When asked for his favorite memory of the quartet - Francesca Schiavone, Flavia Pennetta, Roberta Vinci and Sara Errani - who carried the Italian flag at the top of the WTA Tour for over a decade, Internazionali BNL d'Italia tournament director and former Fed Cup captain Sergio Palmieri is momentarily lost for words.

"Too many, too many!" he laughs. The one that springs to mind first, though, is unexpected but fitting. "In 2010, Pennetta and Schiavone - because they were the older ones - decided to play a joke on Vinci and Errani during a Fed Cup tie in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Normally, every night they'd go to play cards after dinner.