Tennis Point Exhibition Series Odds & Picks on May 1

• A new tennis tournament will get underway on Friday in Germany
• The exhibition event will see players compete in best-of-three set matchups with each set only going to four
• Dustin Brown is the highest-ranked player in the field and is probably the best bet here

A lot of people have been wondering if tennis will be one of the first sports back in action after the coronavirus lockdown and on Friday, we’ll get our first peek at what that might look like. The Tennis Point Exhibition Series is set to run in Germany with eight players competing in a round-robin event.

This is actually the first of three exhibition tennis events lined up in Germany, so let’s take a closer look at this tournament, dive into the rules and see who is the best bet to win overall.

Tennis Point Exhibition Series Odds

Odds taken April 30th

Tournament Format

From what we know right now, the tournament is going to be hosted in Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate state with a somewhat unique set of rules. To start, this event will run from May 1st to May 5th and will start off in a round-robin format. After everyone’s played each other once, the top four players will then move to a playoff.

We’re looking at eight players in total and they’ll be playing in best-of-three set matches. Also, the sets are shortened to just four games with tiebreaks now happening at three (instead of six). Also, players will only need one point to win a deuce (whereas it’s normally two).

One other thing to keep in mind is that this event will be held behind closed doors and there will be no fans in attendance.

Who Is in the Running?

Unfortunately, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic didn’t sign up for this exhibition, so we’re left handicapping a wide variety of lesser-known players. We’re looking a Jean Werner, Benjamin Hassan, Floria Broska, Jan Choinski, Constantin Schmitz, Dustin Brown, Yannick Hanfmann and Johannes Haerteis.

Brown might be the biggest name in the field and he’s actually 2-0 in his career against Nadal. He’s made it as far as the semis in an ATP event a couple of times and the quarters 11 times. The challenge is that he’s now 35 years old and he’s no young sprite. It’s hard to know if he’s a reliable bet in this spot.

What Do the Rankings Look Like?

One telling metric we can go by here is examining the world rankings of the players. Brown is the highest but he’s all the way down at No. 239 in the world. The next wave of players is in the 300’s as Choinski is No. 332, Haertis is at No. 345 and Hassan finds himself at No. 354. Schmitz is next on the list but he’s all the way down at No. 614.

What’s the Best Bet?

If I’m looking at the first wave of matchups, Brown does look like a decent flier over Schmitz – even though there’s some sizable juice. There’s also some value taking Hassan over Werner as Hassan is at least ranked in the Top 350; Werner is nowhere to be found in the Top 1000.

Keep in mind that we’re mostly throwing darts here as we don’t have good evidence to work with on any of these guys. At any rate, I do like the two favorites, Brown and Hassan, to earn wins on Friday.