[Philip]

Go luke. You are doing well. I am interested to see Andy stats in the game.

[Philip]

Congratulations Luke on your first ATP title. Great win. Strange that with a service consistency of 84% Andy only got 56% first serve.  I would expect a much more powerful performance from Andy with such high stats.

[Sir Panda]

Anyone who loves their games, watch this, amazing.

[scotnadian]

Wtf. This is on Pro 5 for the record. (If you're cynical here is a printscreen of my match log, includes the difficulty in there)



He was just poor really. Unlike the match against Djokovic (where I lost 6-0, 6-0) he didn't tear me apart in the rallies. I was able to engage long rallies (I noticed he was tiring very quickly for some reason) as he either hit it fairly short or without much pace, and then it was really hit and miss which one of us would hit a winner or an error. My serve was pants for the most part but he didn't do much with it (only 4 return winners), which is silly when you have Montanes tearing it apart in my most recent defeat. I have improved a fair bit (attributes-wise) since the Djokovic double bagel. Obviously I couldn't hit outright winners at the first attempt, but I was able to stretch him with power shots until eventually I hit a winner. Sure, there were points where he defended ridiculously or found some cracking winners, mostly in the first set, but as the match wore on he made more and more errors whilst I remained consistent.

Anyway, that's my first ATP title. Didn't really expect that at all. In all honesty I thought I'd lose to Roddick fairly convincly, but having beaten him in two close sets, I was sure Murray would hammer me (I was sort of expecting a double bagel) but for whatever reason he wasn't that great. My aim now is to get myself seeded by the US Open.

By the way Phil, here are Murray's stats. They might not be the ones coded into the game though - as I mentioned before, I started a year later than the usual start date, and for some reason that's messed up some players' attributes (Del Potro, Raonic, etc). FH power and consistency surely wrong way around. Stamina and volley stats also seem low. I think precision should be higher and maybe consistency lower, considering he normally finds the outside of the lines but often serves in the 50's.

That damned Andy Murray is a tricky opponent, eh?
Did you get a trophy for this, Luke?  If not, here you go. Congrats! 

btw.. Is that supposed to be a likeness of Andy in the Character Sheet? This saddens me.

[invisibleman18]

Have also ordered Grand Slam Tennis 2 (amongst a few other games). I know you guys said Top Spin 4 was better but an NZ online store had a massive sale on and GST2 was ridiculously cheap - $23NZ or about 11 pounds. And I can't seem to find TS4 available from any NZ store yet so thought it was worth trying the other one out at that price and still look around for TS4.

GST2 finally arrived yesterday. Had a first go last night and spent about 45 minutes doing the training to learn the controls (John McEnroe has a go at you when you fail the tasks). The last tennis game I played seriously was probably Virtua Tennis 2 on the PS2 (although I did play Top Spin 3 briefly on PS3 when we got it while I was back living with my parents as my brother had a PS3). So I found it tough to get used to using the right stick for shots rather than the arcade style holding down X etc (which you can also do on the game). I couldn't complete many of the tasks using the stick but managed to using the buttons which I was more used to.

However when I went into my first match I only used the right stick. Just feels more natural doing it that way and you get better angles on your shots so I do understand the change in controls. Can't quite get the hang of serving yet though. Anyway only had a 1 set match as Murray against Hewitt to start and I lost although had some reasonably rallies. Going to take a bit of practice to master the controls.

Anyway quite like it on first play. Visually excellent as you'd expect from EA Sports. Decent selection of players and great to be able to play at Wimbledon. Shame it can't be more like FIFA in the sense of having say all the top 100 or so players. Not sure how a Grand Slam works when you've only got 8 male players in the game though - are there fictional players you come up against perhaps or maybe some more real players but who are not playable? Presumably you don't just play the same 8 in a similar order each time. Since this cost bugger all I may still see if I can pick up Top Spin 4 cheap somewhere although since that came out over a year and a half ago the next version can't be far away surely?

[Philip]

Unlucky Luke. That is very close. Time to spend your xp to raise your level. How many Ranking points do you have now (1000) ?

[Clydey]

Just over. #34 in the world now, going into the LA Farmer's Classic 250 (seeded 7th, play Davydenko in QFs after seeing off Andreas Beck 5&1 and James Blake 1&2). Was going to play Washington but for some reason it's not in the game, so will play the two summer North American hard court masters after this.

My forehand power and precision are now in 70's, BH all around 60-65, serve 60-70. Other attributes are 40-50. Planning on raising top spin next.

Don't raise that. I hear it's not very useful. Keep your points for other attributes, I'd say.

What style do you employ, by the way? Do you finish a lot of points at the net? Also, do you have your positioning set to "fast"?

[Clydey]

Fair enough, will do.

No I still suck at volleying, so I only come in when I have to and try to drag my opponent round the court by tapping it (I don't dare try to whack it). Tend to play as a power baseliner or just try to out-rally my opponent if they are a good defender.

I haven't changed it, so presumably if that's what it starts on. What does it do?

Just puts you in position to hit your shots. It adjusts for you rather you doing all the adjustment.