The Challengers ending was intense. Featuring some soul shattering glares, passive aggressive banana eating and seemingly impossible amounts of sweat, it left us with a lot of questions to unpack. However, most of all, it left us confused as to what exactly happened.
Did Art or Patrick win? What was with that sweaty collision-embrace? Do the two still hate each other? Are we picking up on some vibes?
The final moments of the film see the former friends battle it out in an electric match of tennis which concludes in a tiebreaker, with Art having seemingly tapped into the fire that has been missing from his game. This is all amid some pretty devastating revelations about his marriage, to say the least.
The film's director Luca Guadagnino sets us up to be invested in the results of this match for several reasons. If Patrick (Josh O’Connor) wins, he's guaranteed a highly coveted spot in the US Open, while if Grand Slam champion Art (Mike Faist) wins, he has the potential to break from his losing streak and unlock the self-belief he needs to win the US Open and revive his waning career.
Beyond that, however, the two are playing for their honour and for the respect of Tashi (Zendaya), Art's wife and Patrick's ex-girlfriend. The film ends on a crescendo, with the tension that's been building finally culminating in one electrifying moment.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Challengers star Mike Faist has said: “That's the thing: everyone's right and everyone's wrong. The exciting thing about this film is that people are going to have an opinion, and a very visceral one.”
But what does it all mean… and who wins the match?
Here, we explain the Challengers ending meaning. First off, let's get into what happens leading up to the final scene (spoilers ahead, etc etc.)
She becomes a sort of Lady Macbeth of tennis.
Tashi asks Patrick to lose
In a heartbreaking, strained moment in their hotel room, Art asks his wife Tashi to tell him that she'll love him regardless of the result of the match, explaining that he wants to call it quits regardless once the season is through.
Tashi, not one to mince her words, tells Art that she'll leave him if he doesn't win tomorrow's match. Art asks Tashi to hold him until he falls asleep, which she obliges.
We later see her creeping out of their hotel room to meet Patrick, whose number she got earlier when he asked her if she'd be interested in coaching him.
Getting into Patrick's car, Tashi flatly asks him to lose the challenger the next day – in order to allow Art to get his confidence back on the court and end his career on a high, hopefully with another win at the US Open.
Patrick, assuming Tashi is joking and has only met up with intentions to sleep with him, soon realises that she is in fact being completely serious. The pair go back and forth arguing with one another, with Patrick asking her: “How little do you believe in your husband?”
He asserts that she did meet up with him to sleep with him but simply can't admit it to herself.
After a few moments of arguing, Patrick begins driving her back to the hotel, though in what seems like part heat of the moment, part motivation to get Patrick to lose, the pair end up sleeping together – before Tashi goes back to the hotel and finds Art lying in bed alongside their daughter Lilly.
The challengers match unfolds
As soon as Tashi slept with Patrick, we were pretty much waiting on the moment that Patrick would bring back the racket signal to indicate he'd slept with Tashi (a callback to their teenage years) – and sure enough, he does so during the match.
After an intense start to the game, Patrick places the tennis ball at the neck of his racket, clearly signalling to Art that he has slept with his wife. Tashi is understandably confused but clearly realises that something has shifted between the pair, with several loaded glances being exchanged, alongside some unashamed smirking from Patrick.
Patrick's un-returnable ace slices past a visibly flustered Art – with him glaring at his wife and former best friend – screaming “F*ck off” and earning himself a penalty for audible obscenity. For a moment, it's unclear whether Art will continue the match, though after taking a beat he goes on.
This leaves Patrick serving for the game – and Art, unmoving, allows Patrick to hit another ace as he stares coldly at his wife. With Patrick having won the game, we're set up for a tense tiebreak.
Art, seemingly invigorated by anger at the horrific revelation that Patrick has slept with his wife, hits his first tiebreak serve directly at Patrick's head, forgoing his first serve in sheer fury.
On his second serve, however, his competitive drive kicks back in – and fuelled by the anger at this betrayal, he plays some seriously charged tennis. For the first time, it looks like fire and ice are finally back in their glory days, playing some of the best tennis of their lives.
Tashi's head spins from side to side to try and keep up with the match, and her expression, initially of anxiety, changes to pure exhilaration.
After several rallies, endless beads of sweat and impassioned grunts, Art finally jumps to return Patrick's shot, charging across the net and crashing at full force into Patrick, with the two entangled on the floor in the film's final moments.
The actor's latest press tour look was a custom Celia Kritharioti dress.
Who won at the end of Challengers and what did it mean?
The Challengers ending concludes in an altogether confusing way, and a… hug? Collision? Sweaty, entangled mess?
Whatever you want to call it, it's safe to say that we've never seen a tennis match finish with an embrace on court mid-hit, but with Art touching the net as he propels himself over it to make his return shot, does this mean he loses the tiebreak?
The film credits roll before we're able to see how the tennis umpire calls the point (the umpire is played by Zendaya's longtime friend and assistant Darnell Appling, btw).
Given that in tennis you're not even allowed to touch the net, it's hard to say whether Art is the real winner here. As the audience, we ultimately don't know who won the point, even as the crowd cheers and Tashi leaps to her feet.
Regardless, she screams “Come on!”, just as she did when the two first watched her play, and is clearly roused by the quality tennis she's seeing unfold.
Truly, it's the first time in the film she seems to exhibit genuine, visceral fire for either of the two, with them finally playing the type of tennis which she refers to earlier in the film – when she likens playing a worthy opponent to being in a relationship: “It’s like we were in love.”
In an interview with Variety, screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes says, “Tennis, by its nature, is a very erotic sport," explaining: "It’s very sexy. And you usually play tennis against somebody of the same gender, so tennis, by its nature, then becomes almost homoerotic.”
There's certainly some loaded vibes at the film's conclusion, with two sweaty men tangled up as one's wife and the other's former lover looks on in admiration.
So who actually won the match in the Challengers ending?
While we won't ever know for sure, it's clear that Art has found a new lease of life for the sport, with the vigour that he's been missing well and truly back. Ultimately, Art never came with the goal of winning the challenger, but rather to rediscover his self-belief, and Challengers ends on a note that certainly feels like he's in the right mental space to win the US Open.
With all three of them fired up from the match, in the end it doesn't really matter if Art won… because it's clear that something else was reawakened in him.
The real-life inspiration behind Zendaya's character and her new film.
