2007 saw the birth of Wiimbledon, a Wii Tennis tournament held at Brooklyn's favorite video game themed bar, Barcade. The event was a huge hit amongst both participants and media outlets, with everyone from ABC News to us showing up with microphones in hand. Geekanerd editor Albo had the distinction of actually playing his way to the finals, that's the final round of competition, people, though he ultimately lost out to no less than Luigi himself. Seems a little suspect to me that employees of Nintendo, much less Nintendo characters, were even allowed to participate in the first place, but what's done is done.*This year, Wiimbledon is spreading the Wii Tennis love across the country with a nationwide Wiinebago tour, culminating in the 2nd Annual Wiimbledon Tournament on June 21st, to be held in San Francisco. Given the NorCal location, I imagine a lot of serious software types will be in attendance so I'd advise any potential contenders to approach there technique from a highly technical, code-centric standpoint.
Check out the official website to get on the mailing list, so you can know when the tour is coming to your town and even more importantly, when sign-ups start; last year, the registration rush crashed Wiimbledon's servers, leading to several horribly tense hours where the Gnred crew thought they'd missed the deadline. And for a look at last year's festivites, check out our extensive coverage.
*I lost in my first elimination round, 2/1. But my opponent did make it to the semi-finals, soo...there's that.
