Matchpoint – Tennis Championships: Solid Fundamentals, Lots To Learn

Over the last decade, we’ve seen a few tennis games try to become the Grand Slam of Tennis video games. The latest contender is Matchpoint – Tennis Championships from Torus Games. Is it an immediate ace, or does it need more practice? Let’s find out!

Game Name: Matchpoint – Tennis Championships
Platform(s): Xbox Series X/S (reviewed), Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Switch, PC
Publisher(s): Kalypso Media
Developer(s): Torus Games
Release Date: 7th July 2022 (also on Gamepass day one)

Matchpoint – Tennis Championships, like many others before aims to emulate the sport of Tennis. Something that, in my opinion, hasn’t been done that well since 2K Sports’ Top Spin 4 debuted in 2011. It so with varying degrees of success.

The first thing to point out is Matchpoint’s familiar and relatively simple controls. On Xbox, you use the left stick to move your player and aim shots while using the A, B, X, and Y buttons to execute different shots. These simple but effective controls are the foundation of an on-court experience that feels expertly smooth. There is some depth to the controls at the same time. Holding a shot button affects the power or the ability to rush the net with the Right Bumper. The flow of gameplay feels excellent with the ability for a quick point or a long, tough rally. It feels like I’m in a tennis match when playing, and I love that.

Unfortunately, the stellar on-court experience is soured by some shortcomings off the court, from the complete lack of doubles matches and lack of licenses for major tournaments. The limited roster, containing only 16 licensed players, 11 Male Players, and 5 Female players, is disappointing. You do, of course, have the ability to create your players to use in both career mode and quick play. This creation suite is limited, though, with only a few options to choose from.

I spent most of my time playing the career mode, which has some decent ideas, like using different coaches to upgrade different stats. Unlocking different rackets that affected my stats as I made my way up the rankings was also fun. Ultimately, this mode was left feeling a little bare with the lack of tournaments licensing and a limited roster. I spent 10 hours of play getting to the top 50 and winning a couple of Major tournaments. I didn’t face off against one of the 11 licensed male players during this time.

Just a quick word there is also multiplayer available with cross-play. However, I could not test this in the review period due to a lack of players. I will update this section of the review when I’ve had the chance to get some games in.

When looking at Matchpoint, you will immediately notice that it doesn’t have that next-gen shine to it. It doesn’t look bad by any stretch. It just has this almost cartoony-realism to the visuals. You can tell who each of the licensed players but the art style isn’t as realistic as you’d see in other sports simulations necessarily. It definitely isn’t going to blow you away. 

This is somewhat similar to the audio. Sound such as grunts and striking the ball sound properly, and gives the sensation of being on the court. Even with different shot types sounding different, shot power also affects this. The same can’t be said of the basic one-line delivery of the lifeless commentary; it’s almost pointless.

The technical experience here was mostly great, with zero dropped frames. It’s worth mentioning there is no graphical or performance mode toggle for the Xbox Series X|S version, so I’d imagine this would extend to the PS5 version s well. I did experience one bug, the ball being called Out when clearly bouncing in. While this only happened a handful of times, I did mention this to the developer, Torus Games. Who is keenly aware of the issue and has mentioned that this should be fixed in the day one patch, so you shouldn’t see it at all.

Despite its shortcomings off the court, as someone who played Wheelchair Tennis. Matchpoint nails the experience of Tennis where it matters the most and has been the best time I’ve had with a tennis game in a decade. It’s a game that I can’t wait to play more! I wish it had the depth of offerings off the court to match my want to play. It was also disappointing to find a complete lack of any accessibility features. Hopefully, these can be added in the future because for the on-court experience alone, this is a must-play for tennis fans. The strongest foundation of a tennis game I’ve seen in years, and that should be open to as many players as possible. 

This is a franchise I will be keeping an eye on in the future, so do yourself a favour and give it a go!

Matchpoint – Tennis Championships releases on July 7th, 2022, for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: Matchpoint – Tennis Championships was provided to us by Publisher for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.