420 days

Winda Benedetti

Serena Williams serves her inner dominatrix for Top Spin ad

Who knew playing video games could be so ... uh ... hot.

Not to mention uncomfortable.

A commercial for the new tennis video game "Top Spin 4" is drawing a lot of attention — and controversy — thanks to an appearance by real-world tennis star Serena Williams ... and her back side.

In the ad, Williams dons the kind of studded bracelets, lace-up knee-highs and black, body-hugging attire that seems appropriate for a night of BDSM rather than an afternoon of, you know, tennis.

Publisher 2K Sports is now distancing itself from the commercial in which Williams ("the world's sexiest tennis player") along with Rileah Vanderbilt ("the world's sexiest tennis gamer") play the kind of tennis game that only takes place in a 16-year-old boy’s imagination.

There’s shooting fire, there’s sweaty cleavage, there's lots of grunting and, oh yes, there's plenty of gratuitous butt shots ... all of this while the two women play a round of motion-controlled "Top Spin 4" using PlayStation Move wands as their whips ... I mean, rackets.

I’m not opposed to suggestive video game advertisements per se. But there’s one thing about this ad that bothers me: Wouldn’t that wedgie that Williams' outfit is giving her distract her from making those cross court shots?

Listen up Williams, there’s a good reason I always wear frumpy sweat pants when I play motion-controlled video games. A very good reason.

While the commercial is spreading across the Internet faster than you can say "Yes Mistress Serena, I'd like another!" it looks like the prudes at 2K Sports are trying to put the kibosh on the whole thing.

A company representative has now told game blog Joystiq:

“As part of the process for creating marketing campaigns to support our titles, we pursue a variety of creative avenues. This video is not part of the title’s final marketing campaign and its distribution was unauthorized."

The unauthorized distributor, apparently, was gamer Vanderbilt who spread the word via this tweet. If you’re not familiar with Vanderbilt, she's part of the women's gaming group Team Unicorn which brought us this fun tribute to lady geeks. She also starred in the "Star Wars" fan video "Saber."

It's worth noting that, though the ad may seem headed toward R-rated territory, the game itself is rated E for everyone. In fact, that's what makes this promo so surprising. The "Top Spin" games aren’t exactly known for being fantasy fodder.

I mean, if this ad had been made for, say, a new "Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball" game ... that might actually have made some sense.

But then again, who needs advertisements to make sense.

Tennis anyone?

(Thanks to Kotaku for the heads up.)

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Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter.