Tennis Elbow Manager 2

by ManuTOO
Last updated: October 2nd, 2020

I. Introduction

Tennis Elbow Manager 2 is a tennis game that lets you become a tennis coach and manage your players.

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Minimum system requirements on Windows

  • OS: Windows 10/8/7/Vista
  • CPU: 1 Ghz Intel Pentium IV or equivalent
  • RAM: 1 GB
  • DirectX 9.0c
  • Video: DirectX 9 compatible 128-MB 3D card
  • 200 MB available hard disk space
  • Input: Keyboard & Mouse

Recommended system requirements on Windows

  • CPU: 2 Ghz or faster Intel Core i3 or AMD K10 processor
  • RAM: 2 GB or more
  • Video: DirectX 9 compatible 1-GB 3D card

Minimum system requirements on MacOS

  • OS: Mac OS X 10.7 or later
  • iMac Intel
  • RAM: 1 GB
  • 200 MB available hard disk space
  • Input: Keyboard & Mouse

Recommended system requirements on MacOS

  • RAM: 2 GB or more
  • Video: 1-GB 3D card

Features

Tournaments
  • More than 400 tournaments
  • Country Cup, Masters, Olympics
  • 3500 players, over 70 years
  • Full dual-ranking system (like the entry one from ATP), both in singles and doubles competition
  • Men & Women's Tours
  • Junior & Pro Tours
  • History of the past years
  • Stats, Head To Heads, etc.
Coaching
  • Up to 9 coached players
  • 5 difficulty levels
  • Specialized trainers
  • Sponsors
  • Injuries
  • Coach center & equipment
3D Match
  • 9 different court surfaces : clay, green clay, grass, hard, blue-green hard, classic synthetic, NewLine synthetic, indoor hard and indoor synthetic; each with a specific rebound
  • 6 difficulty levels, each split in 10 sublevels
  • 3D male & female players fully customizable
  • Split screen
  • 1 to 6 games per set, in best of 1, 3 or 5 sets
  • 7 camera modes

II. The Shareware

Tennis Elbow Manager 2 is a game published in shareware. You can play it and test it before to order it, but you have these limitations:

  • you can play only 2 years (as many times as you want)
  • you cannot play in final of important tournaments
  • you can't enter in the Top 20

So if you want to play it without limit, you will have to register your version to enjoy the totality of the game. Once paid (by wire transfer, paypal, credit card, etc...), a key (a small file) will be sent to you by email, allowing you to unlock the game.

Order the full version now!

You can have a copy of this version on your hard drive or removable media for test only. You can't sell this version, but you can copy it freely to everybody, as long as you don't modify it.

If you regularly use this version, you should pay the authors to encourage them to continue to do quality products.

IV. World Tour

Automatically saved games:

When you exit TEM2 by clicking on the "Exit" button, your game is automatically saved, and you will go on from where you stopped the next time you launch the game.

Moreover, your game is automatically saved over the past 3 weeks of play, over 3 different slots ; therefore, in case of problem (ie: if the game crashes or hangs for a reason or another), you will still have the possibility to restart from a recent saved game.

Note

when you play in windowed mode, and you exit the game by clicking on the little cross on top right of its window, your current game will be also automatically saved if you are in a menu with the "Exit" button ; but if this button isn't there, it's possible that your game won't be saved ; in this case, you will lose all your progress since the last automatically saved game.

Men's Rankings

  • The total of points for the entry ranking is the sum of the best 18 played tournaments, within the past 52 weeks, including necessarily the 4 Grand Slams & the best 8 of the 9 Master Series to which the player had to participate if his ranking allowed him to enter the final draw
  • The total of points for the Race is the sum of the best 18 played tournaments, since the beginning of the year, with the same rules about required tournaments as the entry ranking

Women's Rankings

  • The total of points for the entry ranking is the sum of the best 16 played tournaments in Singles, and the best 11 in Doubles, within the past 52 weeks, including necessarily all the major tournaments to which the player had to participate if her ranking allowed her to enter the final draw
  • The total of points for the Race is the sum of the best 16 played tournaments in Singles, and the best 11 in Doubles, since the beginning of the year, including necessarily all the major tournaments to which the player had to participate if her ranking allowed her to enter the final draw
  • The major tournaments are the 4 Grand Slams, plus all the PremiumM, plus the best 2 results of Premium

Number of sets

Tournament type Normal Rounds / Final
Qualifications 3
Challenger & Future 3 / 3
TET250 & TET500 3 / 3
Masters Series 3 / 3
Grand Slam 5 / 5

Note: women never play more than best of 3 sets.

