The tennis match that begins, ends, and provides the central narrative framework for Challengers, the vibrant new film from director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name, Bones and All, Suspiria) at first strikes the viewer as implausibly high-stakes for a match at a shabby New Rochelle,

Good tennis cannot save a bad movie like “16-Love,” an insipid 2012 teen romance featuring Lindsey Shaw and Chandler Massey. Massey was cast partly because of his tennis skills and Shaw’s rival was played by Susie Abromeit, who had been a top-ranked junior but a weak script and poor directing renders all that irrelevant.

I don’t want to be a homewrecker,” Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) says in “Challengers.” A budding tennis star on her way to Stanford, Tashi isn’t addressing a married man but two boys — also aspiring pros — who are openly courting her at the same time.