An unaired commercial for tennis sim Top Spin 4 recently leaked onto the Internet, causing considerable embarrassment for publisher 2K Sports. The ad was part of a scrapped campaign, but actress Rileah Vanderbilt -- who appears in the video alongside tennis star Serena Williams -- chose to upload the finished article to YouTube and promote it on Twitter. Why was it embarrassing? .

The video features Serena Williams (captioned "the world's sexiest tennis player") and Vanderbilt (dubbed "the world's sexiest tennis gamer") dressed in suggestive, figure-hugging outfits and playing Top Spin 4 with PlayStation Move controllers. The two women are accompanied by images of flames and explosions, the soundtrack heavily samples the sounds of grunting female tennis players and the whole video closes with the voiceover "you realize this is a fantasy, right?" It makes for uncomfortable viewing but does, to its credit, at least feature a little bit of game footage. It does, however, also open with possibly the most inappropriate use of the "E for Everyone" ESRB rating in recent history.

2K Sports issued a red-faced statement on the subject of the video to last night, noting that "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."

Although 2K Sports claims that the marketing campaign of which this commercial was a part was simply "part of the process," it's interesting -- and worrying -- that this direction was even considered. Sports games are often by their very nature quite clinical and professional in their in-game appearance, and this gives them a universal gender and age-neutral appeal that anyone can relate to and feel welcome to play. The fact that 2K even considered promoting Top Spin 4 in the style of a can of Axe deodorant suggests that some of their marketing department need to realize that gaming isn't just about the 18-30 year old male demographic any more.

STAT CHECK -- 8:30AM PST, Mar. 22, 2011