Center Court 2

[1] Written in Blitz Basic 2. Coding, graphics & sound by Gernot Fritsche.

[2] CENTER COURT 2 is a previously unreleased game that was planned for commercial release in 1997. It is the successor of CENTER COURT and CENTER COURT 97 / BLITZ TENNIS.


[3] In 1996/1997, coder Gernot Fritsche wrote this sequel to CENTER COURT in Blitz Basic 2 and had the game 99% complete, with only some minor elements lacking (i.e. English translation was mostly incomplete; minor gameplay elements were missing, as was a titlescreen). Development was abandoned, however, as the game had grown too big (~10MB HD space) for release on floppy disk in the ailing Amiga market, and with the author's interest in using his Amiga 1200 having evaporated the game was forgotten......at least until a few years ago, that is.

In 2012, Gernot Fritsche received some emails from Python1 on EAB enquiring whether a sequel to CENTER COURT had ever been planned. This prompted the author to dig out his old A1200 development machine, but tragedy struck when he couldn't get it to boot from HD and couldn't find any copies of CENTER COURT 2 on floppy disk. Given the expense and uncertainty of success of professional HD recovery, he thought the game lost forever.....or was it?

Time passed and Python1 devoted his energies to scouring the net for common problems associated with the 64MB Conner hard drive in Gernot Fritsche's A1200 (which, incidentally, had been purchased over 20 years earlier in 1992). His efforts paid off and he came up with a couple of possible solutions for Gernot to try. Feeling the solutions were beyond his expertise and hardware set-up, Gernot generously (and probably a bit bravely!) sent his HD off in the mail from Austria to Python1 in Switzerland.

Enlisting the help of eggman, a local A1200 owner in Geneva, for the data salvage Python1 delicately opened up the failing Conner HD to find that the head had predictably become stuck on the HD platter. The solution was to carefully and gently release it with one finger immediately after powering up the HD attached to eggman's A1200. Holding their hearts in their mouths, Python1 and eggman did just that. EUREKA!!! On 9th July 2016, CENTER COURT 2 was successfully recovered to CF card. The story did not end there, however......

Coder Gernot Fritsche was quickly given the wonderful news and some days later Python1 sent him all the data recovered from the HD. Not one to rest on his laurels, Gernot tested the game out under emulation and quickly set about completing the coding of the game for final release. Within days he had achieved his objective by adding a couple of missing key game elements (100% English translation, titlescreen) and cutting the game size in half on HD by removing several unused graphics files.

On 21st July, 2016 - after almost 20 years in the making - coder Gernot Fritsche released CENTER COURT 2 to the world for the first time on the English Amiga Board.....and, as they say, the rest is history! [the complete story can be read in an EAB thread HERE]


[4] Requirements: AGA chipset, 2MB chipram, HD.
Recommended: AGA chipset, 2MB chipram, fastram, HD.

[5] Game supports 4-player joystick adapters for gameplay (i.e. doubles matches).

[6] ***CENTER COURT 2(full release)*** was made freely available for download in July 2016 by coder Gernot Fritsche, and is available from these sources:

- CENTER COURT 2(HD version) [Source: coder Gernot Fritsche, via message posted on EAB]
- CENTER COURT 2(HD version) (dir: game/misc/CenterCourt2.zip) [Source: Aminet]
- CENTER COURT 2(unofficial ADF disk version) (requires ram disk + at least 5MB fastram) [Source: DamienD, via EAB FTP site]
- CENTER COURT 2(unofficial CD32 beta version)(contains player selection bug) [Source: Cobe, via message posted on EAB]