Changeover: Giri Nathan Sets Stage for Sinner-Alcaraz Rivalry in New Book

While the book chronicles the 2024 ATP season — the first season that both Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz split Grand Slam titles and the Big 3 finished a year majorly empty-handed since 2002 — Nathan prefaces the story with the match that led him to buy into the brilliance of 'Sincaraz.'

Through a humorous and vivid retelling of leaving the US Open grounds early the eve of Sinner and Alcaraz's 2022 US Open quarterfinal classic, he details the brilliance in that match that led to a sudden regret for missing a chance to watch a marathon that produced over 45 minutes of highlight tape.

As Nathan goes on to detail the upbringing of both Sinner and Alcaraz, the book is so much more than just a breakdown of the Sinner-Alcaraz rivalry. From the first chapter, Nathan understands the importance of acknowledging and recognizing the past before giving credit and acclaim to the future.

"Tennis is a terminally nostalgic sport, always trying to make sense of its future by using its past," Nathan writes.

Starting with vivid descriptions of the Big 3 that made me feel as though I was 12 again and watching Roger Federer highlights non-stop on YouTube, the euphoric illustrations of the greatest period of the Open Era were cut short with the real anxiety at the time of how tennis would change when Novak Djokovic became the only active member of the illustrious trio on tour.

With the retirement of Federer, Rafael Nadal, and an aging Djokovic, Nathan compiles a beautiful argument for not only the sport of tennis ceding to suffer in their absence, but becoming even better with the rise in quality on the tour and the success of a variety of characters now that was just not plausible during the two decades of the Big 3's reign.

The breakdowns of Alcaraz and Sinner's play styles, along with an entire chapter on Daniil Medvedev, Nathan truly covers his bases in regard to ATP tennis over the past 20 years, with mentions of players and match details that provide context for a newer fan picking up this book or pure feel-good nostalgia for tennis nerds like myself.

The context provided before diving into the 2024 season sets the stage beautifully to understand just how miraculous this seamless turn in tides was from the Big 3 to the New 2.

Littered with witty humor, delicate phrasing and just overall beautiful prose that the award-winning tennis journalist is known for displaying in any given article, this book provides a gripping writing style that proves to be a perfect gift for a novice fan that is getting into tennis after seeing Alcaraz fan edits on TikTok or a tennis traditionalist who is not yet ready to dismiss the greats of the past for the current titans in front of us.

In the wake of the 2025 US Open, Sports Illustrated's Serve On SI spoke with Nathan about his National Bestseller.

Takashi Williams: There’s a beautiful line you included in the opening chapter of the book from writer Owen Lewis: “Tennis was a passion for Carlos and a religion for Jannik.”

A big question coming into the US Open was whether Alcaraz had the same overall consistency that Sinner does. With Carlitos dropping only one set in his 2025 US Open campaign, do you think that question has now been answered?

Giri Nathan: That's one of the things I contrast between these two players in the book. Jannik was just so much smoother at cruising through the early rounds and saving his stamina for the big matches, whereas Carlos was prone to these even as recently as Wimbledon. He went five sets against Fognini, who literally retired like the next day from professional tennis.

So it was amazing to see Carlitos go through the entire Open in this business-like fashion, and I think it reflects a new ceiling for him, because not only did he make it to the final without dropping a set, he finished the tournament only being broken three times.

The serve was never the strongest aspect of his game, but it's getting there. And if he adds that on top of what he already possesses from the baseline, it's a very complete package. So yeah, I would say things that contrast in these guys' early careers will change over time, because I honestly think they're going to become a lot more like each other over time. They're going to borrow more and more from each other's games, and they're just going to get that much better.

TW: A popular question you’ve gotten since the book’s release is who might be the first player to crash the “Sincaraz” party. Now that the US Open is behind us, who’s your pick — and has the most recent major influenced that choice at all?

GN: We talked about this a little, but I don't think [the 2025 US Open] has really changed my answer. I really think if there's a true contender to these guys, it's going to take a few years to emerge, and it could be someone in their early 20s who needs to kind of mature and put the pieces of their game together, or it could be someone who's like 16 years old now, who we're not even aware of. So it could be one of those cases.

But in terms of what the US Open changed, I think it raised some potential candidates for who that first category of rival could be: someone in their early 20s who just gets better slowly. And I think no one would have said that Felix Auger-Aliassime would have been going neck to neck with Sinner for four sets, and there were moments of that match where it looked like he was going to take it.

We hadn't seen that level from him in three years, and his forehand: worldclass. Backhand, which has at times been a weakness for Felix, was pretty robust, and he could take it down the line, which was one of its major short killings. He is way more comfortable going cross-court on that shot.

Even just looking at what Denis Shapovalov did against Sinner in the earlier rounds, it was just a reminder that these two Canadians had a lot of hype and a lot of expectations, and they've been leapfrogged by Sinner and Alcaraz, but they're certainly still young, and it's not too late for them to take advantage of their very impressive athletic tools.

They're both great athletes, great shot-makers, and that's probably one of my main takeaways from the US Open is that these guys in their early to mid-20s, they're not leaving anytime soon, so they've got time to figure it out.

TW: As a tennis fan, I appreciated how your book not only dives deeply into Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, but also shines a light on a range of players — from a mention of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to a whole chapter on Daniil Medvedev. What was the most enjoyable part of the book to write, and which player outside of the “New 2” did you most enjoy exploring in detail?

GN: I would definitely say the chapter about Medvedev was the most enjoyable. And I just loved diving into his personality, because I think depending on how closely you follow tennis and the press conferences and whatnot, you might not have the most complete portrait of him, just because the way he acts on the court is so outrageous. And it's easy to just look at that and think he's a huge jerk all the time.

But I hope that in that chapter, I was able to convey a more kind of well-rounded picture of him and show what an interesting figure he is in terms of landing right between two great eras in tennis history: at the end of the big three era, and then he's pinned up against what looks like the Sinner-Alcaraz era ahead.

So I thought that made him a pretty interesting character to explore, and I had a lot of fun just writing that chapter and trying to get funny and loose with it, while also drawing on a lot of his backstory, and which is quite interesting to explore.

TW: Finally, I felt this book provided much detail on so many aspects of tennis and its champions. I don’t want to minimize its intricacies with this question, but if there were one key takeaway you’d want every reader of Changeover to have, what would it be?

GN: I think the one key takeaway is that it took a lot to break through the Big 3. I think that the book, fundamentally, is about the generational shift in the men's game, and we've been, as fans, waiting to see who would be the ones to move the game forward, and we knew it was going to take some spectacular talent, because even players like, Andy Murray, an all-timer, he was getting trapped behind these three guys.

So I think my one takeaway is that I want players to kind of appreciate what a breakthrough it is for Sinner, 24, and Alcaraz, 22, to already be kind of imposing their own era on the game, after we just lived through one for 20 years.

So how quickly they've done it, how far they've distanced themselves from the pack. It's pretty unusual, and I think a lot of people were expecting a more wide-open field for the end of the Big 3 era, but in fact, they've turned around and made it all about them.

They've got eight slams in a row. They're winning pretty much every tournament of note. Anytime they're in the same tournament, they seem to meet in the final. I think it's six of the last seven, or five of the last six.

I want people to see what a big deal it was that the generations shifted so quickly and seamlessly. I think it'll be pretty unusual to go back and look at this in like 40 years, and hopefully my book can help make sense of that transition.