The Masters

You'll automatically participate in the Masters if you are in the 8 best players when this tournament begins, or if you won a Grand Slam tournament. If not, you won't play it.
Its planning is a bit special : there are 2 groups of 4 players, and every player plays 3 matches. The 2 best players of each group will play semifinals, afterwards the 2 semifinal winners will meet in the final.

The Emerson Cup / Gibson Cup

These are team tournaments, each team representing a country. There are 4 singles matches and 1 doubles match per encounter. Each match victory earns 1 point and the 1st team to reach 3 points wins the encounter and can progress to the next Cup's round.

First 2 singles occur on a Friday ; doubles is on a Saturday; the last 2 singles are on a Sunday.

There are 2 leagues. Main league is composed of the 16 best countries competing over 4 rounds to win the Cup. The Qualies league is composed of 32 countries ; they play 2 rounds between them. Then the 8 first round losers from the main league will meet the 8 2-round winnners from the Qualies league to do the playoffs. The winners of the playoffs will be in the Main league the following (delete "next") year, and losers will be in the Qualies league.

When your player is accepted in a round, he'll get a motivation bonus, one for each competition he is playing ; he'll also get a 10% experience bonus from his matches.

How to change the World Tour's players

  • Download the Modding SDK from here : https://www.managames.com/Forum/topic11-31376.php
  • Launch the game, click on the "Show Data Folder" icon on bottom left of Settings -> Profiles
  • Locate the "Mods" subfolder and create in it a folder and name it to whatever you want
  • Copy "TEM2-ModdingSDK.zip/Ini/Players.ini" to "Mods\MySuperMod\Ini\Players.ini"
  • Edit the players by opening the "Mods\MySuperMod\Ini\Players.ini" files with an advanced text editor (these files are quite big, so better not to open them with the Windows Notepad).

V. Players' attributes

Each player is defined by 4 kinds of attributes :

  • Playing style : it defines the base of his game, the way he plays, his main strategy & comportment on the court
  • Natural attributes : his height and age, left or right handed, single or double backhand and forehand
  • Talents : They are innate capacities ; not all players have them ; they give a small bonus in different situations ; they cannot be trained and they don't change over time
  • Skills : those are the main abilities that define the players and his possibilities ; they are separated in 4 groups : technical skills, surface skills, physical skills and mental skills ; the technical skills are divided into 4 additional groups : rally, service, volley and special

Playing styles

When starting a new game, you will have to make several choices, including the playing style of your main player. This choice is very important as it will define the main comportment of your player, and on what surfaces his game will be the most efficient. There are 9 styles :

  • Defender : this kind of player stays several meters beyond the baseline, running all around, and waiting for his opponent's faults ; he will attack only when he has a very easy ball, and will go to the net only when he's forced
  • Power baseliner : this kind of player likes to dictacte the game from the baseline using powerful attacks, usually from his forehand, but if he's skilled enough, also from his backhand, trying to do winners or forcing his opponent's fault as much as possible ; he will go to the net and volley only on the most obvious and easy occasions or when he's forced to, even if he can do great attacks on a regular basis
  • Puncher : this kind of player is similar to the power baseliner, except his final goal can be to win the point at the net, doing easy volleys, when it's needed
  • All-court Attacker : this kind of player likes to build his game by playing near the baseline, where he can hit some winners, as well as try to create some good occasions to run to the net, and to finish the point there ; he will also play serve and volley sometimes, especially on fast surfaces
  • Volleyer : this kind of player runs to the net whenever it's possible, and doesn't like to play long rallies on the baseline ; he will play serve and volley whenever it's possible, even on 2nd serve
  • Counter : this kind of player uses his opponent's power to counter him, he likes to exploit his opponent's weaknesses, to let him make the games winners and errors, till he has the occasion to hit a winning passing shot, lob, drop shot, or even finish the point with a volley when it's needed
  • Counter Puncher : this kind of player counters his opponent's attacks and then attacks when the occasion arises
  • All-rounder : this kind of player can play from anywhere, from defense to net play, as well as attacking from his baseline
  • Bulldog : this kind of player defends well but becomes very aggressive as soon as his opponent weakens

