by Its_Rafa » 09 Apr 2026, 00:00 
I’ve always been a fan of tennis, but tennis video games never really hooked me. Last year, I tried TopSpin 2K25, Tiebreak, and even played some TopSpin 4 for the nostalgia, but all of these games fail to offer real depth in their core gameplay. That’s why Tennis Elbow 4 became my favorite game this year. After 300 hours in it ( around 80 were spent modding the game
), all I can say is thank you, ManuTOO, for creating such an exceptional tennis sim. I also want to thank everyone who has been part of the modding community. You all contributed to making this game so special.*RG 3rd round:
In my first 50 hours in the game, I tried a WTA career at Master 5 difficulty ( what was I thinking?
), and an ATP career at Pro between sublevels 5 and 10. I’m still currently playing this ATP career at Pro-10, but 90 percent of my time was spent on the WTA career I’m sharing here.In this WTA career, I set the game at Pro-10 difficulty and played with the addition of Tennis Elbow Manager 2. This made the career more interesting for me, but I struggled a bit with micromanaging everything needed to properly improve my player. I started as a junior, and only when it was too late; right before turning pro at 18, I realized that my player’s potential strength was lower than I would have liked, along with some Mind stats. It wasn’t too bad, though. My forehand and backhand were solid, and I could rely on some special skills when things got tough.
*Stats from my most recent match:
I spent a few really good seasons trying to reduce my debt as much as possible, and also failing miserably at it. Money was important because clearing that debt would allow me to hire trainers and speed up my player’s development. It took a while, and, although I’m already looking forward to starting an ATP career now that I understand it a little better, struggling with it in this career was also part of what made it so fun.
I was struggling both financially and on the court, especially because of my low strength. I tend to play from the baseline, so that made things way more difficult that it should be (for me). Looking at the stats now, it was a huge leap in 2028.
*If I'm not mistaken, I got really close to 200k in debt at some point, but was able to win some tournaments before the end of the season:
In 2027, I was still struggling a lot against strong and fast players, but in 2028 I found ways to deal with that by playing more aggressively and stepping closer to the net. I don’t usually like playing near the net, but I learned how to use it to compensate for my lack of strength against higher-ranked opponents. My serve wasn’t great either, so I had to be creative. I’m not sure how many aces I hit, but I doubt it was more than 15 in the entire career up to this point.
*Some net points dont hurt:
In my last season, I won two Grand Slams, but managing stress levels became really difficult in those matches. In both finals, I lost the first set. Coming back wasn’t easy, but it was incredibly rewarding.
To summarize, I played around nine seasons. Four as a pro and five as a junior, although most of my junior years were focused on training, with only a few matches to gain experience points. The progression wasn’t perfect, but it still led to many fun and memorable matches.
The sponsor weekly wage covers a lot to this point, so I'll probably play a few more season's to fully upgrade the coach center and coach a few extra players to get some steam achievements.
It had been a long time since I’d sunk this many hours into a single game; specially a tennis one. so it’s incredible to have such an absolute banger of a tennis sim to dive into.
A few extra screenshots:
PS: Regarding stress levels, could ManuTOO clarify this? In TEM2, do stress levels still affect shot precision when directly controlling the player rather than coaching, or was that just a placebo effect on my part?
