Changeover

A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men's Tennis

De: Giri Nathan

Narrado por: Aden Hakimi

* ONE OF THE NEW YORKER'S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 (SO FAR) * BLOOMBERG’S 10 BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER 2025 * TOWN & COUNTRY’S BEST BOOKS OF AUGUST * INSIDE HOOK’S 10 BEST BOOKS OF AUGUST *

The story of Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and their epic new 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.

Punctuated with humor, brimming with insight, and rooted in a true fan’s love of the game, this work of elevated sports journalism is a captivating primer to the rivalry poised to define the next decade of the sport.

Great detail and excellent prose

Excellent book overall. Highly recommend it. The prose is very fluid, but very detailed at the same time. You’ll like it even if you do remember the 2024 tennis season!

We’ll balanced

Liked the coverage of all aspects of players development - emotional, physical and intellectual and comparisons between the two.

Good writing, but, wow, this narration

Nathan's reporting and insight is very good, but why did the production team here not save the narrator from his cringe-inducing pronunciations? I can press a button in Google to get a pretty accurate take on "Gael Monfils" and "David Ferrer," but somehow they laid down the worst-possible phonetic intonations on tape. These are not minor names, numbers 6 and 3 in the world respectively at one point.

Those moments come early so it's disheartening to know that there was another eight hours of butchery coming.

The team even flubbed a gimme like "Croat."

Gripping story. Reading okay.

I really liked this story. The reader's voice was fine, and he was sometimes pretty engaging. But I found mysel getting taken out of the story by mispronunciations of player names. Monfils in particular. Very McEnroesque.

Fantastic Recap of the Newest Rivalry in Tennis

Great book for any tennis fan or sports fan in general. Book depicts what makes Alcaraz and Sinner such unique players and individuals while they reign supremely over the same sport. 10/10 would recommend.

Mostly good

As a rabid Alcaraz fan, I can’t help but read anything and everything written about him so I enjoyed the book. It just felt like a shame that the book was written when it was. Could the author just update it at the end of every year because the 2025 rivalry is surely one for the books! My one complaint - why did the reader not learn how to pronounce the names of the players before recording? Monfeels? Dimitriov? Daniel Medvedev? I mean I’m not asking those names to be pronounced as they are in their native tongues - just the way English speakers generally pronounce them. Otherwise the performance was quite good

This Rivalry Deserves a Better Book

The book felt like a collection of moments rather than a coherent story. For me, it was unorganized and sometimes confusing, jumping abruptly between events. Occasionally, it even spoiled the outcome of matches or tournaments before they happened. I’ve followed this rivalry closely, and unfortunately, the book doesn’t do it justice.

As for the narrator, the performance is fine, but the mispronunciation of names is so bad it’s laughable. If you’re going to narrate a book about tennis, at least make some effort to get the pronunciations close, it doesn’t need to be perfect, but here it’s hilariously off.