PALERMO: The stadium announcer at Palermo on Monday (Tuesday in Manila) wished a warm and welcome return to tennis lovers as the WTA tournament in Italy started five months after the last one, with bottles of hand sanitizer attached to the nets.

The event comes just weeks before the US Open and Roland Garros double-header but lost original top seed Simona Halep to lingering health concerns while an unnamed player withdrew from qualifying after testing positive for Covid-19.

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