Virtua Tennis 3 features 20 international tennis stars like Roger Federer, Lindsay Davenport or Maria Sharapova against which you need to compete in the heart of the game: The World Tour. You create your own character and play to reach the number one rank on the world ranking list.
Virtua Tennis 3 is not a simulation like Top Spin 2 and only needs three buttons to perform all possible shot. Still time needs to be invested in training the character through several mini-games in which need you to hit a circle on the other side of the net or defeat aliens by hitting them with returns.
You can also play as one of the professionals against the CPU or a friend (or two if you play a Double). True to the series of the home version, there are also 12 mini-games available to play against your friends. These include the ones from the World Tour training as well as different ones like Curling or Super-Bingo. The Tournament Mode and Exhibition Mode are also present in the arcade version, but the Challenge Mode has been replaced by the World Tour Mode and Party Mode.