Matchpoint: Tennis Championships is the latest tennis game created, as the sports game instalments have been absent since 2019. Created by Australian game studio, Torus Games, and published by Kalypso Media, Matchpoint: Tennis Championships brings back focus to the court with fun and intense rallies, but it still has some bugs that need to be ironed out.

The gameplay for Matchpoint: Tennis Championships is actually really good. The game controls well, and even when playing online there were no issues with connections which made for some good face-off matches.

The game is also cross-play which means you have the ability to play online or with friends across PC, Playstation, Xbox, and even the Nintendo Switch. You can create your own tennis star and take to building your legacy within the sport as you aim to achieve number one against the heavy hitters within the sport.

If you want to just jump straight into quickplay you can do so with sixteen characters to pick from, with an extra two for the DLC. I feel I say this whenever it comes to sports games – I don’t follow tennis, so I’m not sure who is ranked where, but out of the sixteen players, I only knew Nick Kyrgios.

Being an Aussie, his name is always mentioned around tennis season, but knowing other big-named stars and not seeing them in the roster was a bit weird, like the Venus sisters, for example.

I would say Barty but she did retire this year. Sadly, a few game modes were left out for Matchpoint: Tennis Championships. I hope they do bring them in at some stage, but for it to be missing doubles at launch was very disappointing to see.

The controls for Matchpoint are taught with a very helpful and in-depth tutorial when you first load up. It will cover all the aspects you will need to know from serving, aiming shots, and changing shot styles to hopefully get the upper hand. Going from tutorial to quick play, I noticed how fast it plays and makes you react a lot quicker – the AI plays aggressively and will close and point out any gaps that are present.

The audio for Matchpoint: Tennis Championships is done well to capture the real feel of being at a tennis match. The silence of just hearing the ball and the small grunts, to the announcer saying the small, and the little burst of applause after a point is earned. The running commentator will only talk after a play is mode and rarely talks during a rally, which is good for keeping focus.

The graphics are done well for the court but are a miss with the characters. Some of the body portions were oddly sized and the animations looked rough. There was no life to the models and they constantly looked like they were in an eternal state of pain. It was amusing when they would moonwalk around the court though. It was very obviously a glitch, but they were good enough that they could have been backup dancers for Michael Jackson.

Matchpoint: Tennis Championships plays great and is stable for online play, so saying that in itself is a big pro, but with the good comes the bad. With a small roster of characters, character animations that need to be reworked, and game modes that have been a staple to the Tennis franchise for years missing, they need to release more stars to play. They’ve captured the intense rallies, but as a whole, it needs to have some improvements made as it has the potential to be a great tennis game.

Written by: Shane Walsh