Tennis Elbow Manager
by
Manu TOO

Summary:

I. Introduction
II. The Shareware
III. Menus
IV. World Tour

• Automatically saved games
• Ranking
• Number of sets
• The Masters
• The Davis Cup / Fed Cup
• How to change the World Tour's players

V. Players' attributes

• Playing styles
• Talents
• Skills
• Favorite Double Partner

VI. Training

• Difficulty Level
• Tiredness
• Combo training
• Most important skills
• Potentials
• Top Spin
• Motivation
• Practice with a player
• Trainers

VII. Tournament Match

• Entering a tournament
• Surfaces
• Match tactics
• Match progress
• Match bonus

VIII. Conclusion
IX. Order full version

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Tennis Elbow Manager is a tennis game that let you become a tennis coach and manage your player.
To configure the controllers and the resolution, run "Configuration".

Minimum system requirements on Windows :

• OS: Windows Vista/XP/ME/2000/98 (Windows 95/NT not supported)
• CPU: 500 MHz Intel Pentium or equivalent
• RAM: 128 MB
• DirectX 8.1 (DX8.1 is already installed with Windows XP)
• Video: DirectX 6.0 compatible 16-MB 3D card
• Input: Keyboard or Mouse

Recommended system requirements on Windows :

• CPU: 800 Mhz or faster Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor
• RAM: 256 MB or more
• Video: DirectX 8.1 compatible 64-MB 3D card

Minimum system requirements on Mac OSX :

• OS: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later
• G3-400
• RAM: 128 MB
• 50 MB available hard disk space
• Input: Keyboard, Mouse or Joystick

Recommended system requirements on Mac OSX :

• G4-600
• RAM: 256 MB or more
• Video: 64-MB 3D card

Characteristics:

Tournaments :

• more than 300 tournaments
• Davis Cup, Masters
• 3000 players, over 35 years
• Full double-ranking system (like the entry one from ATP), both in single and double competition
• Activity of the past year

Coaching :

• up to 4 coached players
• 4 difficulty levels
• specialized trainers
• sponsors
• injuries
• coach center & equipment

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

• you can save your games, but you cannot load them
• you can play only 2 years
• you cannot play 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 check, paypal, credit card, etc...), a key (a small file) will be sent to you by email, allowing you to unblock 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.

In the menus:

You control the little rotating ball with the Keyboard or the Mouse; bring the ball on any icon and click on the button 1 to activate the icon; when the ball is on an icon, its description appears in the bottom box.

Default icons:

• Back: go to the previous menu (same as clicking on the button 2 or a press on the 'Esc' key)
• Quit: exit to Windows

In many menus, you will have a bar of icon on the right side. These icons give you access to the configuration menus about profiles, controls, sound, video, and misc options.

"Main" menu:

• New Game: start a new game
• Resume current game: resume the current game (which is created at each start with the trial version); go to the "World Tour" menu
• Credits: information
• Load / Save: load a previously saved game / save the current game

"World Tour" menu:

• Next match / Next week: play next match / go to next week
• Coached players: see to players' training, sponsors, planning, etc...
• Drawboards, Ranks & Scores: show the world rankings, the tournament boards, Davis Cup draw and players' results within the 52 past weeks
• Hire & Buy: hire trainers, players, and buy equipment

Automatically saved games:

When you exit Tennis Elbow 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 Tennis Elbow.

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 Tennis Elbow by clicking on the little cross on top right of the Tennis Elbow 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 ; in addition, Top30 Players can count their best 4 TET500 and best 2 TET250 ; lower players can count up to best 4 TET250
• 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 than 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 him 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 his ranking allowed him to enter the final draw
• The major tournaments are the 4 Grand Slams, plus all the PremiumM, plus the best 2 results of Premium5

Number of sets:

If you activate the advanced options (within the "Misc Options" menus), a screen will appear when you create a new game, letting you set the number of sets as you wish.

The Masters:

You'll automatically participate in 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 final.

The Davis Cup / Fed Cup:

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

First 2 singles occur on Friday ; doubles is on Saturday; last 2 singles are on 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 play-off. The winner of the play-off will be in the Main league the following 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 is playing ; he'll also get a 10% experience bonus from his matches.

How to change the World Tour's players:

You can edit the players by opening the "Data\Players.*.ini" files with an advanced text editor (these files are quite big, so better to not open them with the Windows Notepad).

Each player is defined by 4 kind of attributes :

• playing style : it defines the base of his game, the way he plays, his main strategy & comportement on the court
• natural attributes : his height and age, left or right handed
• talents : those are some innate capacities ; not all players have some ; they give some little bonus in different situations ; they cannot be trained and they don't change over the time
• skills : those are the main abilities that define the players and his possibilities ; there are separated in 4 groups : technical skills, surface skills, physical skills, mental skills

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 6 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 dictactes 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 of 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 purpose can be to win the point at the net, doing easy volleys, when it's needed
• Varied : this kind of player likes to construct his game, play on baseline, where he can hit some winners, as well as try to create some good occasions to run to the net, and 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 is possible, and doesn't like to play long rally on the baseline ; he will play server 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 weakness, let him make the game, winners and faults, till he has the occasion to hit a winning passing shot, lob, drop shot, or even finish the point at the volley when it's needed

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

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 a fast surface
• Topspin serve : Serve giving a topspin effect to the ball, most effective on a slow surface
• Kick serve : Serve giving a kick effect to the ball, most effective on a normal surface
• 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

Skills:

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

The surface skills don't show the player 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.

