between Art and Patrick

Tashi has been coaching Art for several years, living vicariously through him towards the championship level that happenstance took from her. Inching closer to the US Open, Art’s been off his game, losing more frequently and succumbing to frustration and exhaustion. Hoping to build his confidence, she registers him for a small-time challenger match, which he could presumably dominate with ease. However, Patrick, who’s spent the past few years parading as a barely-scraping-by player, is participating in this match. It’s unclear whether Tashi knew Patrick would be there, but frequent moments depicting her as an avid researcher and her evident frustration over Art’s downfall suggest it’s likely. Tashi’s knee injury is probably the only thing she’s ever done by accident.

Years prior, when Tashi and Art were engaged, Art secretly caught an intimate moment between Patrick and Tashi. Although they’d eventually marry and have a child, despite the adulterous one-night stand, their marriage would enter rocky waters. Art’s confidence was shaken, and he wasn’t winning. By proxy, this meant Tashi wasn’t winning, either. Before their challenger match, Art confronts Tashi, hoping to persuade her to jump ship and become his coach. She refuses and later approaches him with a plea of her own. She wants Patrick to purposefully lose the match, which could give Art the confidence boost she desperately wants for him. When he agrees, they sleep together, and Tashi returns to her hotel room to find Art has moved to their daughter’s room. Before she left to meet with Patrick, Art asked Tashi to hold him until he fell asleep. He needed her presence and reassurance. Evidently, he noticed her absence after falling asleep, leading him to move to their daughter.

Throughout the film, we cut back to this final match. Art appears to be doing well at times, but his confidence is in shambles by the final set, and Patrick’s gameplay indicates he may have abandoned his plan to let Art win. Then, there’s a major shift in the game. As Patrick is about to serve, he deliberately holds the tennis ball at the center of the racket’s neck. Art immediately knows what this means. Years ago, after Patrick first scored some intimate time with Tashi, Art begged him to divulge details. When he refused, Art suggested that, on his next serve, Patrick could hold the ball at the center of the racket’s neck. This gesture was a physical tick of Art’s that Patrick had pointed out, and if Patrick did it, he would confirm that he and Tashi had sex. Now, Patrick emulates the tick again, silently telling Art that he slept with his wife.

For Tashi, Art, and Patrick, Winning the Match Didn’t Matter

Once Art knows what transpired between Patrick and Tashi, it’s as if his skill is immediately amplified back into its peak form. With Patrick committed to giving it his all and Art reinvigorated, the two finish the match with the best performance either has ever given. Tashi, who appeared stoic and detached until now, leans forward in engagement. Finally, Art leaps to hit a match-winning spike. Before he lands on the ground, he falls into Patrick’s arms, and they gleefully hug each other over the net. Just before the film ends, Tashi stands and screams in pure exhilaration, “Come on!”

While Art appears to be the fair winner of the match, the moment is swiftly brushed over as the focus immediately shifts to the hug and celebration shared by all. The slight ambiguity of the win perfectly encapsulates the emotional journey these characters have been on. The first night Art and Patrick met Tashi, they witnessed her utterly decimate her opponent in a match with a level of skill and an air of sexiness they didn’t know was possible. When they found her at a party afterward, while gushing over the awe of watching her, Art made sure to mention the guttural scream Tashi let out upon winning. Years later, after the joy of the sport was seemingly fully ripped away, Tashi finally let out that same impassioned scream when Art and Patrick ended their match in full embrace.

‘Challengers’ Enthralls, Even if You Don’t Care About Tennis or Sports

When they were much younger, Art made it clear that he wouldn’t be upset if Patrick had slept with Tashi, he just wanted to know about it because he didn’t want to be left out. In the following years, he’d become so wrapped up in the lust for winning that he seemed to forget why he needed to feel included in the first place. Eventually, his love for the sport would run out, because his relationship with Patrick had vanished. They’ve been playing together since they were twelve years old in boarding school; for Art and Patrick, tennis and their friendship were subconsciously synonymous. Tashi may be the only one who truly puts tennis above all else. However, after her injury required her to shift her focus from winning herself to winning through Art, Tashi’s definition of winning morphed into whatever winning meant to Art.

All the great sports films allow any moviegoer to connect, regardless of whether they care about the game. With Challengers, we’re intently tracking a trio of heated emotions, but with Guadagnino’s inspired choices, you inevitably become fully invested in the gameplay, too. Already having proven his craft through entries like Call Me by Your Name, Bones and All, and Suspiria, Guadagnino brings the final match to life with point-of-view shots from the perspective of the ball and indulgent slow-motion close-ups of sweat droplets falling from various body parts.

‘Challengers’ Makes Us Ask: Does Anyone Truly Win if They Want It Too Much?

“To what end?” It feels like that question’s being silently asked after virtually every utterance of these characters’ desires. Art and Patrick each want a chance with Tashi, but to what end? If she picks only one of them, what happens to their friendship? Patrick needs Tashi to view him as a peer, knowing full well that her triumph in the world of tennis comes first. Tashi wants Patrick to deliberately throw his match against Art, but she knows that, even if it leads her husband to an eventual win at the US Open, she’ll always remember the farce of it all.

They make these calculated moves, ignoring the inevitability of failure and allowing their need to win to blind them from an actual happy outcome. After years of getting wrapped up in their multifaceted mind games, they lost the plot entirely. At their first encounter, Tashi warned Art and Patrick that she didn’t want to be a homewrecker, referring to the wedge she could drive between their friendship. Despite the forewarning, they dove into their entanglement, sacrificing their happiness to win smaller battles along the way.

Challengers is now playing in theaters.

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