Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist on the steamy love triangle of ‘Challengers’

Zendaya gravitated to Luca Guadagnino’s tennis romance not because it seemed a natural fit for her, but because it wasn’t

How sexy can a qualifying tennis tournament in New Rochelle, New York, be? When the on-court drama involves Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, the answer turns out to be quite a bit more than your average USTA singles match in Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers.”

The film, directed by Guadagnino from a script by playwright Justin Kuritzkes, may have the appearance of a sports movie. Much of the action happens in between baselines. There are break points and short shorts. But in Guadagnino’s film, what’s being volleyed isn’t just a fuzzy little yellow ball.

“The ball is the ephemeral, invisible force of desire,” says Guadagnino, the director of “Call Me By Your Name” and “Bones and All.” “I wanted to show desire going back and forth.”

The result, by a score of about six-love, is the love triangle of the year. “Challengers,” which Amazon MGM Studios releases in theaters Friday, takes the melodrama of the threesome and gives it a breathless, bi-curious spin. That’s especially due to the multilateral chemistry between Zendaya, O’Connor and Faist — all actors in their late 20s or early 30s, all very capable of smoldering when called upon.

It’s a big-screen statement especially for Zendaya, who’s also a producer on the film. She plays Tashi, the wife and coach of tennis superstar Art (Faist, the “West Side Story” breakout). Tashi was only relegated to the sidelines because of a career-ending knee injury — though it did little to sap her ambition. When Art, whose passion for tennis is fading, is matched in New Rochelle against an old friend, Patrick (O’Connor, star of Alice Rohrwacher’s recent “La Chimera” ), their complicated past is, deliciously, resurrected.

Zendaya gravitated to the project not because it seemed a natural fit for her, but because it wasn’t.

“Because it sounded like a challenge. Because it is so different from me,” Zendaya said in an interview alongside her co-stars. “Sometimes when you’re a little afraid to tackle something like that you, you’re like, ‘Oo, maybe I should do it.’ I don’t want to walk into something and be like, ‘I got this. This is going to be easy.’”