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

* Bloomberg 10 Best Books of Summer 2025 *

An award-winning tennis writer tells the story of the end of one epic era in the sport and the birth of another.

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.

Giri Nathan is a staff writer and cofounder of Defector Media. His writing has also appeared in publications including New York magazine, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, and The New Yorker. He is the senior correspondent at the tennis outlet The Second Serve, and a regular guest on tennis podcasts. In 2022, he received the Tom Perrotta Priza for Tennis Journalism. Follow him on X @GiriNathan for his latest stories.