Some skills will be more effective and/or useful on fast surfaces, like service and volleys, and other 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 the time ; the higher they are, the faster they'll drop off.

Favorite Double Partner:

When you look other players' character sheet, you can see the "Favorite Partner" button (2 rackets, the symbol for Doubles) : if you click on it, the player will be added to the double 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 time).

The training screen in the "Coached Players" menu allows you to trains 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. But to train mental skills, you'll need to have some experience points available ; such points are earned during tournament matches.

You cannot train surface skills directly : they raise when you practice other skills or play matches on them, 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 :

From the physical training selection, you also can rest, which raise your short term & long term forms.

Difficulty Level:

The difficulty level influences 3 game aspects :

1. the training efficiency
2. the speed at which skills lower
3. the skill potentials

These 3 parameters are lower when the difficulty is higher, even the #2, which means overall, the skills change more slowly, in better or worse, in higher difficulty levels.

Tiredness:

When your player trains, he will get tired, more or less depending of 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 !

On trip, forms' recovery is also faster when traveling on higher class of plane, and sleeping in higher class of hotel.

Combo training:

All technical skills (except top spin) 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 the help bar. Example : doing 6 hours of rally training is 50% better than doing 1 hour on each of the 6 rally skills.

Most important skills:

1. Concentration : this mental skill defines the frequency at which a player will have a bad day, with low energy; the higher it is, the fewer it will happen
2. Consistency : this mental skills defines how much the player's energy can lower, on a bad day
3. Service skills : as it's the 1st strike of every point when a player serves, the service is very important
4. Cold blood : this mental skills defines the frequency at which a player will be stressed in important moments, and when playing against an opponent less strong than him : in this case, his level will lower a bit, but only to his opponent's level, at worst
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's start with a good stamina and a decent strength as it influences other skills' potentials (see below)
7. Rally skills : once the serve & return played, the rally are the most used skills, and thus, are often quite important, unless for players volleying a lot

Potentials:

Each skill has a maximal value, called potential, which is almost impossible to surpass. Your main male player has all his potentials to 90-100% (depending of the difficulty level), but the additional players you could hire will have lower potentials. Your main female player has all her potentials to 90-100%, except for most physical skills which are lowered compared to male players.

But some skills' potentials depends of other skill values. The main example is the strength skill : if it's too low, it will limit your forehand, backhand and service powers, as well as your smash and top spin skills.

The most close of its potential a skill is, the longest time it will need to raise.

When your player will get older, his physical potentials 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 potentials is symbolized by the little vertical blue 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.

Top Spin:

Top spin is a really special skill, in the way it's the only skill you can train to lower it in addition to raise it.
Top spin 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 top spin is below 35%, the higher your player will get an handicap on slow surfaces (ie: clay).
The higher the top spin is above 35%, the higher your player will get an handicap on fast surfaces (ie: grass, indoor).
At 35%, the top spin is neither a bonus nor a handicap.

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

Motivation:

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

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. Moreover, the most close your player's level is from his opponent's level, the most 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, look the "Team" screen in the "Coached Players" menu.

There you can see your player current location at bottom of the screen, all your team members, with their current location displayed in the help bar when you put the mouse cursor on their name, and the different bonuses for all types of training.

You can also decide which players will pay for each trainer 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 assistant skill percentage of the assistant.

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 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 ahead, except the 3 or 4 next weeks : you have to decide early and wisely where your player will play. But depending of his ranking, your player can't enter any tournament you want : 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 and your player 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 passings 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 advantage any particular kind of play.

Here the speed for each surface in the game :

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 of 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 most 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 player 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 progress:

On the Match screen, you can see the short term form, the energy and the stress of every player. The Match energy depends of 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 player ability to take advantage all his available energy on this specific day : sometimes, your player is in a bad day even if he's not truly tired, so he just can't play his best tennis.

The Energy Max depends of the Short term form and the Stamina. As long as the short term form isn't below a certain level, the Energy Max is at 100%, after it will lower till 0% with the short term form. This level depends of your player's stamina :

Level = 100 - Stamina x 0.8

Example : if your player has a 50% stamina, then as long as his short term form won't be under 60%, he'll have a 100% Energy Max ; below 60%, it'll lower from 100% to 0%.

During the match progress, 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 top left.

Match bonus:

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

Most bonuses only apply to singles, not to doubles.

Here the list of all bonuses :

• Power bonus : rally bonus when forehand and backhand power are too good for 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.

Have fun with Tennis Elbow Manager !

Credits:

- Emmanuel Rivoire (aka ManuTOO)
- Music : StockMusic.Net
- Localization : German by Daniel & Wolfgang Woeger, English by Rob4590, Croatian by Blacky
- Quality Assurance : Wolfgang Woeger, Eric Rivoire, Rob4590, Aldecius, jolamouche

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Copyright Emmanuel Rivoire - ©2007-2012