Introduction

Virtua Tennis 2 (Power Smash 2 in Japan and Tennis 2k2 in the US) is an arcade game pubished in 2001 by Sega. Later, there were two console versions: on Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. The game was a success and people still remembers it. However, some of the old school players are adults now, so they don’t have a lot of time to play anymore. At the same time, some young players could discover the game but they may not have access to a community or technical knowledge.

This is the purpose of this blog: to create a web which could connect old and new players, while providing all kind of data and tips to improve their skills. This might foster new tournaments at the gaming conventions and the community would increase.

Virtua Tennis 2 finals at Fightcade Offline Festival (Spain, 2018)

In Virtuasmash2 you will find information about the players (properties, how to play each one), the surfaces (features, tips and how each surface influences the game), the game mechanics (strategies, controls and tips), some tournament rules and a compilation of tournament videos that will increase as much as we find VT2 competitions. None is definitely closed, so we accept any suggestions or information that you could bring us.

Training and tournaments

How to train

This game is from 2001, so not a lot of people keep playing it constantly. However, there are many retro gaming conventions, with plenty of competitions, free plays and tournaments. In countries like Spain and France some events are including Virtua Tennis 2 in their tournaments line up. Probably the biggest has been the Fightcade Offline Festival (March 2018, Murchante, Spain), with a really interesting VT2 tournament in a japanese classic arcade cabinet. The Dreamcast version of the game makes easier this kind of events.

But how can we train this game further than those events? If we have a friend that likes the game as much as we do, that’s the perfect solution! But it’s not that easy with a retro game. So, we must look for another way to practice. Of course, we can use on-line emulators, like Demul, which works with Dreamcast and Naomi arcade systems. The emulator also allows on-line matches, so if some friends from far plays VT2 too, you can play with them.

We can also play against the CPU but after some games the arcade mode could become boring repeating every time the same routines. However, if we play the Exhibition mode at the Dreamcast or PlayStation 2 version, we can face the CPU with different levels, surfaces and settings. For example, we can play against Norman at Paris or Rafter at Wimbledon. We can also change the difficulty, so we can play at the hardest level, the closest to a tough human rival. At last, we can play matches of 2, 3 or even 6 games to win, with or without tie break.

Tournament rules

The default settings in the game are matches of 2 games to win and no tie break. However this is unfair because one of the players will serve one game more than his rival. That advantage could define a match. So we should change the game options. The fairest setting is the tie break, which assures the same number of serve games for each player. The three versions of the game (Arcade, Dreamcast and PlayStation 2) accept this change. It recommends using the tie break in convention events as a fairer judgment rule.

Another important rule that should be at tournaments involves the character select. This game doesn’t allow both players use the same character. If I want to play Pioline but my rival chooses him before I do, I will have to choose a new player. That’s why both players should say before the game which character they want. If it’s different, there is no problem. But if they want the same one, they have to do a rock-paper-scissors game to decide the first player to choose a character.

Tournament and videos database

YouTube is an awesome tool with tons of videos. It contains lots of Virtua Tennis 2 videos but most of those are short gameplays, One Credit Clears or poor reviews. So, this section wants to provide some tournament or competitive gameplay videos of this game. At the same time, most of tournaments that communities organize are not explained. Then, we decided to show the events with Virtua Tennis 2 competitions.

1- HFS-V - Virtua Tennis Tournament (Vierzon, France, may 2019)
The 5th edition of HFS had the competitive tournaments of Street Fighter games and some ''family friendly'' ones, including Virtua Tennis 2. Anyway, the ''family friendly'' label was only a tag, because the tournament was really serious: 26 players, some of them really strong, live stream and Ken Bogard as a commentator. It was played in a Versus City Arcade Head-to-head setup. Due to the family label, the tournament was played in a single elimination format. The winner was Septa, the second place was for Ken Bogard (aka GArcade on Smash.gg) and the third for Marcade. Here is the whole tournament video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ri-gtVfrcY Here is the bracket: https://smash.gg/tournament/hfs-v-1/events/virtua-tennis-2-solo/brackets/453704/808181/

2- RetroBarcelona 2018 - Virtua Tennis 2 Tournament (december 2018)
The RetroBarcelona event belongs to a bigger convention, like Barcelona Games World, with thousands of visitors and stands. That's why it becomes a really interesting opportunity to show Virtua Tennis 2 in a competitive way. The tournament took place on sunday 2nd december, with an impressive amount of 35 players. It was played in a double Versus City Arcade Head-to-head setup from Navarcade crew. Due to schedule limitations (tournament at lunch time and organizers that couldn't leave the events so late), the tournament was in a Single Elimination format. This is the Challonge link of the brackets: https://challonge.com/es/u1dw0b0m

Top 3 (from left to right): Diego (2nd place), Marcade (1st place), Pedro Ruiz (3rd place).

