Tennis video game 'TopSpin' back on court after 13 years

Avatars of tennis stars past and present will reunite Friday on the virtual courts of the "TopSpin" video game, as the franchise gets its first release for 13 years.

Spanish wunderkind Carlos Alcaraz is among the crop of current stars that gamers can enjoy controlling, and he is joined by legends from bygone eras such as Germany's former world number one Steffi Graf.

Tennis has long had appeal beyond its sporting confines, pushing fashion trends and providing the backdrop for a slew of big movies, from Woody Allen's "Match Point" to current box office hit "Challengers".

But it has struggled to make the leap into video games -- unlike football and basketball, both of which have hugely popular game franchises.

"TopSpin 2K25", released on PlayStation and Xbox consoles and on PC, tries to put this right by making the game-play look as close as possible to the real thing.

"So glad to be back in TopSpin after all these years," Roger Federer wrote on X, responding to a promotional video featuring the Swiss superstar in full motion-capture suit helping the game's developers.

Gamers can test themselves in the digitally rendered courts of Grand Slam venues such as Roland Garros in Paris, or London's Wimbledon.

And they can choose avatars of many of the stars of today, including world number one Iga Swiatek. The sport's unrivalled current superstar Novak Djokovic is absent, however.

Early reviews were "generally favourable", according to the Metacritic website, with praise for the realistic game-play but some criticism of the graphics.