Virtua Tennis 3 offers 20 famous tennis stars, such as Roger Federer, Lindsay Davenport, and Maria Sharapova, against whom you must compete on the World Tour. You construct your character and compete to reach the top of the world ranking list.
Virtua Tennis 3 is not a simulation like Top Spin 2 and requires only three buttons to execute every potential shot. Time must still be put into training the character through various mini-games that require you to strike a circle on the other side of the net or defeat invaders by hitting them with returns.
You can also play as a professional versus the CPU or a friend (or two if you play a Double). In keeping with the concept of the home edition, there are 12 mini-games to play against your friends. These include those from World Tour training and others such as Curling and Super-Bingo. The arcade version has Tournament Mode and Exhibition Mode, but the World Tour Mode and Party Mode have replaced the Challenge Mode.
