Game, set, match? Well, if you've already seen Challengers, then you know that that's not always the case in this wild, horny, and hot tennis world. Especially not when there's a more-than-a-decade-long love triangle in the middle of it all and Zendaya, well, just being Zendaya. The movie starts and ends with what might be the more exciting match ever played at Phil's Tire Town Challenger. Which only leaves us with one question: who won? Well we gotta take a look at the bigger picture a bit to figure it out. So lets look at the game footage one more time and figure it out.
Here's the ultimate breakdown of the Challengers ending.
Okay, so a small refresher...
This entire time we've been seeing Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig battle it out on the court and they've reached match point, with Art in the lead and close to winning. Patrick, in trying to keep his promise to Tashi, begins to start throwing the match by serving into the net.
However, Patrick quickly turns and decides to taunt Art with the reveal that he did, in fact, have sex with Tashi the night before by using Art's signature serve which is a tie back to earlier in the film when they were back in their academy days.
Art, surprised and wanting to intensify everything, allows Patrick to score against him, giving him the point and tying them up once again leading the match to go into a tie-breaker.
So what happened right after that?
Some damn good tennis is what happens. Things get hot and sweaty on the court as the two guys go against each other to try to bring home the big win. Luca Guadagnino's direction takes us all around the court as we see different POVs from the ball to right below the two players as they play their best match yet.
Of course, this match quickly turns into the most intense game of tennis and even Tashi can't get enough of seeing them. Things get super wild until Art tries to volley the ball back but instead jumps up super high in front of Patrick that the two end up a sweaty mess on the court, hugging and even looking like they're enjoying the moment a bit. Tashi yells out "COME ON!" as the screen pauses on her face and the movie ends.
But wait, who won?!
Well, the answer is technically...we don't know...
According to the United States Tennis Association, an official tiebreak game, "The first player or team to win seven points, by two, wins the tiebreak. This means the score can end up being very high (e.g. 15-13) or as low as 7-0 through 7-5."
So basically, we were only seeing just the beginning of the tiebreaker and there would've been more of the match to go.
Also, this is exactly the kind of ending the screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes wanted to make.
"For me, it was always a complete impossibility that we would find out who won. Because, at least from my perspective, once all their cards are out on the table, once they're really talking to each other and once they're really playing tennis— good tennis, the best tennis of their lives for the first time ever— they've gotten what they need from each other and they can move on or not from this situation," he said during a Q&A after a Writers Guild of America, East screening in New York City.
"It always felt to me like once that's happening there's nothing left that I'm interested in," he continued. "I guess the point is, for me, it's irrelevant. The match doesn't matter anymore."
So there you have it. At least we're all basically won by getting to see the best movie of the year!
