Mario sports matter is weird. There were games that actually uses iconic Mario characters on them while still feeling they were generic NES games not acting as proper Mario spin-offs, like Famicom Grand Prix or NES Open Tournament Golf.

This game was ofc experimental on using Virtual Boy effects but on the gameplay it doesn't play that great at all.

Mario Tennis 64 started to do things right and awesome. I wouldn't return to this, history sake aside.