Adobe says the 2010 Layer Tennis design tournament will kick off this Friday, Aug. 20, at 2 p.m. (Eastern).

Hosted by Coudal Partners and presented by Adobe Creative Suite 5, Layer Tennis is a series of live online digital contests where creative professionals send files back and forth in real time, building upon each others’ designs while a guest commentator provides play-by-play updates. This season, the live matches can be viewed at http://www.layertennis.com and will run every Friday through Dec. 10.

Each match consists of 10 volleys, each lasting 15 minutes. Spectators can watch and post commentary, and are encouraged to vote for a winner after each match on the Layer Tennis web site. Every volley can be bookmarked and live updates for all matches will be available as RSS and Twitter feeds. Spectators can also become a fan of Layer Tennis on Facebook. After each week’s Layer Tennis match, the winners and their work will be featured on the Adobe web site.

New this season is a live, in-person match taking place at Adobe MAX 2010 in Los Angeles, California, where attendees will get an up close and personal view of the contestants in action. Also in the works is a collaborative offline event to raise money for