Changeover
A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men's Tennis
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY
* THE NEW YORKER * NPR * TOWN & COUNTRY *
The story of Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and their epic rivalry, as told by "the best tennis writer in America" (Brian Phillips, The Ringer).
For more than two decades, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer dominated men’s tennis so thoroughly that it became difficult to imagine how the game would keep its shine once they retired.
Then came 2024—the first year since 2002 that none of them won a Grand Slam tournament—and a technicolor future was revealed. The major titles were divided between a pair of prodigies in their early twenties: the effervescent showman Carlos Alcaraz, whose infinite variety of shots won him the French Open and Wimbledon; and the relentlessly cool Jannik Sinner, whose power and precision secured him the Australian Open and US Open even amid a doping controversy. Though other young contenders jostled for the spotlight, and Djokovic tried to hold his ground, the transcendentally gifted Alcaraz and Sinner just kept installing their new regime.
“Witty” (The Wall Street Journal), delivering “loads of insight” (The Washington Post), and rooted in a true fan’s love of the game, this “scintillating account” (Publishers Weekly) serves as a primer to the rivalry poised to define the next decade of the sport.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Nathan debuts with a scintillating account of the rivalry between tennis players Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. They rose to prominence from divergent backgrounds; Alcaraz grew up in southeast Spain, and his family's storied history with the sport started him on the professional path early. Sinner, meanwhile, spent most of his childhood skiing in his home in northern Italy, and tennis was "a low priority activity in his youth." Nathan compellingly chronicles how Alcaraz and Sinner began to flourish as the previous era of tennis's "Big Three" receded. The "changeover" Nathan describes began as Alcaraz and Sinner started to defeat this "geriatric elite"; 2024 was the first year since 2002 none of the three "took home a major," Nathan writes, and "the Sincaraz era had begun." Tracking the pair's battles against each other across the major tournaments of that year, Nathan notes that by the time the French Open rolled around in May, "a firm consensus had solidified" that theirs "was the best rivalry on the men's tour." Throughout, Nathan provides exceptional commentary on how the pair operates as foils in both style of play and temperament. This gripping chronicle of a new frontier in the game aces it.
