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.