Coco Gauff's coach Brad Gilbert: "Zendaya has a lot of athleticism in dancing... Actors have a lot of the same DNA as tennis players"
Coco Gauff's coach Brad Gilbert recently acknowledged actress Zendaya's athleticism during his appearance at the Los Angeles premiere of Challengers.
Gilbert became one of the world's most respected tennis coaches after guiding Andre Agassi to six out of his eight Grand Slam titles. He also worked with other former ATP World No. 1s Andy Roddick and Andy Murray. Currently, Gilbert is serving as Gauff's coach.
Challengers, a tennis-themed film, which is slated for an April 26 release in the United States, relied on Gilbert's expertise to make actors Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist look like professional tennis players. Gauff's coach attended the recent LA premiere of the film and said that Zendaya is athletic despite not being a professional athlete.
"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," Gilbert said.
The legendary coach went on to talk about the similarities between actors and tennis players. He concluded by expressing positivity regarding his experience of working alongside the actors for Challengers.
"Actors have a lot of the same DNA as tennis players – a lot of focus, a lot of determination, to really 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," Gilbert added.
"People shouldn't go into the movie critiquing the tennis" - Coco Gauff
Gauff herself recently spoke about Challengers during a press conference at the ongoing Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart. According to the reigning US Open champion, audiences should keep an open mind when watching Challengers and should not judge it based on tennis alone.
"I haven't seen the movie yet, so I'm excited. I think people shouldn't go into the movie critiquing the tennis. I think really that's just not what the story is about. So he (Gilbert) did tell me that," Gauff said.
The WTA World No. 3 also revealed that Gilbert thinks the 'threesome' element of the film may not find favor with older audiences. However, Gilbert apparently told Gauff that his work with the Challengers crew was only to focus on the tennis part.
"He [Brad Gilbert] said the movie was a little out there for a 60-year-old man with the threesome and everything like that. He did say that. But he said ‘I just wanted to focus on the tennis and not the storyline’," Gauff added.
The 20-year-old's Stuttgart campaign ended in the quarterfinals after she suffered a three-set loss at the hands of Marta Kostyuk.