3- A.R.C.A.D.E. Winter Tournament (Barcelona, december 2018)
The catalan association A.R.C.A.D.E. organized a winter event with three different tournaments: Puzzle Bobble 2, Initial D and Virtua Tennis 2. The event took place in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona) on december 15th. The Virtua Tennis 2 tournament was played in a single elimination bracket. First matches were First to 3 games, semi-finals were First to 4 and the grand finals were First to 6 (a whole tennis set). The winner was Albert ''McFly'' and the second place was for Dani Trape. Check the event video: 

4- Fightcade Offline Festival - Virtua Tennis 2 Tournament - Top 3
This convention took place in Murchante (Navarra, Spain) in march 2018. It included more than 50 japanese arcade cabinets and players from 5 different countries, like Spain, France, UK, Italia and Japan. There were several arcade tournaments, including Virtua Tennis 2. The competition was played in a Naomi original arcade system and a Konami Windy 2 arcade cabinet. This is the video of the top 3 finals: 

How to play

Basic Strategies: there are some basic strategies that must be known to compete against human players.

Guessing game: Virtua Tennis 2 is a guessing game: players need to guess the moves and shots of their opponents. That’s why we need to surprise our rivals, in order to not repeat constantly the same shots, directions and tricks. It is also very important to keep focus when our rival runs and hits the ball. That will definitely help us to take correct decisions.

Characters properties: The game characters have strengths and weaknesses, so use it! Blow up your virtues, basing your game on them. Punish your rival vulnerabilities forcing him to use it. For example, if your opponent plays Thomas Enqvist (strong backhand), prevent him doing backhand strokes and force him to shot with forehand moves. If your rival takes Tin Henman, push him to the baseline and prevent him going to the net.

Shot Directions: Other interesting tips to get better at VT2 are about the direction of the shots. There are 8 different directions for shots and these are basic to improve our strokes. 

The 8 directions of the stick or gamepad.

Some rookie players only use the forward or lateral shots, trying to hit the ball stronger but they completely forget about the angles. Pressing the down diagonals will allow the player to open the shots, leading our rival to more troubles to hit the ball. While charging the stroke, if we keep that direction pressed, we will accurate more our shot. That’s also important when the rival goes to the net to volley. If we press forward, the ball will get higher and our opponent will be able to hit a stronger volley.

There’s something else to know about shot directions. As we control the side we run at and the direction of the shot with the same controller, newbie players aren’t able to manage both correctly. As they run to take the ball, they use to keep the same direction for their shots, so their game becomes predictable.

In fact, it’s important to switch the direction (when needed) between run and shot. This change requires some timing. If it’s done too soon, the player could miss the ball. If it’s too late, the player will not point the ball. That’s why, in my opinion, arcade sticks are better than gamepads for VT2 because this change is easier with a wrist gesture than a finger one. And stick moves become really important, not only for switching but also the point as much as we can the ball.

Errors: Something specific of this game about directions is the fact that unforced errors don’t exist. In tennis there are two kinds of errors. The first one is the forced error, when the position, the power of the hit or another difficulty provokes a bad shot (to the net or out of the court). The second one is the unforced, because the player does a bad shot when there wasn’t difficulty. In this game the unforced one is only possible at serve, while pointing with no obstacle.

A double fault, the only unforced error possible.

The rest of mistakes will always be forced. In game, the player can’t send voluntarily the ball out. If this happens is because of a good shot of the rival and the player has to strain the arms while running or he intercepts a smash with no time to soften the ball.

The power of the shots: At last, we need to understand how to hit strong. There are three important mechanics to define the power of a shot: the height of the hit, the race of the player and the time he press the button.

