“Top Spin”, a major tennis video game series, returns this Friday after 13 years of absence, featuring both the new stars of the little yellow ball, like Carlos Alcaraz, and former glories, like Steffi Graf. Football, with “EA Sports FC” (formerly “Fifa”), or basketball, with “NBA 2K”, are entitled every year to new titles updating the teams and their squads and offering more neat than the previous year.
But tennis is one of those popular sports – like rugby – which are struggling to break into the world of video games, while the cinema is currently putting it in the spotlight with the film “Challengers” by Italian director Luca Guadagnino, with Zendaya. “Top Spin 2K25”, marketed on Playstation and Xbox consoles, as well as on PC, attempts to correct this by playing in the simulation category: the exchanges are thus realistic and closely resemble those of a real match .
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This sensation is reinforced by a design worthy of a television broadcast and by the presence of real stars – current or past – of this sport, including Roger Federer and Iga Swiatek, the current world number 1. Note, however, the absence of his counterpart among the men, Novak Djokovic. The most famous tournaments, starting with those of the Grand Slam like Roland-Garros or Wimbledon, are also present, with their main modeled courts. The handling turns out to be quick, even if training is necessary to master the exchanges and avoid obvious direct errors.
On X (formerly Twitter), former French tennis player Gilles Simon welcomed the return of the series in January. “And I’m not saying that because I could vent all my frustration by sticking 3 sets to Rafa (el Nadal, Editor’s note) at Roland (Garros) with my avatar,” he joked, referring to a previous part. The first scores attributed to this new version by the specialized press showed an average close to 80% on Thursday, according to the aggregator Metacritic, with critics mostly highlighting its realism but regretting the graphics that could be improved.