Tennis is an elegant and simple sport. Players stand on opposite sides of a rectangle, divided by a net that can’t be crossed. The gameplay is full of invisible geometry: Viewers might trace parabolas, angles, and lines depending on how the players move and where they hit the ball. It’s an ideal representation of conflict, a perfect stage for pitting one competitor against another, so it’s no wonder that the game comes to stand in for all sorts of different things off the court.

The “Battle of Sexes” match in 1973, between Billie Jean King and then-retired Bobby Riggs, has since been mythologized as a turning point for women’s sports. If the social allegory of the Ashe-Graeber match was subtextual, the one in this spectacle—which ended in a decisive victory for King over the cartoonishly chauvinistic Riggs—was glaringly explicit. At a time when women’s liberation was becoming a force that threw all sorts of conventions into question, and plenty of people were for or against the gains of the movement, seeing the debate represented by a game of tennis surely had a comforting appeal. For those with more regressive beliefs, rooting for Bobby was certainly easier than really articulating a justification for maintaining massive pay disparities between men and women, both within and outside of professional tennis.

Within their love triangle, tension arises with the dawning recognition that in a one-on-one sport, there’s always another person who doesn’t have a place on the court. Save for the night they meet, when Tashi induces Art and Patrick to kiss each other for her entertainment, the three of them rarely engage with one another at the same time: Someone is always watching from the stands, whether literally or metaphorically.

During Patrick and Tashi’s brief romance, a post-coital conversation seamlessly transitions into a discussion about Patrick’s poor performance as a pro, and eventually becomes a referendum on why their relationship doesn’t work. Confused, and trying to make sense of it all as their banter swiftly changes definitions, Patrick asks: “Are we still talking about tennis?” “We’re always talking about tennis,” Tashi replies. Frustrated, Patrick tersely retorts: “Can we not?”

As the linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue in their 1980 book,Metaphors We Live By, “Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.” In other words, we’re always talking about things in terms of other things—even if it’s not always as obvious as it is in Challengers. Metaphors are more than just a poetic device; they’re fundamental to the way language is structured.

No matter what issue is at stake, or how grand it may be, it can always be reduced to an individual’s performance on the court.

While Patrick is still dating Tashi, and Art is transparently trying to steal his best friend’s girl, Patrick playfully accuses Art of playing “percentage tennis”—a patient strategy of hitting low-risk shots and waiting for your opponent to mess up

Art asks for Tashi’s permission to retire once the season is over. Art knows that this would be the end of their professional relationship—he would no longer be able to play dutiful pupil to Tashi. But it might also be the end of whatever spark animated their love in the first place, as you can’t play “good fucking tennis” in retirement. Tashi says she will leave Art if he doesn’t beat Patrick in the final. Tired of playing, but unable to escape the game, Art curls up in his wife’s lap and cries.