Firstly, the height at which we hit the ball influences the strength of the hit. The higher the position of the hit is the stronger will our shot be. But it’s pretty tough to give back the ball if the position of the hit is low, because we need to send the ball upper to avoid the net, rather than throwing straight to our the other side. That’s why a smash and a volley are stronger than a low hit.

So to hit harder we have to run to the ball as soon as possible, enabling the players to be ready to the hit when the ball bounces. However, if we aren’t ready and we arrive late to the ball, our hit will be weaker. But what does ‘being ready’ mean? The run of the player is essential in order to find a good place to hit the ball as high as possible. A tennis player will always try to orient himself where he could hit high. But finding a good place is also important to charge our stroke, because we will have more time to prepare our hit. In Virtua Tennis 2, the power of the hit also depends of how long we press the button. The more we hold the button, the stronger we will hit. So, if we find a good place, we will be prepared for the ball bounce and we will have enough time to hold the button during the whole motion of the stroke. Then our hit is going to be stronger.

Shots: Once seen the importance of directions and power, let’s talk about the different hits. VT2 has three kinds of shots, according to the effect of the ball.

The three kind of shots.

1 – Top spin (button 1): this is the shot that applied order rotation (vertical rotation) to the ball. A ball flies quickly and bounds highly; an orbit is high.

2 – Slice spin (button 2): this is the shot that applied reverse rotation to the ball. A ball flies late as it floated and bounds low; an orbit is low.

3 – Lob (button 1 and 2 at once): this is the shot of a high arch that passes over a partner's head. It's effective when passing the head top of the partner approaching the net.

A graphic recap of the buttons and shots.

These three shots solve different kind of situations, so we will need all of them. So, we shouldn’t abuse of the top spin and try to switch to the other shots.

Top Spin: the hit that we need at the baseline, mid volleys and serving. It’s the main shot and it’s rather offensive. It’s more powerful than slice spin and lob shots. Due to its order rotation, it’s useful to push our rival out of the court, because this shot is deeper and sends the ball to the background.

When the player has to volley at half height (between waist and shoulder), the top spin stroke is more advisable, because it increases the power of the volley.

However, the top spin is not so good in defense. If the player arrives forced to the net, in a difficult position, top spin will not be so accurate. As it’s more powerful, it’s harder to handle. So, we could send the ball out.

Slice spin: the new stroke of VT2. It’s rather defensive because of its reverse rotation. We should use it too at the baseline and for high volleys. When we are at the baseline, the slice spin allows us to calm the situation: if our rival is attacking us, hitting powerful strokes, a slice spin is our best option to recover the situation. As it’s a slower hit, it takes more time to arrive to our rival side. So, we can use that time to get in a better position. At the same time, our rival will probably need to move to have a good situation for his strokes. Accordingly if it’s well done, that resets the point and opens an option of comeback.

Slice spin it’s also our best option for forced hits. When our player hits the ball jumping and stretching, we should press the slice spin button. Due to its lower speed, it’s easier to drive, so it’s easier to throw the ball inside the court. That’s also important when we defend a serve, an always risky situation in front a good serve player.

Lob: this is the least used shot of the game, as it happens in real tennis. We only need this shot when our rival gets in the net. If he's really close to the net, waiting to hit a volley, we can trick him with a lob. If he press the button in order to volley, he's not going to hit the ball. If he doesn't press the button, he has to run back to get the ball, so he will lose the net position and then we have some comeback options.

Serve: the serve is one of the most important parts of the game. A good serve give a lot of advantage to the server.  So, it conditions how the rest the point will be played. However, we have several options to serve. There are two tools to improve our serve: directions and buttons. The more we press a direction, the farther we send the ball to that direction. That’s why we have to regulate how much we point to a direction in order to be accurate. Each button is a different kind of shot.

• Button 1: It’s the main shot to serve. It’s powerful and straight, with no effects. If we are not really good bending our serve, this is our best option: a strong serve to the corners to get the rival out of the court or the punish one of his weaknesses.

• Button 2: that’s the effect serve, bending the shot with a lower speed. The loss of power is balanced by a bigger precision. The ball keeps rotating after the bounce, so it continues to bend the trajectory. That opens even more the shot and it could send the rival really far, leaving us the whole court to confirm the point. A good trick is to open the serve with a not powerful shot (about the half of the meter): our rival will have to run and wait the ball, so we can get to the net to confirm the point.

