Virtua Tennis 2009

***Virtua Tennis 2009*** (***Power Smash: Live Match!*** in Japan) is the re-release of to Sega's second sequel to the *Virtua Tennis series*, Virtua Tennis 3. It was released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and Wii.

## Virtua Tennis 2009

### Platform(s)

PlayStation 3
Xbox 360
Wii
Microsoft Windows

### Genre(s)

Sports
Party

### Mode(s)

Single-player
Multiplayer (2-4 players)

## Gameplay

### New features

* **Player creation:** A new create-a-player system is improved and fun to use, such as giving out the birthday date, a new posture feature to choose player service stances, return positions and shot animations. (A player may enter the first and last names like the other players; e.g. Lewis Bentley)
	+ New home-select feature with nationality-detector (the player's nationality depends on their home).
* **New Players:** New players such as Ana Ivanovic, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Svetlana Kuznetsova as well as legends like Boris Becker and Tim Henman. (Henman is chosen to be the player's coach.)
	+ In addition, the World Tour mode now uses over 200 officialy-made fictional players, by the likes of players such as Lian Fournier, Michelle Reveley, Matthew Squires, Amelia Cameron and many more. This replaces the previous game, Virtua Tennis 3's, system where only famous players are played against.
* **Court Features:** New speed of balls, like high and slow balls in clay courts, faster and lower in hard and grass courts.
* **Tennis Store:** Players can use money earned in tournaments to purchase equipment such as racquets and clothing in stores.
* **3D Crowd:** There is a new generated 3D crowd and people. They move and cheer whenever players give a winning shot and they also make noise whenever the players stumble during long rallies.
* New environment sounds, crowds, background music and low-pitched grunts.
* Tennis stars have more details and their features are more realistic.

## Players

*Virtua Tennis 2009* has 11 ATP players, 9 WTA players, 3 legends and 2 unplayable bosses, leading to a grand total of 23 players that are playable.

(N) - New to the series

(L) - Legend

(B) - Boss

## Reception

The game received a somewhat mixed reception, with an average Metacritic score of 75% on next-gen consoles, and 70% on the PC. Play UK called it "the best in the series so far", but also admitted that "the action may feel far too familiar to owners of Virtua Tennis 3". IT Reviews said it was "a terrific tennis game yet, conversely, an unnecessary one", also concluding that "it adds too little to Virtua Tennis 3". Eurogamer pointed out that the online multiplayer had been improved, but otherwise complained about a "general lack of ambition".

There were concerns that the competition was too easy, taking as much as 10 hours of gameplay before facing a competent opponent. Even the online action often suffered from lag and jitteriness and players "teleporting" to instantly jump across the screen.

## Glitches

* Racket movement in animations, if held in the non-dominant hand, is glitchy, and not held in the right position.
* The match point music may not play if the continue button is pressed quickly. It may sometimes play at the post-match screen.
* Online play gets rather glitchy, as players can often experience lag, and see their characters teleporting across the screen.
* If a player saves a match point in one game, and wins it in the next game in the World Tour, there's a possibility that the tournament draw may show the opponent going to the next round. It cannot be spectated, and if the player tries to, it will instead show two Roger Federers, making it unplayable. When the game goes onto the court, two famous players are instead playing, chosen at random, and their names are not shown on the scoreboard. This glitch will not occur if the next round to be played is a doubles match.
* **Thomas Joseph** on the men's tour lacks eyes on his model due to a coding error.
* **Eduards Ozols** on the men's tour doesn't represent the correct nation on Wii, representing Argentina instead of Latvia. This is evident due to his name being Latvian, not Spanish.

## Trivia

* *Virtua Tennis 2009* was the first installment to be released on Wii.

## Gallery

VirtuaTennis2009FirstBoxart.pngFirst version of the boxart, featuring Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Maria Sharapova.