Screen Pass: Aces all around for the tennis action in the movie 'Challengers'

This is an occasional series called Screen Pass where our resident sports and movie buff, columnist Shad Powers, reviews a sports-related movie from the point of view of a sports fan. Does the sports action seem natural? Any sports cameos? Things like that.

The movie: Challengers

The stars: Zendaya, Mike Faist, Josh O'Connor

The director: Luca Guadagnino

The run time: 2 hours, 11 minutes

Playing at: Regal Palm Springs, Regal Rancho Mirage, Mary Pickford is D'Place, Cinemark Century at the River, Cinemark Century La Quinta, Regal Indio Metro

Synopsis: Tashi, played by Zendaya, is a former tennis player whose pro career was stopped before it ever started by a gruesome knee injury. She went on to be a tennis coach, coaching her husband Art Donaldson (Faist) to become a highly successful multiple Grand Slam champion. His career is dwindling and after another early exit in a big tournament, she has him play a lower-level tournament — called a Challenger in tennis circles, hence the name — to get his confidence back. Wouldn't you know it, in the championship match of the Challenger he finds himself across the net from Patrick (O'Connor), a once-promising player who never made it and is living paycheck to paycheck. Oh by the way, Patrick and Art used to be best friends and Patrick also used to date Tashi. As you might guess, tennis and romantic entanglements all come to a head at this small-time tennis competition.

Is the sports action convincing?

I'd give the realisticness of the tennis being played by Zendaya, Faist and O'Connor a solid 8.5 out of 10. The trio trained with real-life tennis coach and commentator Brad Gilbert for three months to get the tennis motions down. Zendaya, who you may remember visited the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells in March to watch the men's and women's semifinals and promote this film, said in an interview that she worked with her tennis double like she might work with a choreographer. Getting the footwork and the body movements of a forehand, backhand and serve were more important than actually being able to hit any of those shots. And she did a good job with that. Her serve and forehand, specifically, looked very believable along with the fierceness and aggression with which she played. Her backhand seemed a little weird, though. Her arm positioning wasn't bad, it was just her eyes and her stroke didn't seem to match where a tennis ball would be, and there's a reason for that.

It was revealed in an interview that a lot of the time the actors were just swinging a tennis racket handle and in most cases the head and the ball were added by CGI later. That's why sometimes maybe their eyes weren't looking at the ball in a way that would be natural.

As it turns out, though, Zendaya really doesn't get to play a ton of tennis in the film. It's the match between the two men that holds all the drama. And I would say both do a realistic job of mimicking tennis players. Their footwork and the way they would come to the net seemed real. Faist channels more of a Roger Federer type with an elegant style, while O'Connor has a rough-around-the-edges game. A true pro tennis player or big-time buff could find some easy-to-spot unlikelihoods in the way they play, but to the general public, I think their tennis action plays well. O'Connor's character had a very unusual service motion cocking his racket behind his head, but that actually had a purpose in the film, and he is also made fun of for it, so I can let it slide.

The most realistic part was the depiction of the different pro tennis series' actually work. Donaldson, the former Grand Slam champion now on the down-swing in his career, lost in the first round of a big tournament. Instead of sitting around for two weeks with nothing to do, he decided to play a Challenger to get his form back. That does happen on occasion in real life. And when word got to the Challenger that someone as well-known as Donaldson was "slumming" and playing in it, everyone was excited. Also realistic.

Pro tennis player and current U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff saw the movie and said on social media that she liked the movie and "The tennis actually wasn't bad in the movie. There is a CGI ball, but the actual strokes and stuff were actually pretty accurate."

Any tennis cameos?

Some of the matches depicted in the film have actual tennis commentators calling the shots. Chris Fowler and Mary Joe Fernandez for example are in the movie. Gilbert has a quick cameo as one of the players' coaches in their younger days. And there were some images like as Donaldson walks the halls of what is supposed to be the U.S. Open there were banners depicting real players like John Isner on the walls.

But none of the stars ever, for example, played a match against an actual current or former pro player.

Final verdict

I loved this film. To be honest, it was actually centered a lot more around tennis than I thought it was going to be. As you've probably heard, this is an R-rated steamy love triangle movie as much as it is a sports movie, so just because your mom loves tennis doesn't mean this is a good movie to take her to. But I thought the movie's volley back and forth between tawdriness and tennis was excellent. It is a tense thriller and much of that thrill is derived from the tennis.

The sports action was very good. It did not take me out of the movie at all.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Zendaya, co-stars make tennis action in 'Challengers' quite realistic