Tennis in the Metaverse, Anyone?

November is Thanksgiving month in the U.S. Every year, individuals gather to celebrate life’s blessings. At Love-Love Tennis, we celebrate the blessing of the sport of tennis year-round. Tennis is a sport that can keep you healthy, provide you with social interactions and take you places.

One of the most interesting venues to consider for tennis play right now is “the metaverse.”  Are you familiar with that location? If not, check out The New York Times article, “Are We in the Metaverse Yet?” and get up to speed.

The sport of tennis has been translated into the esports realm for several years now. Some examples…online games like the Xbox One Tennis World Tour allow you to virtually step into the game and play as if you are one of the world’s top ATP players. Also, a variety of mobile apps enable you to play with a personal avatar and virtually compete against players across the world. And, in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve also witnessed live tennis tournaments being replaced with virtual experiences, like the 2020 Mutua Madrid Open Virtual Pro event.

And now, it appears that esports are providing stronger virtual reality experiences to tennis players in the metaverse realm. On November 1, VR Motion Learning announced the availability of a demo version of its application, Tennis Esports, on the Oculus Quest 2.

According to the EIN Presswire-distributed press release, the application “makes it possible to train and play tennis in the metaverse, fully immersed, beyond the limits of distance and so incredibly close to real tennis on the actual court.” The CEO of VR Motion Learning, Gregory Gettinger, predicts that the Tennis Esports app will “open the door to authentic virtual tennis learning & gaming, virtual tennis tournaments and real tennis esports,” and will “increase the appeal of tennis to new generations attracting many more players to the sport.” 

What do you think? Are you ready to play tennis in the metaverse?

If you want to virtually “step onto the court” and give the Tennis Esports app a try, you’ll have to invest a bit in some new “equipment.” Besides your tennis racket, you’ll need: 6 to 8 feet of space, an Oculus Quest 2 VR headset and a compatible TV or the Oculus app for casting. 

The future of virtual reality tennis is uncertain right now, and it’s hard to imagine a future world of tennis learning, practice and play in the metaverse, but, who’s to say? It was only about 50 years ago when the world’s top tennis players were playing Grand Slam matches with wooden rackets.

So, cheers to the future of tennis, regardless of where it’s played!