For assistance in getting ready for her role as a former tennis prodigy in the upcoming movie ‘Challengers’, Zendaya went to one of the sport’s legends. Brad Gilbert, who presently trains US Open champion Coco Gauff, put the actress through intense training, along with co-stars Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor.
Gilbert was brought onto the set by director Luca Guadagnino in an attempt to make the tennis scenes as realistic and competitive as possible.
Gilbert said there are more similarities than differences between actors and tennis players during his appearance at the Los Angeles premiere of the movie.
Gilbert expressed his remarks about it and said: “It was a great learning experience. All three of them have good skills. Mike was the only one who had a little bit of a tennis background; he played in high school. Zendaya has a lot of athleticism in dancing. Josh had swam, and he had played soccer and rugby. All of them had their different characteristics of athleticism, but none of them were a prolific tennis player.”
Gilbert added: “Actors have a lot of the same DNA as tennis players—a lot of focus, a lot of determination—to turn what they’re doing into something on screen. They worked incredibly hard and it was a great pleasure to work with all three of them. Like with acting a lot of the time, you have a short period to become the character, We had a short period but they put in the hard work to make themselves the best they could be for this film. We would train early in Boston. We would do a couple of hours every day and then a couple of hours in the gym. They had long days; a lot of the time in Boston, we were in the car by 6 am.”
After working with the #Challengers cast, tennis coach Brad Gilbert went back to coaching Coco Gauff for the U.S. Open — which she went on to win.
“In some sense, and I told Zendaya this, she somehow prepared me to get ready to coach Coco.” https://t.co/oSuz8MDpcQ pic.twitter.com/en1HV23qGG
— Variety (@Variety) April 26, 2024
Gauff in Madrid, ranking, and results in 2024
LWWWWLWWLW Ranked no.3 (career-high), Coco has a 20-6 record in 2024. The American is participating in Madrid where she beat the world no.47 Arantxa Rus 6-0 6-0.
Coco Gauff will play the world no.34 Dayana Yastremska in the 3rd round on Saturday at 8:00 pm on MANOLO SANTANA STADIUM. In the past, they have never played each other till now in top tournaments.
Gauff conquered 1 title in 2024 in Auckland.
The American won 7 titles in her career: 5 on hard courts, 1 on clay courts and 1 on indoor courts. (See the list of her titles)