Depending on the playing style, some skills will be more important than others :

Playing style
Technical skills
Physical skills
Mental skills
Defender rally skills, especially the forehand and backhand consistencies, passing speed, stamina, muscle tone, reflexes tactic, positioning, motivation
Power baseliner rally skills, especially the forehand power and backhand consistency (or the opposite)
--
positioning, self confidence
Puncher rally skills, especially the forehand power and backhand consistency (or the opposite)
--
positioning, self confidence
All-court Attacker
--
--
tactic, positioning, self confidence
Volleyer volley skills
--
positioning, self confidence, motivation
Counter rally consistencies, passing, counter speed tactic, positioning, self confidence
Counter Puncher rally consistencies speed tactic, positioning, self confidence
All-rounder
--
--
tactic, positioning, self confidence
Bulldog rally consistencies, plus one powerful side (forehand or backhand) speed, stamina tactic, positioning, motivation

The less the player will be at the volley, the less he needs to have good volley skills.

Talents

Each talent gives some little bonus to the player:

  • Early ball hit : Ability to hit the ball on the rise
  • Ball feeling : Ability to softly control the ball, especially at the net
  • Fast learner : Learn faster from training, but also forget a bit faster with time
  • Injury resistance : Lower chance to get injured
  • Slice serve : Serve giving a slice effect to the ball, most effective on fast surfaces
  • Topspin serve : Serve giving a topspin effect to the ball, most effective on slow surfaces
  • Kick serve : Serve giving a kick effect to the ball, most effective on normal surfaces
  • Slice mastery : Perfect control and use of slice effect during rallies
  • Champion : Ability to play your best level against lower ranked players
  • Chameleon : Lower the negative effect when changing your playing style during a match
  • Globetrotter : Less tired after trips, especially long ones
  • Spinny Backhand : Raises the topspin skill when doing a backhand
  • Flat Backhand : Lowers the topspin skill when doing a backhand
  • Forever Young : Lowers the physical skill loss when getting older
  • Rich Kid : You'll start with a lot more money than normal, but you'll lose 2 hours of training per day to study till the end of the year you'll turn 22
  • Prodigy : Allows you to get your maximal potentials earlier if you start as a Junior, and gives a bonus to all your skills if you start as a Pro
  • Upsetter : Raises the chance of converting a bad day to a good day for the Form of the Day ; the bonus of each good day is also raised
  • Surface Switcher : Raises the rate at which you raise your Surface skills

Skills

The skill percentages show the different level of abilities of the players.

Some skills will be more effective and/or useful on fast surfaces, like service and volleys, and others will be more effective and/or useful on slower surface, like forehand/backhand powers and consistencies, and stamina.

If you don't train them, most skills will lower over time ; the higher they are, the faster they'll drop off.

Technical Skills Explanations
Precision vs Power The precision skills for the Service, Forehand & Backhand are relative to their respective Power skill. This means if your player has 20% in both Forehand Power & Precision then he'll have the same precision as if he has 40% in both of them. In other words, if you have 20% in both skills and you raise only your power to 40%, you'll lose some precision, and to get it back, you'll have to also raise the precision to 40%. And if you raise the precision skill above the power skill, the strike will get more accurate.
Forehand & Backhand Consistencies The consistency is the ability to handle difficult balls, to lower the chances to do a fault on them. It can be seen as depending on your opponents power : to handle an opponent with 40% power on an average speed surface, you need 40% consistency. A better consistency will also allow doing deeper normal strikes, and shorter short strikes.
Service

The speed of your serve depends on your power ; in addition you get a small speed bonus on your 2nd serve when your consistency is above your power (and vice versa).

