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Due to the coronavirus pandemic, professional tennis has been on hold since early March, with no signs of the restart anytime soon. Staying at their homes, the players have been working on their physical strength, hoping to return to the court as soon as possible and stay in shape if the officials decide to embrace any tournaments by the end of the year.
Some of those who have remained in the USA have had a chance to hit the court in Florida and there was an organized event in Germany as well, with eight players competing at the inaugural Tennis-Point Exhibition Series at the BASE Tennis Academy in Hohr-Grenzhausen.
Yannick Hanfmann, Dustin Brown, Jan Choinski, Johannes Haerteis, Florian Broska, Benjamin Hassan, Constantin Schmitz and Jean-Marc Werner had the opportunity to play two matches every day against each other for the past four days, embracing the round-robin system and battling in the play-off on Monday for the final positions.
With no spectators, ball boys or line umpires, there were only three persons on the court at the same time, taking care of all the health measures in these troubled times caused by the pandemic. After all seven round-robin rounds, Hanfmann, Brown and Choinski all had five wins and two losses, with two Germans advancing into the final after having the best win-loss ratio in terms of sets.
There, world no. 143 Yannick Hanfmann took down Dustin Brown 4-2, 4-0 in some 35 minutes, taking the title and seeking another one fro Thursday when the second edition would begin, joined by additional four players. Struggling with a back injury, Brown got broken in the very first game of the match, with Hanfmann cementing a break after a deuce (no add score) in game two for a 2-0 advantage.
The better-ranked player held at love in game four after a service winner, firing four more at 3-2 to wrap up the opener after some 17 minutes. Brown sent a volley long at the beginning of the second set to suffer another break, netting a forehand in the third game to lose four straight points and push his rival a game away from the title.
Yannick sealed the deal with an ace a few minutes later to become the champion of the first organized event in western Europe during the coronavirus.