When Sega first ignited life into Tennis videogames with Virtua Tennis, the gaming masses were drawn in by its addictive gameplay and tight graphics. Therefore, as more and more tennis titles were announced for development by different publishers the anticipation for more intense court battles was enticing. Unfortunately Konami has severely missed the boat with WTA Tour Tennis. Once again when games are released that set standards, you must at least hit those same standards if not improve and go beyond them. Instead this game takes a step back and looks as if the license was entirely utilized in order to try and sell the product.

While a roster of popular women's tennis players should be a strong selling point, once you throw the game on it is painfully evident that the in game models barely resemble their real-life counterparts. All of the models look suspiciously identical with little detail that should be evident on a next generation console. Subtle real-life physics in terms of body movement are absent from the game. For example, if you have to run across the court to return a ball, you will never see the player's skirt move. It's as if the skirts have been painted onto the bodies. While the court design and layout is acceptable, their surroundings are boring and pretty well lifeless. The crowd is generic and is not really noticeable. Even the ball boy's animations are choppy. It amazes me that the developers used WTA pro Jelena Dokic to provide motion capture data because the characters move nothing like she does.

The worst aspect of the game is its incredibly snail-like pace. At first we thought we had the game on beginner or slow mode. When we consulted the manual and checked the options we were shocked to discover that this was standard. The gameplay reminds me of a beach-ball volley game played with primary school children. What was Konami thinking here? The essence of a good tennis game is having a fast paced game with a number of realistic returns. This is not the case in WTA Tour Tennis. While the serving mechanism is good the rest of the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired.

The game does feature over 20 world-class players including Martina Hingis, Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport and Serena Williams among others. Unfortunately, Ann Kournakova is not playable here. The four game modes are standard fare: Tour Mode, Exhibition Mode and Tournament Mode. Some sort of skills mode should have been included much in the same manner as Sega has done with its Virtua Tennis franchise.

If you are looking for a tennis game worth owning, then stick with Namco's Smash Court Tennis or wait for Sega's updated tennis game coming this summer. Stay away from WTA Tour Tennis unless you like beach ball tennis.