If your power is equal to your consistency, then you have 70% chances of success on your 1st serve ; If your power is above your consistency, then you have less than 70% chance of success, and in the opposite case, you have more than 70% chance of success.

Topspin

Topspin is a really special skill, as it's the only skill you can train to lower it in addition to raise it.
Topspin gives your player a bonus on clay & slow surfaces (higher for rally players, and lower for volley players), but it makes your player tired a bit faster, whatever the surface is.
The lower the topspin is below 50%, the higher your player will get a handicap on slow surfaces (ie: clay).
The higher the topspin is above 50%, the higher your player will get a handicap on fast surfaces (ie: grass, indoor).
At 50%, the topspin is neither a bonus nor a handicap.

So basically, if you have a volleyer playing on a fast surface, you'll prefer to have a low topspin, and if you have a defender playing on clay, you'll prefer to have a high topspin.

Volley & Smash

Depending on the strike done, the Net Presence skill is combined with the volley forehand, volley backhand or smash skill, to define the precision and the consistency of the strike.

The power doesn't depend on the Net Presence, only on the base skill.

Except that, the volleys & smashes work like the forehands and backhands from the baseline.

Moreover, the higher the Net Presence is, the more your player can run while volleying the ball without getting any handicap.

Return The faculty to read and return the opponents serve
Lob & Drop Shot The higher these skills, the more the player will do lobs & drop shots, and the more efficient they will be
Counter

The counter skill is the ability to use the incoming ball speed to send it back faster. So the counter skill gives you a speed bonus of up to 7.5 km/h on your normal and topspin strikes when the ball is coming really fast.

Moreover, the higher your counter skill is, the less you are constrained by fast incoming balls, but the slow incoming balls are also a bit less easy for you.

Surface Skills Explanations
The surface skills don't show the players innate abilities to play on each kind of surface. They only show if he's currently used to play on each different type of surface : they raise and drop quickly, depending on what surface the player is currently playing or training on.
Phyiscal Skills Explanations
Speed & Muscle Tone The speed determines the maximum speed and the "(speed + muscle tone) / 2" determines the running acceleration.
Stamina The Stamina is relative to "(speed + muscle tone) / 2" ; eg: if your player has 50% in all these 3 skills, he'll get tired from running at the same rate as if he has 60% in all 3 skills. If the Stamina is above, then your player will get tired less fast, and vice versa.
Strength A low strength will limit the potential of the service, forehand & backhand powers. Moreover, if your forehand or backhand power is above your strength, you'll get more tired from hitting the ball (and vice versa).
Short & Long Term Forms See Tiredness in the Training Section below
Mental Skills Explanations
Concentration

Defines the frequency at which your player will have a bad day, with low energy, making him play less efficient; the higher it is, the less frequent it will happen. However, each bad day has a 10% chance to become a good day, where your player will play more efficient than usual.

Constancy Defines how much the player's energy can lower or raise, on a bad or good day.
Focus The Focus is your players ability to focus on the ball to prepare his strike quickly enough. It's relative to "(speed + muscle tone) / 2", so if the Focus is above that, your player will prepare his strikes faster, leading to more accuracy and depth, as well as a better chance to attack the ball when needed ; if it's under, it'll be the opposite.
Cold Blood Defines the frequency at which a player will be stressed in important matches & moments, and when playing against a weaker opponent: in this case, his level will lower a bit, but only to his opponent's level, at worst.
Tactic Allows taking advantage of your opponents weaknesses and play smarter tennis overall
Positioning Allows to wait for your opponent's next strike in the place with the widest reach possible, and to hit the ball from the most efficient place (ie: not too high, nor too low)
Self-Confidence Allows playing closer to the lines, without raising the risk. The Self-Confidence raises with each match won and lowers with each loss. Moreover when it is low, it raises when training.
Doubles Spirit Alter most of your player skills while playing doubles. This skill raises with each doubles match played.
Motivation

Your player's motivation slightly goes up when you win, and goes down when you lose. It gets a noticeable boost when you win a tournament.
Motivation's variations also depend on secondary elements like your available money, the class of hotel & plane your player takes, etc...

