Palermo Open to restart WTA Tour next month

PALERMO: WTA chief Steve Simon cannot wait for the Tour to get back up and running in Sicily next month and hopes the Palermo Open will provide a blueprint for tournament operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The women's claycourt tournament, which gets underway in the Sicilian capital on August 3, will be the first across both the WTA or ATP tours since they were suspended in early March because of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

"I'd say there's definitely an excitement to get back to doing what we love," WTA Chairman and Chief Executive Simon told Reuters by video call from the United States.

"Obviously there's been a lot of hard work that's been done by the tournament promoters as well as the team to get us to this stage. So, we're going into this with great hopes.

"And hopefully we've found a solution that will allow tennis to operate in this environment." Agencies

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