The speed of the action is aided by the control system, a leftover from the original Virtua Tennis on Dreamcast. You don’t mess with perfection, and the beautiful simplicity of topspin, slice and lobbing, holding the button down to get the desired power and directing the shot via the analog stick still works amazingly well. Brave souls can, if they wish, switch to SixAxis control - and it’s decent - it’s fun for a while, but lacks the accuracy to use throughout the game. However, get a gang of you SixAxising it up in multi-player and it’s comedy gold, with the random jerks and thrusts resembling some kind of broken robot dance routine.

Out on court, the only real change is the improved opposition - just when you think you’ve dispatched a winner, your rival will launch into a full-length lunge, somehow keeping the rally going. With points lasting that bit longer, more tactics come into play as you spray shots around to try and move your competitor out of position - which only adds to the satisfaction when you finally unleash a thunderous winner.

Another improvement is the increased focus on the way different surfaces play. Grass courts have an accurate low bounce, making serve and volley tactics a much better bet than strokes from the baseline. In contrast, the clay courts are bouncy like a castle, producing longer rallies.