The surfaces

The matches between human players can be played on four surfaces in the arcade version: France, Australia, England and United States. The eight tennis men and women available have advantage and disadvantage against the rest of players. However there aren’t match-ups like we can see in fighting games, because the qualities and defects of each player change in every surface. For example, Patrick Rafter is awesome in grass but weak in clay. Haas is strong at clay but weak in grass. So if two players at the same level play at Wimbledon with those characters, the one using Rafter will be in advantage. But the gap between players could completely switch if they play at Roland Garros, thanks to the clay that blow up Haas virtues.

PROPERTIES

Name	Surface	Ball speed	Properties	Best players	Worst players
France (Roland Garros)	Clay	Slow	The ball bounces hardly, so it takes more time to double bounce.	Kafelnik. Haas Enqvist Norman Pioline	Henman Rafter
Australia	Hard	Fast	A closer stage to the US one but the ball bounces lower, so it makes a faster gameplay.	Rafter Henman	Haas Moyá Enqvist Norman
England (Wimbledon)	Grass	Very fast	The grass court is faster and the ball bounces really low. So, the gameplay becomes very fast and the rallies are mostly short.	Henman Rafter	Norman Enqvist Haas Moyá
United States (US Open)	Hard	Medium	The most ‘balanced’ court: the ball bounces high but faster than Paris.	Pioline Kafelnik. Norman	Rafter Henman Haas Enqvist Moyá

TIPS

France: Baseline players used to have more time to react than net players. So they are able to prepare their best shots. Fast players have some advantage too. The player has to be really sure to get in the net. 

Both players stay at the baseline.

The rallies will use to be longer to score a point, due to the court properties. The players have to prepare their points little by little, because it's hard to get a winner shot. So, we need several good strokes to have a winner point possibility. That's why we need to handle all kind of shots: top spin, slice spin, lob, volley, etc.

However, serve players may get in the net with a good slow effect serve that will leave them some extra time to run and will get the rival out, needing some time to get back in the court.

Australia: As a faster surface with low bounce of the ball, serve and volley characters are the most interesting. Baseline players are in disadvantage because they are not always ready to prepare their best strokes.

The player at serve gets in the net to smash.

The rallies are shorter than the clay court ones. A single good stroke could change everything because of the higher speed of the ball. With a good shot from the baseline, we can force an error or a weak shot from our rival, which could allow us to put a end to the rally with a winner stroke, like a volley or a smash.

Wimbledon: Due to the gameplay speed and the short rallies, offensive characters have a lot of advantage. Serve and volley players don’t need several opportunities to make their best hits, while baseline players do.

The player at serve ends the point with a volley.

However, if an offensive player doesn’t finish the job soon and is pushed to the baseline, he will suffer more than a defensive player. It's pretty hard to stay in the baseline, not only because of the speed, but because of the low bounce of the ball. We must pay attention to the bounce: if it's too low we need to move fast in order to get a strong shot. If we hit close to the floor, our shot will be really weak and our rival will punish it. 

US: This court allows both play styles: net and baseline. The ball speed encourages offensive players to get in the net to volley.

One to players plays from the mid of the court while his rival stays at the baseline.

However, as the ball bounces high, baseline players can make their best shot too. This surface is really interesting for ‘all-round players’ as Pioline and Kafelnikov. A fast running player as Norman is well too, because he doesn’t really have super shots but he takes a lot of balls. Other characters will still have some weaknesses.

The players

Virtua Tennis 2 has 8 tennis men and 8 tennis women. Every player has specific properties, so everyone is unique. That’s why we need to understand what makes each player special before our choice.

However, this game doesn’t allow man versus woman matches. Therefore if someone chooses a female player, the other person is forced to take a woman too. Besides, male characters are more balanced and stronger than female ones. That’s why most of the players use to play with male characters. So, let’s have a look to the properties of each male player. After that, you will see some tips to play with every character.

Patrick Rafter: great serve, amazing volley.

One of the best players of the game, his net play is devastating. He has a really good serve but the shot that makes the difference is his volley. If Rafter gets in the net, his rival must be accurate to solve the situation.