A high motivation will lower the handicap from playing while tired, and a low motivation will raise it.

A high motivation also gives a little bonus on all the training efficiency.

Favorite Doubles Partner

When you look at other players' character sheet, you can see the "Favorite Partner" button (2 rackets, the symbol for Doubles), on bottom left of the screen : if you click on it, the player will be added to the doubles partner selection list (available from the "Planning" tab of the "Coached Players" menu), but only when he's free and doesn't already have a partner ranked better than him, and when you're ranked well enough for him (you can have only 1 "Favorite Partner" at the same time).

VI. Training

The training screen in the "Coached Players" menu allows you to train your players to raise their skills, and therefore make them tougher competitors !

You can train all technical skills and mental skills directly : just click on the skills you want to train. However to train the mental skills, you'll need to have experience points ; such points are earned during tournament matches.

You cannot train surface skills directly : they raise when you practice other skills or play matches on the different surfaces, and lower when you didn't play on them for a while.

You cannot train physical skills directly either : you have to choose a type of training which can influence several skills at once :

Type of training Main improvements Side improvements
Jogging Stamina Muscle Tone, Speed, Forehand & Backhand powers & consistencies
Body building Strength, Muscle Tone Stamina, Forehand & Backhand powers, Concentration
Bicycle Muscle Tone, Stamina Concentration, Speed
Swimming Stamina, Muscle Tone Concentration, Forehand & Backhand powers, Speed
Sprint Speed, Muscle Tone Reflexes, Stamina
Yoga Not tiring Concentration, Cold blood, Muscle Tone, Reflexes

From the physical training selection, you also can rest, which raises your short term & long term form, and gives some holiday to your player.

Difficulty Level

In higher difficulty levels :

  1. the training efficiency lowers
  2. the skills lower a bit less fast
  3. the skill potentials are lower

Tiredness

When your player trains, he will get tired, more or less depending on the type of training. His energy is represented by the Short term form and the Long term form. The short term form raises and drops a lot faster than the long term one, but it can't raise above the long term form. When your player's short term form reaches 0%, he's exhausted and can't train anymore : he can only rest for a while.

Your player also needs his short term form to play matches, so be sure to send him to tournament fresh enough !

Moreover, the more your player is tired, the more his injury risk raises while training & playing matches.

On a full free day, you have 6 hours of training, so for a week without any tournament, you have 42 hours of training. Every 6 hours, your player will rest a bit and then sleep, getting back some Short & Long Term forms.

On trips, you also recover form faster when traveling on higher class of plane, and sleeping in higher class of hotel.

Combo training

All technical skills (except topspin) can be trained by combo of the same type : rally, service, special, volley.

When you're doing a combo training, it gives a bonus shown in its tooltip. Example : doing 6 hours of rally training is 50% better than doing 1 hour on each of the 6 rally skills.

Most important skills

These are general rules that will give you a good headstart for your training sessions. Don't forget to adapt them to the specific situation of your player, including the surfaces he'll play on.

  1. Concentration & Constancy : when these mental skills are low, your player will regularly have very bad days, sentencing him to a nearly sure defeat against similarly skilled players
  2. Speed & Muscle Tone : because if you can't reach the ball in time, you won't have the possibiltiy to hit it back
  3. Service skills : as it's the 1st strike of every point when a player serves, the service is very important
  4. Cold blood : as being too stressed can make a simple match way too complicated, it's important to keep a cold head as often as possible
  5. Return & reflexes : as it's the 1st strike of every point when a player returns, the return is very important, and these 2 skills are the most important to do successful returns
  6. Stamina & strength : a good physical condition is very important in modern tennis, and it starts with a good stamina and a decent strength as it influences other skills' potentials (see below)
  7. Rally skills : once the serve & return is played, the rally skills are the most used skills, and thus, are often quite important, except for players volleying a lot

Potentials

Each skill has a maximum value, called potential, which is almost impossible to surpass. Your main player has all his potentials to 90-100% (depending on the difficulty level), but the additional players you could hire will have lower potentials.

