As I sit down to write this review I am comparing (probably unfairly) Grand Slam Tennis to Wimbledon. Luckily, with the Wii’s new Motion Plus (that should have been included from the start…), you can hit the ball so accurately, you might as well be playing at Wimbledon. Well, maybe not…
Being a tennis game on the Wii, the controls are much what you would expect. Swing your Wiimote to hit the ball; earlier and it goes more to the left (on the forehand) and later to go right. You can use the A and B buttons to perform lobs and drops shots respectively. For the first couple of points – not using the nunchuk, as the game suggests for a beginner – all seems fine and dandy. However, it soon becomes awkward. You can do very little to win or lose other than fail to swing. The AI for your movement almost always reaches the ball. As long as you swing vaguely at the right time, the ball will fly somewhere down the middle of the court. It is virtually impossible without the MotionPlus to accurately control any shots. Too many times have I pushed the opponent into the far corner of the court and then tried to hit a winner down the line, only to see the opponent recover and hit another cross court forehand. The AI then runs you to that, and you return down the middle…
One of the best potential aspects of the game, the ability to use slice and topspin, fails as well. In theory, this should be an excellent feature, offering a range of shots to push the opponent off balance, dropshot them effectively or do a massive looping lob to push them out the back. But none of them seem to make any difference – the opponent always seems to be able to recover. You cannot even force an opponent to come to the net – playing against Ivanovic, I tried multiple times to drop shot her and then lob, but every time she runs back to the baseline, making a lob useless. If you do come to the net, it seems a bit unrealistic. You can perform a diving volley, which will go straight back to the opponent, and then another, and then another, and so on. The fact that you are hurling yourself on the ground three or four times in a row does not seem to impact the ability to return the next ball, even if you are playing against a 4 or 5 star player.
The interface control also seems awkward. You can’t see all the options on the menu at any one time, and it can be difficult to work out where to go to find what you want to do. For example, given that the name of the game is “Grand Slam Tennis”, and the opening option on the menu is “play now”, you’d expect that to be where to go to begin your campaign. Not so. Instead, you have to go round the wheel to find the Grand Slam option. Then you have to create a character, which is one of the few saving graces of the game. You can choose from lots of options for rackets, clothing, body appearance and so on to create your character. It would be nice though for these changes to have a meaning. One or two do, but none of the basic rackets make any difference to the power or control of the shots.
Once you eventually make it to the Grand Slams, the game really begins. There are 3 exhibition matches before the actual grand slam. One offers the ability to get ‘attributes’, which are basically improvements to your game, such as increased volley power or more speed around the court.
Overall the game doesn’t impress. The matches take far too long – I wasn’t inclined to put them any longer than the default first to 3 games, 2 clear games – and the interface is awkward. You can either play the whole match out or abandon it completely – not handy when you have time constraints. Unless you have MotionPlus or are a big fan of tennis games, I’d advise against this.
Nometet.com says: 