How to use Rafter: he has an awesome “A Plan”. After a good serve, he is able to get in the net and end the point with a short rally. However he has no “B Plan”, so if he’s at the baseline, he has almost no options. In that case, he should do a slice spin to calm the game and try to approach to the net.

How to face Rafter: It’s pretty hard to defend Rafter’s serve. If our first hit isn’t good enough, he will score the point easily. So we need to hit the serve back with a low ball in order to prevent a Rafter volley. Then we should push back Rafter as long as we can. He will suffer far from the net.

Tin Henman: great volley, amazing serve.

He is the closest player to Rafter’s style. He has a really good net play too but his main shot is the serve. It doesn’t take a lot of shots to get in the net.

How to use Henman: the game plan is the same of Rafter, with two differences: the british is slower but he has a better backhand than the Australian player.

How to face Henman: we should play against the british player the same way as we face Rafter.

Cédric Pioline: pretty good at everything.

How to play Pioline: the French player is really well-rounded, so he has no weakness, being able to adapt to any kind of play style. His serve is not so strong but his volley pays off. His baseline game is correct too. We can be offensive or defensive, according to the situation, the rival or the surface.

How to face Pioline: he has no weakness but nothing is perfect, so we should not be afraid of him. As his serve is not so strong, we could defend better, preventing Pioline to get fast in the net. His baseline is correct but not devastating. So, if we keep a long rally with a good baseline player, Pioline could suffer.

Yevgeny Kafelnikov: good at everything but better.

How to play Kafelnikov: probably the best player of the game, Kafelnikov is also well-rounded but some virtues are better than Pioline ones. His serve is stronger and his baseline game is awesome, sustained by a really good forehand and backhand strokes. However his volley is not the best, specially the forehand one, so our Russian player should stay at the baseline.

How to face Kafelnikov: like Pioline, he has no weakness. His serve is powerful but due to his rather normal volley, he will stay at the baseline, where he exploits his virtues. Our goal is to end the rally as soon as possible, because Kafelnikov will get stronger and stronger. If the rally keeps going, our best defensive option is a slice spin shot to restore the situation.

Tommy Haas: great forehand.

How to play Haas: His main shot is the forehand stroke, so we have to use it. In some situations we will need to place faster in order to don’t hit backhand, a clearly weaker shot. His serve is correct but maybe not enough if we try to get in the net really soon. So, a Haas player will usually be in the baseline, trying to dominate with his forehand strokes.

How to face Haas: if his main shot is the forehand, avoid it as much as you can. Send him back the ball to the left, his backhand side. Then Haas will not be able to impose his game.

Thomas Enqvist: great backhand.

How to play Enqvist: just like Haas, he has a main shot but in this case is the backhand. If we play Enqvist we have to exploit it, so we will place every time we can in this position. However, Enqvist has a pretty strong serve that could allow us to get in the net to end fast the rally, especially with a backhand volley. Anyway, his best place is the baseline, where he could prepare a backhand shot.

How to face Enqvist: if we send him back the ball to his right side, Enqvist will not be able to use his backhand hit and that cuts down the danger of a winner shot.

Magnus Norman: fast runner.

How to play Norman: Norman’s only strength is his speed. His shots are not really good, so he’s not able to handle the match as he want. However, due to his speed he can arrive to the ball in a better position than his rivals. That allows him prepare better his shots, balancing his strokes capabilities. He could also get easily in the net after his serve.

How to face Norman: We should dominate the game against Norman. If he doesn’t get in the net at the beginning, we will play the point as we want. But we don’t want a long rally, because Norman catches lots of hits and his options of a winner shot will increase.

Carlos Moyá: powerful strokes

How to play Moyá: his strokes can be really strong but not so accurate. That means we can’t open our hits as much as we would like. So we must focus on hard hitting to provoke a mistake from the opponent, such a high shot or a ball out. The serve and volley style fits well to Moyá but because of his power but it’s not the most effective because Moyá is really slow.

How to face Moyá: we must take advantage from his slowness and his shortage of precision. A long rally is a good option because we will make Moyá run and that would provoke errors. We shouldn’t send him an easy ball or allow him to get in the net. That could change everything.