With Wimbledon under way, I am going to grasp the opportunity to make a perhaps contentious claim: tennis is the most important sport in the history of video games. Sure, nowadays the big sellers are EA Sports FC, Madden and NBA 2K, but tennis has been foundational to the industry. It was a simple bat-and-ball game, created in 1958 by scientist William Higinbotham at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, that is widely the considered the first ever video game created purely for entertainment. Tennis for Two ran on an oscilloscope and was designed as a minor diversion for visitors attending the lab's annual open day, but when people started playing, a queue developed that eventually extended out of the front door and around the side of the building. It was the first indication that computer games might turn out to be popular.

Tennis is one of those sports that has only been intermittently well served by video games. The odd major series comes along, such as Pete Sampras, Virtua Tennis or Smash Court, but often we're left relying on old favourites (take a bow, Super Tennis). It's been 13 years since TopSpin 4 was released, and that title is considered such an authentic simulation of the sport that people are still seeking out copies to this day. But perhaps no longer: 2K Games has at last produced a follow-up, and it's a true championship contender. From the opening, TopSpin 2K25 has all the detail you'd expect from a modern licensed sports sim. All the key stadiums and championships are here – though the play environments are only adequately detailed, rather than the stunning theatres of photorealism we've come to expect from EA Sports.