The wimbledon is on. the top stars have started battling it out for the world?s most prestigious tennis title, and you are glued to your television watching them do so. But if, after watching through a day?s play, you want to replay some of the action on your desktop, Top Spin is perhaps the right game for you.

No game is perhaps better designed to give you as good a tennis experience on your PC as Top Spin. And apart from the on-court action itself, there are a whole lot of other interesting things that are absorbing. Once you start off, chances are you might end up missing the next day?s play in real life!

To begin with, the game requires you to create a player. That itself is a detailed exercise ? and you can make the player look almost like you! From facial features to body type, and from equipment to clothing, you can pick and choose from a wide range available to fine-tune your character before it steps out on to the court.

The objective of the game is simple. Play good tennis, and win honours on the way. You start as a rookie in small tournaments, but climb your way up as you improve upon your performance. As you progress, you will find the difficulty level getting higher, but you can?t expect a match at, say, French Open to be piece of cake, can you?

The controls of the game are fairly simple and easy to pick up. There are ways to increase precision, and you may need to pick them up as your opponents get tougher. You have the option of picking up skills during your training sessions. And depending on what skills you want to rely on during play, you need to pick them up to the best of your ability.

The game?s graphics are good, and include realistic elements, like hoardings around the court that feature corporate names. There?s very good crowd animation, though it tends to look exaggerated at times.

A nice thing that Top Spin makes available for its players is sponsorship. You have loads of corporate sponsors who are willing to invest in you. Only, you will have to prove your worth to them by playing a trial match. In most cases, it turns out to be smooth sailing.

And last but definitely not the least, Top Spin gives you the opportunity to play against your idols. Yes! Finally, you can send down a serve to Pete Sampras standing at the other end of the court. Or Lleyton Hewitt or Anna Kournikova. And believe it or not, some of these virtual stars tend to be weaker than they are in reality. So if you ever nursed a secret desire of beating an otherwise tough player like Michael Chang to the US open title, could there be a better chance for you?

Minimum system requirements: Operating system: Microsoft Windows 98/2000/ME/XP; Processor: Pentium III 800 MHz or higher; RAM: 256 MB or higher; Free hard disc space: 1 GB; DirectX 8.0