Easy to pick up, difficult to master.
Sure there are only 3 shots, but the way you use them changes the nature of the game entirely. You can simply use forehand and backhand strokes all day, but you'll never get far that way. Once you raise your players skill and once you get familiar with what's possible, you'll learn how to smash, volley, and use drop shots, along with better use of angles in your slice and top spin strokes. If it's possible in the sport of tennis you can do it in this game. And you need to learn how to do it, because the AI continues to improve as you go along.
Some of the better points of the game-
Graphics are really good, especially considering it came out over two years ago.
Player animations are done really well. Every time I see one of them slip and have to put their hand down because I hit the ball against their direction of movement, I get a smile on my face. They also react accordingly when they gain or lose an important point.
Ball physics are excellent. Watch a slow-motion replay of a winning shot and you can see it take a path just over the top of the net to land, skid for just a second - leaving a clear mark - and bounce off the court. Very impressive.
You can make your own player, which is always nice.
World tour mode is a lot of fun.
The tennis is just all around fun to play.
Good online options.
Some of the worse points of the game-
It will occasionally freeze up on you. Even if you have auto save enabled, you will lose a lot of progress. It happened to me just after I hit #1 and I had to go back and do a lot of work over again. Seems that if you exit world tour mode, it will make a "hard" save which will not be lost.
The map in world tour mode is a bit clumsy. It sometimes will not recognize diagonal input from the direction stick, have to use the D-pad instead.
They really needed to include more players for you to compete against (I don't care if they even made them up, they don't all need to be real players). You play the same licensed players from the very first tournament to the very last, they just compete at a higher and higher level as you go up in rank.
Player customization could have used some more variety.
Overall presentation could have been better. NHL 09 should be the standard all sports games aim for - from the gameplay (this game does get that right), to the graphics, to the wealth of options - every sports game should offer at least as much and Sega missed some opportunities with that here.
Value for you money-
Surprisingly good. I was afraid it might be one of those games you pick up and play for a few hours, then get bored with it and never go back. It's actually so much fun, I have to force myself to take a break from it. I can see myself playing this game off and on for a long time to come.
All in all it's a good game. I'm not at all a tennis fan, I just like to try different kinds of games and I'm glad I gave this one a try.