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I can well remember playing tennis at school (Wednesday afternoons, Summer Term). Watch tennis on the telly and its all grunts and leaps, fast-moving projectiles and top sporting action. Play it yourself - if you're as crap as I am - and it's all grazing your hands on tarmac as you fish dirty white tennis balls out from under wire meshing. Let's be honest, I played tennis for two hours, fifteen weeks a year, for six years, and in all that time I managed to return three serves and no volleys!

So I can relate to poor Esprit (the turbo-charged tennis ace you take control of in Pro Tennis) and his predicament. Pro Tennis Tour is a very difficult game, you see, and you need to stick at it for a long time - using the serving machine practice mode as well - before you'll be able to return a shot in more than most flukiest of circumstances. So if you ain't got the staying power (and at least a modest interest in the sport) you'd better give this one a wide berth.

Serving seems difficult at first, but you get the hang of it real quick, and with a bit of practice you become less of a walk-over for the opposition. It's still much too tricky though, and can only be recommended in all honesty to tennis afficionados. The unconverted will be better off with the eminently more gnarlsome International 3D Tennis.

Original release: December 1989
Original publisher: UBI Soft
Original score: 72% (AA53)

Overall 54%
An average tennis sim which takes an awful lot of getting used to.