Simona Halep reacts to winning a point against Jessica Pegula during the 2022 National Bank Open at Sobeys Stadium on Aug. 13.Dan Hamilton/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters
Significant changes are coming to Canada’s marquee annual pro tennis tournament, from equal prize money to a lengthier event for the world’s best players.
But patience is required. The changes are still years away.
The National Bank Open will finally close the pay gap and award equal prize money to its women and men competitors, beginning in 2027, Tennis Canada announced on Tuesday.
The women will receive incremental gains in prize winnings over the next few years at the National Bank Open, which runs simultaneously in Toronto and Montreal every August – a WTA 1000 event on the women’s tour and a Masters 1000 stop on the men’s ATP Tour.
Tennis Canada says the total prize money for the women’s tournament this summer in Montreal will be US$2.788-million, while the men’s in Toronto will be US$6.6-million. It projects its Women’s Tennis Association prize money will rise from about 32 per cent of that of the Association of Tennis Professionals to nearly 60 per cent by 2025; then 78 per cent in 2026; and 100 per cent by 2027.
The ATP announced last year that several tournaments, including the National Bank Open, would expand from the seven-day main draw competitions to 12 days, adopting a structure closer to the one used at Grand Slams. On Tuesday, the WTA announced that its Canadian tournament and two others (Rome and Cincinnati) will do the same – starting in 2025 – and expand the player field for both men and women from 56 players to 96.
The news came as part of a larger announcement by the WTA on Tuesday, that included a strategic pathway to achieving equal prize money, a goal envisioned 50 years ago when Billie Jean King founded the Tour. The prize money increases will happen gradually over time, to ensure they are sustainable long term, with WTA 1000 and 500 combined events attaining equal prize money by 2027 and single-week WTA 1000 and 500 events by 2033.
“This is a really exciting day for professional tennis in Canada,” said Gavin Ziv, chief tournament officer at Tennis Canada. “Creating a clear path toward equal prize money at our tournament has been years in the making and it required a lot of work.”
Tennis is among the most lucrative pro sports for women. Prize money has been equal for men and women at the four Grand Slam tournaments since 2007. Yet many other tournaments still award women much less than they reward the men, even in those where they play the same best-of-three-sets format.
The Canadian tournament is the third oldest in pro tennis, behind Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. The event, which has been called the du Maurier Open, the Canadian Masters, the Rogers Cup to the National Bank Open, has crowned champions like Serena Williams and Monica Seles, John McEnroe, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
For decades, the National Bank Open has been among those still rewarding women with smaller purses. Why? Because it’s largely reliant on money generated by the tournaments, and the ATP Tour generates more on things like sponsorships, broadcast and revenue, organizers say. While Tennis Canada has long strived to bring its prize money for women in line with the men’s at this event, to do so would have meant digging into funds for its domestic tennis programs – like grassroots or high performance.
In 2022, the ATP’s total prize purse for the men at the National Bank Open in Montreal was nearly US$5.9-million, with Spain’s Pablo Carreño Busta earning over US$915,000 as the singles champ. That same week in Toronto, the WTA’s purse for the women’s tournament was US$2.7-million, with winner Simona Halep collecting just under US$440,000.
Last year in Cincinnati, men’s prize money totalled US$6.28-million, while women competed for US$2.53-million. This May, Rome’s purse was US$8.49-million for men and US$3.93-million for women.
“More and more players have been getting restless with this,” American world No. 4 Jessica Pegula, a member of the WTA Players’ Council, told The New York Times Co. “Equal pay started with the Slams, and I think a lot of people thought that meant every tournament.”
The extra resources needed for the National Bank Open to make pay equity happen will come from two avenues.
In March, the WTA Tour signed an agreement with the private equity venture CVC Capital Partners to create WTA Ventures – a new entity that will centralize and leverage WTA commercial rights and assets, such a betting, data, and broadcast. CVC has experience in raising funds for sport properties, from Formula One to Spain’s top soccer league, La Liga. The WTA will continue to own the majority interest in the partnership. The aim is for this entity to eventually provide a gradual influx of funds to WTA tournaments, including the National Bank Open.
Tennis Canada is also getting increased support – both financially and strategically – from National Bank, its premier sponsor who says taking action to pay female tennis players equally aligns with its core values.
“National Bank signed a long-term partnership with Tennis Canada as the title sponsor of the NBO two years ago,” said Lucie Blanchet, executive vice-president, personal banking and client experience at National Bank of Canada. “From the very beginning, our vision included the goal of providing equal prize money.”
Tennis Canada says its total WTA prize money will be close to US$10-million beginning in 2027, an increase of some 350 per cent over four years.
The National Bank Open, like the Cincinnati tournament, will revert to a seven- or eight-day main draw tournament during Olympic years, when the summer tennis calendar is busier. Thus, Tennis Canada and the tours decided to implement its new 12-day structure starting in 2025, fitting in three consecutive years under the new format before the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 2028.
The women’s event, which takes place this summer Aug. 4-13 at IGA Stadium in Montreal, celebrates 129 years, while the men’s 140-year-old tournament is happening at Toronto’s Sobeys Stadium.