Double Tennis

Double Tennis is a tennis game for the ZX Spectrum from 1990, credited to a developer signing as VM Soft. The name itself hints at the focus on doubles — a variant of tennis that appeared in sports games of the period far less often than the classic one-on-one match.

1990 was a late but still lively phase for the ZX Spectrum. The 8-bit computer was already facing the rise of 16-bit machines, yet new titles kept appearing — often from small teams, and in regions where the Spectrum remained the affordable family computer for the longest time. Double Tennis comes from exactly this world of small software labels.

Tennis had been a grateful subject for the Spectrum since the mid-eighties: the court fits on a single screen, everyone knows the rules, and success depends on the tuning of shots and movement rather than graphical spectacle. On a machine with attribute-based graphics and simple sound, that made it possible to build a sport that stood or fell purely on playability.

Little is known about VM Soft, which is typical for the Spectrum's late era — catalogues from those years are full of games that survive as barely more than a name and a file. That makes it all the more valuable that this one survived in runnable form.

You can check that yourself: on OldGame.cz, Double Tennis fires up right in the browser window, so you will be serving before you could even track down a cassette recorder.