AO International Tennis

What the deuce is this? A tennis game on XB1!

- Chris Burke

The wait for a decent tennis game on Xbox One feels longer than the 2010 Isner versus Mahut Wimbledon slogathon. But this year, fans of the game get a choice of two titles; the forthcoming Tennis World Tour, and the first to throw up chalk from oXm’s baseline, AO International Tennis.

The AO stands for Australian Open, and this is the principal license here; so you can have a crack at playing the Aussie Open itself, with the most famous tennis courts from down under represented, and with just a couple of major player licences, most notably Rafa Nadal, Angelique Kerber, Hyeon Chung, Karolina Pliskova, and Naomi Osaka. Beyond that, you’re given some French and US Open-esque and Wimbledon-alike courts, so you can play on hard courts, clay, and grass.

But, whilst the licensing is scarce, the game boasts a very comprehensive player creation suite, so those who are slick with a slider can make their favorite players, or you can download community creations of tennis’s top names. You can add your own face via a PC companion app that will capture your likeness. Adding to this is the ability to create logos and arenas too.

So, taking our strangely boat-faced Roger Federer (we’re not that hot at the creation tool just yet) onto ‘Center Court’ at ‘Wimbledon’, we face the ‘real’ Rafa Nadal and after no time at all find ourselves 6-0 down in the first set on Rookie level as we realise it’s been way, way too long since we picked up a virtual racket in the name of Xbox…