But some skills' potential depend on other skill values. The main ones are the strength & muscle tone skills : if they are both too low, it will limit your forehand, backhand and service powers, as well as your smash and topspin skills.

The other one is the Long Term Form that limits the Short Term Form.

When a skill potential is lowered by another skill value, the capped potential will be shown in reddish on the skill bar, while the maximum potential will still be shown in turquoise.

The closer a skill is to its potential, the less efficient the training will be.

When your player gets older, his physical potential will lower.

With a lot of training, you can still raise a skill above its potential, but it takes much more time than when it's under its potential.
The only skills you can't raise above their potentials are the Short & Long Term Forms.

In the character sheet, each skill potential is symbolized by the little vertical turquoise smoke ; if it's thin, it means you know the potential of this skill ; if it's large, it means your potential detection is too low, and thus, the potential of this skill is somewhere inside the smoke.

Practice with a player

When your player is at a tournament, or at the Coach Center with other coached players or with a sparring partner, he can then practice with another player.

Practice gives a great training bonus, but you can't choose which skills will benefit from it ; although it'll have more chance to raise skills the player uses often. Additionally, the closer your player's level is to his opponent's level, the more effective the practice will be.

Trainers

You can hire assistants, sparring partners and specialized trainers for your players. To see what bonuses your players get from the team members present with him, check the "Team" screen in the "Coached Players" menu.

There you can see your players current location at the bottom of the screen, all your team members, alongside their current location, and the different bonuses for all types of training.

You can also decide which players will pay for each trainers wages, and what player the trainers will travel with.

If your player doesn't travel with the coach, then he will have a 25% handicap on his motivation. If he's traveling with an assistant, this handicap will be lowered by the skill percentage of the assistant.

VII. Tournament Match

The goal of your training is to make your player able to win tournament matches. It won't be an easy task, and you will probably need several weeks of hard work, before you are able to win your 1st match !

Entering a tournament

To enter a tournament, you have to go to the "Planning" screen, within the "Coach Players" menu. There, you can register your player for all tournaments within 1 year, except the 3 or 4 next weeks : you have to decide early and wisely where your player will play. But depending on his ranking, your player may not be able to enter all the tournaments : you'll have to pick a tournament where he could either enter directly or at least enter in the qualification draw. The game will warn you when you try to register your player in a tournament for which he isn't ranked well enough.

Surfaces

Surfaces can be slow, normal, or fast. A slow surface means the players have more time on it to prepare their strikes, thus it's easier to do ground strokes, successful passing shots and returns ; a fast surface means the players have less time to prepare their strikes, thus volleying is more efficient, as well as service ; a normal surface is the average between slow & fast, and thus it doesn't benefit any particular kind of play.

Here the speed for each surface in the game :

Surface Type Speed factor
Clay, Green Clay Slow -1.0
NewLine Synthetic Mid slow- -0.75
Synthetic Mid slow -0.5
Cement Normal 0
Blue-Green Cement Normal+ +0.25
Indoor Hard Mid fast +0.5
Indoor Carpet Mid fast+ +0.75
Grass Fast +1.0

Match tactics

Before each match, you'll have the possibility to define several tactics for your player :

  • playing style : for a little handicap (called "Malus"), your player can change playing style for the time of the match ; the malus will be higher when the new playing style is very different from the natural one ; the malus doesn't apply on the service and return skills ; the percentage shown is relative, ie : if your player has 80% in a skill, and a 10% malus, then his skill will be 72% during the match (because 10% of 80 equals 8)
  • experience boost : you can spend some of your player's experience points to raise all his skills ; the more experience points you spend, the higher the bonus will be ; the better your player is, the lower the available bonus will be ; the bonus shown is relative, ie : if your player has 50% in a skill, and a 20% bonus, then his skill will be 60% during the match (because 20% of 50 equals 10)
  • energy spending : you can decide to save your players energy ; your player will get a little handicap (called "Malus") but will get a lot less tired ; the percentage shown is relative ; if your player loses a set, he will reset to full energy spending

Once you're ready, click on "Start Match" !

