Tie Break cover (1990) 🔗

Starbyte Software was a German development studio, so it's not surprising they got inspired by erstwhile German tennis wunderkind Boris Becker. Putting him on the cover two (or three?) times, however, might have been a bit much. Aside from his famous leap photograph, it also features him holding his trophy from the same day he won the Wimbledon Tournament at age 17 in 1985. I couldn't find the right photo for the serve to the right, but it still looks a lot like a Boris Becker serve.

3D World Tennis title screen (1990) 🔗

I wouldn't know if this is the most famous leap in tennis history or not, but I'm pretty sure it's the one most often copied for Amiga tennis game art. The pose doesn't overlap 100% and apparently the imitators especially didn't like young Boris Becker's face, but the influence is still undeniable.

Discovered by drpepperfan from the Hardcore Gaming 101 forums.

Hoops Shut Up and Jam! (2021) 🔗

Piko Interactive is a business specializing in retro releases of old console games. When they got their hands on the Sega Genesis title Barkley Shut Up and Jam!, they apparently were faced with a dilemma. Contrary to the promotional text on the Steam page for the Accolade Sports Collection containing the game, they probably didn't want to risk "court action like you've never seen" with Sir Charles. So his likeness had to go, and ended up being replaced with what's literally a top search result for "angry black man" (with or without the "stock photo" modifier), as Frank Cifaldy pointed out on Bluesky. (Original discovery of the modified mugs by GSK.)

What makes this even funnier is that the same face is slapped on several digitized photos of Charles Barkley in the game (and its sequel), never making much of an attempt to adjust it to the current pose at hand. There's a rumor that the handful of odd pixels in his hair are traces from a watermark, suggesting the stock image might not even have been paid for, but I can't confirm that as at least how the image shows up for me, the positioning of the watermark is different.