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At last, C64 owners can abuse their rackets in the privacy of their own home (the Amiga game scored a worthy 88% in Issue 55). You can practise your strokes either against the computer (choose from three skill levels) or a friend on the 3D court viewed from the usual TV angle.

A novel technique is used to serve: as the player throws the ball up, a small cross appears on the court - this must be guided into the relevant service box. To return the ball you must position your player and accurately time your swing.

To help you master this tricky technique, there are a variety of practice options. The training machine can throw balls at you in six different patterns, and there's another option to practise serving.

When you're ready, you can take on computer players of various ability in the four major international tennis tournaments: Wimbledon and the Australian, French and US Opens. Even if you don't win a tournament, the more matches you win the higher your ranking (starting at 64th) will get. As getting to No. 1 is likely to take a long time, the game includes a useful save facility.

This is a really good conversion (by British programmers ESP), retaining the Amiga game's simple playability and featuring some very good, large player sprites.

The game plays almost identically to the original with a high speed of play that makes hitting the ball a difficult task at first. One slight annoyance is that the player sometimes performs a backhand shot when you want a forehand (and vice versa), but this is a minor niggle.

With the short-term playability of the two-player game plus the long-term interest provided by world tournaments, Pro Tennis Tour must be the top-seeded tennis sim.

Another silly sport if you ask me: knocking balls over a net with a piece of wood with string tied across it. But if you've got a fetish for that sort of thing, Pro Tennis Tour is your pot of yoghurt. Originally called Great Courts (a strange translation from the French), Ubisoft's tennis sim is just as good as it was on the Amiga with almost identical fast-paced action.

The only things missing are the strawberries and cream, but who needs them when you've got an economy bottle of Big Dom?

Presentation 87%
A good range of practice and play options. Useful save game facility.

Graphics 80%
The large sprites are very well animated.

Sound 76%
Okay little tune, sparse but informative in-game FX.

Hookability 83%
Difficult to master at first but very playable in two-player mode.

Lastability 81%
A variety of tough computer opponents should keep you playing.

Overall 82%
A very pro-fessional pro-duct.