Don't rain on Venus's parade

TENNIS has never been sexier—at least, that is what multiple critics of the new film Challengers are saying.

-  Pamela Goodman

If you haven’t seen this blockbuster, I suggest you do. There’s no need to be a tennis fan to glean huge enjoyment from the production design, the soundtrack, even the acting, quite apart from the thwack of ball on racket. If you have seen the film, you will know about the messy love triangle between Tashi, Patrick and Art and have felt the simmering heat of sexual tension that underpins the storyline.

Move over Fiona Butler, the Athena postergirl of the 1970s, whose hand-on-bare-bottom, tennis-court photograph graced every schoolboy’s wall, and hello Zendaya, the red-hot rising megastar whose role in Challengers, alongside co-stars Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, has had us reaching for a cooling sip of lemon barley water.

It seemed appropriate that, as the film was released over here and as we embark on the British tennis season, I should be asked to participate in an annual tennis tournament in the south of France, known among the privileged invitees as the Cup du Cap.