Wimbledon kicks off - The top 5 best iPhone tennis games

The most ancient, prestigious, and 3D tennis tourney of them all, Wimbledon, has kicked off in London this week.

The 125th edition of the Grand Slam championship will see the top players from around the globe descend upon Wimbledon's freshly cut lawns and freshly plucked strawberries to once again weed out the world's best players.

If you're in the tennis mood and want to live out the dream of winning Wimbledon for yourself, video games have got you covered.

Since the invention of these silly toys, tennis's simple rules and the ability to render a human holding a racquet as a line of white pixels has made the sport perfect digital fodder.

So if you want to go toe to toe with Roger Federer or get your hands on the ceremonial silver winner's plate without going through years of arduous training or breaking into the The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, try these iPhone games.

Gameloft's Real Tennis 2009 might be a year or two behind, but this out-dated app is still the champion when it comes to iOS tennis. It serves up a pretty authentic representation of the sport, with believable ball physics and smart AI from your opponents.

You've got a wide array of strokes to fiddle with to elevate the game beyond endless rallies. Alongside your typical fore and backhands you can do cheeky lobs and drop shots, violent smashes, and huge serves. If you fancy, you can even serve by wobbling your iPhone.

The game also offers a Career mode, so you can pretend to be someone who actually follows the sport all year round, and doesn't just watch Wimbledon because, "it's the big one, in't it?". You'll trot across the globe from Paris to Stockholm to play in seven stadiums and on three different surfaces.

That's not all. Real Tennis 2009 features local wi-fi multiplayer, too, so you can challenge your friends to quick matches. It's all presented in lovely 3D, and does a rather impressive job of squeezing the sport onto your iPhone. An easy recommendation for any tennis nut.

If Real Tennis 2009 is missing anything, it's multiplayer matches over the web. So hurrah for Eurocenter's slightly-cartoony tennis app Ace Tennis Online.

The game uses matchmaking to find suitable players from around the world to duke it out with. You can also create a personal profile with your own photo, find friends, send private messages, and chat.

Otherwise, it's a serviceable tennis game with good physics, plenty of strokes (including lob, smash, and drop shot), and accelerometer controls. It can also be played offline, if your buddies are too busy watching the real tennis.

The original TouchSports Tennis impressed racquet fans when it dropped onto iPhone in 2008. It had great physics, responsive controls, and a dynamic camera system. You could play on all sorts of different courts, try your hand at two types of control, and pick from six players.

But time has not been kind to TouchSports. It plays well on even the oldest iPhones, but it looks dated and creaky. So it's a good job that Handheld Games Corp has released a sequel for 2011.

The new game plays just as well, and has the same pick-up-and-play controls, but it looks magnificent with Retina display graphics and even better camera angles. You can take six players and play on courts in Australia, France, the United Kingdom, and the USA.

Like Real Tennis and Ace Tennis, TouchSports comes with advanced strokes and swings like lobs and smashes. You'll need them against the game's tougher opponents.

Chop Chop Tennis
Gamerizon

This cutesy tennis game doesn't let you play as Venus Williams or chill out on world famous courts. But what it lacks in real-world simulation it makes up for with excellent controls, a bumper collection of features, and online play.

Like Gamerizon's other Chop Chop games - including Hockey, Ninja, and Runner - you'll only need to flick your pinky across the screen to play a game of tennis. It's rather simple but hides plenty of depth as your exact stroke will determine where and how fast the ball moves.

The game has eight pintsize characters, five courts to play on, both singles and doubles tournaments, and plenty of training modes. If you've got some pals you can use Game Center to get online and play against friends over the web.

Chop Chop is easy to get to grips with thanks to its pick-up-and-play nature and ultra intutive controls. If you don't mind playing as characters who look more like infants than players, it's an ace little title.

King of Tennis
Poppy

And now for something completely different. In this pixel-art time waster, you'll play a smiling ruler who's settled down to watch a spot of tennis. You'll control his noggin, tapping the screen so his peepers will follow the ball between hits.

You'll need the concentration of a top tennis player and the observational skills of HawkEye to rack up big scores, because it's Game Over if you make the monarch miss a crucial shot or overlook a fluffed volley.

Once you've built up some rapid reflexes and perfectly watched an entire match play out, you can post your best scores to Twitter and Facebook.

King of Tennis is simple, endlessly charming, and a little bit of fun. For free, it's the perfect app to have on your homescreen for emergency use during Nadal's inevitable knee injuries.