Tennis Canada said on Tuesday that from 2027, men's and women's competitors at the National Bank Open would compete for equal amount of prize money.
In early August, Toronto and Montreal host the annual Canadian tournament, which is a WTA 1000 event on the women's tour and a Masters 1000 stop on the men's ATP Tour.
According to Tennis Canada's chief event officer, Gavin Ziv, "this is quite a big achievement for us trying to get an equity place for our sport in this country."
Starting in 2025, with the exception of Olympic years, the tournament will grow from seven days of main draw competitions to 12 days.
The National Bank Open will receive a "gradual influx of funds" from WTA Ventures, which will centralise WTA commercial rights and assets, according to a press statement from Tennis Canada.
The national sports organisation has stated that it will use the money, in addition to ongoing backing from its title sponsor, to "significantly reduce" the disparity between men's and women's prize money.
The Montreal WTA tournament runs from August 7-13, and the prize pool is listed at $2,788,800. Toronto's ATP tournament is worth $7.623 million.
WTA prize money is expected to increase from its current 32% of ATP prize money in 2025 to roughly 60% in 2026 and 100% in 2027, as reported by Tennis Canada.
Vancouver's Rebecca Marino remarked, "Today is a special day to be a Canadian tennis player."
"I’m so proud of the work Tennis Canada and National Bank have put into paving the pathway to equal prize money."
"The announcement of parity by 2027 is a huge step forward for women in Canada and I hope this can lay the foundation for more progress and an even brighter future for the girls who enter our sport.”
Last year, the ATP declared that some tournaments, including the National Bank Open, would grow to 12-day main draw events and adopt a structure closer to that employed at Grand Slams.
The WTA has planned to implement the longer format for the Rome and Cincinnati tournaments as well as the Canadian tournament. The present size of fields, 56, will be doubled to 96.
Similar to Cincinnati's tournament (held in mid-August), the National Bank Open will reduce to seven or eight days during Olympic years. The 2024 Summer Olympics will be held in Paris.
According to the federation, Tennis Canada and the tours have agreed to implement the new structure beginning in 2025. This will give them three full years to adjust to the new system before the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
