It's just as fun as rockstar table tennis, but more so if you are a true tennis fan. Gameplay is very versitile.
After creating your character you basically start off career mode by training each week (probably for your whole first simulated year of the career) to build up your attributes (such as forehand, backhanded, speed, volley, stamina etc) with bronze stars. Later on by winning matches you can upgrade your bronze stars to silver and then gold stars. What's great about this feature is that you can truly make a custom character in terms of skill development. If you want an amazing serve and volleyer just dump all your stars into those categories. Or maybe instead you want a baseline attacker, so you put everything into your forehand, backhand and power rating. Or you could settle with a well balanced player and rely on using game momentum (more on that later) and well executed risk shots to seal the deal for you. Basically however you like to play tennis, you can play that way to win at topspin 2. As far as other modes go;
There's also basica head to head modes if you want to take a friend on.
A live mode for you to pick a pro and play against someone online(however you can't use your career made character, you'll have to stick with one of the standard pros, even though it's really not that bad watching sharapova run up and down the court now is it?)
career mode
and tournament mode where you enter into a tournament with a pro trying to win.
What makes this game great is the gameplay depth when it comes to the actual tennis. Theres your standard 3 different types of shots you can apply to your serve and regular swing (top spin, spin, and lob) as well as a purely safe swing you can use to make sure you player gets the ball over the net. What gives players an edge in this game though, is mastering risk shots, which is basically a shot that can use game momentum that you've built up (ie winning the past few points or game) to help you unleash a devestating cross or power shot. For these it's all about timing, and depending on how much you have in your focus attribute, you can have little or no leeway in terms of room for error. If you time the shot wrong, it's an automatic miss. Having more focus will give you a little bit more of a cushion to time these types of shots, but not much. Personally i like to forego using these and rely mainly on percision and cunning to win, but i can see how someone who has mastered these types of power risk shots could utterly destroy my player, unless i had some very high mastered speed/reflex player (which if that were the case they wouldn't be to good at a lot of other important statistics)
Anyway the game is pretty much what you would expect from a tennis game. Deep career mode, immersive gameplay, frustrating break points and sighs of relief when your shot lands in or the opponents sails wide, giving you the victory you've worked hard for.
Pros;
lots of different shot types provide a fun and varied tennis experience, whether you are a risky or conseravtive player.
deep and fun career mode that only gets boring after you are #1 and have won every tournament 8 times. xbox live mode there for you to try your skills online after career mode domination.
the game also makes very good use of game momentum, which is an important factor in real tennis.
cons; risk shots have no chance of going in if you are slightly off on timing,
the ai difficulty is a little strange. depending on which part of a tournament you meet a player, you may play the #1 seed and have them play like a #47 seed in the first round, or play the #47 seed in the finals and have them play like the #1 seed.