Match energy

On the Match screen, you can see the Short Term Form, the Energy and the Stress of every player. The Match Energy depends on the Energy Max, the Form of the day and the Energy spending.

Match Energy = Energy Max x Form of day x Energy spending

The form of the day represents your players ability to take advantage of all his available energy on this specific day : sometimes, your player has a bad day even if he's not truly tired, so he just can't play his best tennis.

The Energy Max depends on the Short term form and the Stamina. As long as the short term form isn't below a certain level, the Energy Max goes down to 80%, after it will lower till with the short term form. This level depends on your player's stamina :

Level = 80 - Stamina x 0.6

Example : if your player has a 40% stamina, then as long as his short term form isn't below 56%, he'll have a 80% Energy Max or more ; below 56%, it'll lower from 80%.

The minimal possible value for the Energy Max, when the Short Term Form is at 0%, depends on the Stamina : the higher it is, the higher the minimal value will be.

Match progress

During the match, the little ball shows who's serving. If a break is achieved, "Break" will appear on the side of the player / team who did it.

You can change the speed of the match with the "Speed" setting on the bottom.

Match bonus

For each player, you can see the list of possible bonuses. A bonus is greyed out if a player doesn't have it. Bonuses depend on the interactions between the 2 opponents' skills.

Most bonuses only apply to singles, not to doubles.

Here is the list of all bonuses :

  • Power bonus : rally bonus when forehand and backhand power are too good for your opponent's reflexes
  • Drop shot bonus / Drop shot super bonus : rally bonus when drop shot is too good for opponent's speed and reflexes
  • Play Speed Bonus / Play Speed Super Bonus : rally bonus when forehand and backhand power and consistency are too good for opponent's reflexes and positioning
  • Acceleration Bonus : rally bonus when forehand and backhand power and precision are too good for opponent's speed and reflexes
  • Tactic Bonus / Tactic Super Bonus : tactic is better than opponent's tactic, so the player can force his opponent to play with his weaker rally strike (forehand or backhand)
  • Service Efficiency Bonus : service bonus when service power and precision are too good for opponent's reflexes
  • Left Handed Bonus : rally bonus when player is left handed

Each bonus is very small, about 1% of your player's total force if he's very skilled, but up to 10% if he's a total beginner.

VIII. Junior Tour

The most noticeable addition in TEM2 since TEM1, after the 3D matches, is the Junior Tour and the possibility to start your main players career as a Junior player.

A little warning

Starting as a Junior doesn't make the game easier, it makes it harder !

Indeed you'll be shaping your player potentials for his whole career during his Junior years, and thus it will be harder to reach the 95-100% potentials you get when starting directly as a Pro player. This is especially true in Pro difficulty and above ; in Club & Junior difficulty, you should be able to raise most of your potentials to nearly 100% relatively easily, after a couple of careers.

Money will be even more of a problem as you'll get a lot in debt during your Junior years as you can't get any tournament prize.

The only plus side is that you should have around 20~25% in all your skills when your player turns 18, instead of 5% if you start as a Pro, and thus reach the Top 100 (and the big money prizes) about 1 year earlier.

Training

Training a Junior is very different from training a Pro player : instead of choosing what skill to train directly (or what physical activity to do), you'll set a daily schedule for your player with 2 activities per morning, and 2 activities per afternoon, for a total of 6 hours of work per day, during holidays.

During school weeks, the morning will be reserved for school and homework.

Be careful to allow your player a few resting days per week. The younger he is, the more rest he'll need, else the Injury Risk will rise quickly !

For each training session, you can define its goal :

  • Skills : raises the skills as fast as possible, but the potentials will raise more slowly
  • Potentials : raises the potentials as fast as possible, but the skills will raise more slowly
  • Balanced : raises normally both the skills & the potentials

For technical skills, you'll also have the possibility to choose between the power, the consistency, the precision or balance between all of them.

