Omnium National Bank | Infrastructure deficit could influence the future of the tournament

“In the short term”, Montreal is not about to lose its tennis tournament. Its long-term future, however, will only be “secured” at the cost of major investments in its infrastructure.

Director of the National Bank Open (OBN), Valérie Tétreault is not sounding the alarm. The tournament is healthy and attendance records are falling one after the other – when the weather is nice.

However, the growth potential in current facilities is limited. “We are quite at our maximum capacity,” said the leader last week in an interview with The Press.

“It is clear that in the coming years, we will have pressure for our infrastructures to be at the same level as the other Masters 1000 tournaments if we want to remain in this category of tournaments,” she continued.

Consequently, “we must ensure that we are able to follow the parade”.

The site’s rejuvenation is not a whim. First, at the initiative of the ATP and the WTA, the tournament will expand next summer. The number of players will increase from 56 to 96, there will be one more round and the event will now take place over 12 days.

These modifications necessarily come with more elaborate specifications. Montreal found itself from the start in a deficit on at least two points. The number of training courts is insufficient and there is a lack of a third court with significant capacity, in addition to the central court and the Rogers court.

For 2025, the OBN has obtained a “derogation” for the training grounds, which will be located on a “satellite site”. The search for a location is ongoing and is expected to be completed early in the new year. The Quebec government also announced financial assistance a few weeks ago for repair work and bringing the stadium up to standard.

Crutch

These measures will serve as a crutch for the next year, but a permanent solution must be found.

Because in terms of the surface area of ​​the competition venues, the installations in Montreal and Toronto are among the smallest, even the smallest, of the Masters 1000. There is clearly a lack of space.

In addition, the IGA stadium will be 30 years old in 2026, but its southern portion, inherited from the defunct Jarry stadium, dates from the 1960s. “This is where we have more urgent work to do to understand its current state,” explains Valérie Tétreault. We do not know how many years this part can last in the absence of major work. »

Finally there is the infamous question of the roof. Indeed, like two-colored corn and cooler nights, the dream of covering the IGA stadium has become an August tradition.

The rain that fell on the metropolis during the most recent presentation of the OBN left its mark on the imagination. And she ruined the quality of the show last year. Jessica Pegula eliminated Liudmila Samsonova in 46 minutes in the final, after the Russian was forced to play her semi-final match the same day due to a postponement due to bad weather. Other equivalent tournaments have retractable roofs; another “pressure point” on Montreal.

The groundbreaking is not imminent: Tennis Canada is looking for a firm that will be responsible for conducting a feasibility study. We already know that the stadium cannot support a future structure. It should therefore be self-supporting.

No figures have yet been put forward, but we can guess that the cost of such a construction would be steep. We can predict that the government of Quebec and the City of Montreal would, if necessary, be contacted.

At a press briefing during the tournament last August, Pierre Fitzgibbon, who was then Minister of the Economy, said he was “open” to discussing it later.

“They were ready to listen when we had a project to submit,” estimates Valérie Tétreault. I think the ball is in our court. It is up to us to submit our project, to make our request. This will be a very big priority at Tennis Canada over the coming months. We are talking about a global project, a long-term vision of the tournament in Montreal. »

Unpopular

The manager is also very aware of the unpopularity of the most recent government aid granted to professional sports organizations. The subsidies paid to the Los Angeles Kings, who will play two games in Quebec in the coming days, as well as to the organization of the Presidents Cup, which is in full swing in Montreal, have caused discontent both in the political class than within the population.

“It’s certain that we are following this with interest, as much as the [annonces] than the reactions,” underlines Valérie Tétreault.

Even if no project is yet ready to be submitted, we understand that the argument is already ready. Valérie Tétreault insists that this will be a “one-off” request for help and not a recurring one. Unlike the Formula 1 Grand Prix, the OBN does not receive public money, she argues.

There is also the need for the event to remain competitive with its equivalents. “Following the parade” is a bit like that.

The Cincinnati tournament, the destination that follows Montreal on the circuit of major summer events, has just begun a renovation of its facilities estimated at 350 million CAN, half of which comes from public funds.

Valérie Tétreault also recalls the mission of the OBN, little known to the public. Profits from the Montreal and Toronto tournaments represented 71% of Tennis Canada’s revenues in 2022 and 2023. The federation is seeking to diversify its funding sources, she said. However, this will not happen in the blink of an eye.

“I obviously understand that the conversation is divisive in relation to professional sport,” she adds. But if, tomorrow morning, we no longer have a tournament, that completely changes our ability to develop sport in the country. »

Valérie Tétreault, however, does not want to rush anything. What matters to him above all is bringing the OBN into a “new era”. Adapting to the new format next summer already requires a lot of work and resources. Every day, the organizers climb a small portion of the “mountain” that the project initially represented.

Reaching its summit will already be an achievement. Ensuring the sustainability of the event in the metropolis will be another.