Potentials

Junior Potentials are limited by the age your player will turn in the current year ; you can train the potentials above these values, but the progress is slowed down :

1st January of the year turning Max Potential
14 20%
15 42%
16 66%
17 89%
July of the year turning 17 100%

For hired junior players, their max potentials are also capped to "(ProPotential + 100) / 2", and once their potentials reach their Pro Potentials, the progress will be slowed down ; so by training them as Junior, you can manage to make their potentials go beyond the Potentials they are intended to get when they will be pro, but it's not easy.

In the character sheet of a junior player, his current maximum potentials are shown in purple, except if they are the same as his current potentials, and in such case they are hidden.

If you look at the Character Sheet of Junior players from the Hire screen, you'll see their Pro Potentials in turquoise ; once you have hired them, you'll see their current potentials in turquoise.

IX. 3D Match

Realtime Coaching

During 3D matches, you can coach your player in real-time (even if the Coach didn't travel with him).

You have several slide bars on the left of the screen, allowing you to modify several aspects of his game.

The gameplay concept behind this is close to what a real player would think in his head to try to beat his opponent : go more to the net, attack more, stay closer to the baseline, etc.

The exact results and consequences of each changed value can be hard to grasp ; again, this is wanted : tennis is not an exact science, and what works in one case, may not work in another one, as it all depends on your opponents skills and state, as well as yours, and of course on the speed of your current match court.

So try out different things and observe well the results. With time, trials and errors, you'll learn what works and when.

Be careful though : an efficiency penalty will raise with any coaching value not at 0 (except Energy Spending). Plus the penalty will temporary raises a bit with any change, and will lower a bit after each point. The no-penalty zone is smaller if the player is without the coach nor a skilled assistant. If the penalty bar starts to fill but no number is shown, then it means the penalty is still in the no-penalty zone and thus is at 0%.

Text match vs 3D match

The text match results are more predictable than the 3D match ones, in part because a weakness can be fatal in the 3D match while it'll be more smoothed out in the text match. In that sense, the 3D match might be more realistic, but also harder to apprehend. And the real-time coaching can really make a difference in prevailing.

In 3D, the speed is really fundamental, as the players hit better strikes when they have more time to prepare them : they gain accuracy, depth and even sometimes power !

Also, the Focus is of more importance, as if it's below "(speed + muscle tone) / 2", it'll require more time for your player to prepare his strikes (and vice versa).

Lastly, if you find your player performing poorly without any particular reason, then check his Form of the Day by mousing over his Energy bar. For example, a 75% form of the day means he's really under performing and will get destroyed by an opponent of similar skill level.

Taking control of your player

You can turn on the possibility to control your player by activing this option : Settings -> 3D Match -> Manual Player Control.

You can read the Tennis Elbow 2013 documentation to learn most of the gameplay rules when playing by yourself : https://www.managames.com/tennis/doc/Tennis_Elbow-Tennis_Game.html#gameplay .

Of course, everything that is explained in the TEM2 documentation overrules the corresponding points in the TE2013 documentation.

New play styles

Here the different bonuses and handicaps for the new play styles in TEM2.

  • Counter Puncher:
    • 2 extra accelerations
    • low speed bonus for shoulder height acceleration
  • All-rounder:
    • 1 extra acceleration
    • bigger jumps at the net
    • big speed bonus for shoulder height acceleration
  • Bulldog:
    • 1 extra acceleration
    • little topspin bonus on the topspin strike
    • a bit lower handicap on the length and speed of topspin strikes
    • low speed bonus for shoulder height acceleration

 

And here the changes to the existing styles.

  • Defender :
    • 1 acceleration less instead of 1 extra one

 

X. Credits

  • Emmanuel Rivoire (aka ManuTOO) : Code, Design, Sounds, Animation, Menus
  • 3D Art : Novtilus.com
  • Graphics Design : Bruno Zmuda
  • Music : Robert Engstrand
  • Documentation Template : Xiaoying Riley

 

  Have fun with Tennis Elbow Manager 2 !

 

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