OMNIUM BANQUE NATIONALE

August 2, 2025

Valerie Tetreault

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Welcome, everybody. Questions in English?

Q. You already answered the one about performance bias in French, so I'm not going to ask that one. One question is, due to the proximity to Wimbledon, especially the men's tournament has been particularly affected, I was wondering if there is any thought of thinking during the next years to maybe alternate with Cincinnati and maybe having the two tournaments switch on a regular basis? That's one question. The second question is, what's your feeling about Sportsnet not covering with Canadian-generated content the first week, but only starting today? The women's tournament was not as affected as the men's tournament where Felix's match was not shown on Canadian TV, but still, it would be much better to have a locally-produced broadcast.

VALERIE TETREAULT: On the first question, it's not part of any discussion right now, you know, the possibility of alternating between Cincinnati and Canada in terms of the weeks in the calendar. That being said, I do think that this year we were probably more impacted because of the two weeks in between Wimbledon and our tournament.

The good news is that 2026 and 2027 will be what we call the long summer calendar. So we'll have an extra week, so there will be, again, three weeks in between Wimbledon and the National Bank Open. I do think that will make a difference.

I think it allows basically anyone who goes pretty deep at Wimbledon to still have somewhere close to a week to take some time off and recover before they can start thinking again about the hard court season. So I think, unfortunately, this year was clearly not ideal.

I'm a little bit relieved that in Montreal we weren't too impacted. I think in the end, there's only Aryna Sabalenka really who made the choice to skip Montreal to have a little bit extra time. The other players who weren't here, it was mostly for longer-term injuries and nothing that had to do of a choice of playing or not Montreal.

On the second question, I think just like the fans, we were disappointed obviously not to see our Canadian players being featured on the world feed, which in the end, resulted in Sportsnet not being able to show those matches. In Quebec we were a little bit more fortunate because TVA Sports was producing and so was able to show all the matches played from our Canadians.

That is something that we'll need to make sure that we discuss all together with Sportsnet, but also with ATP Media to make sure that it doesn't happen again in the coming years.

Q. Do you think the change in this calendar for the 2028 Olympics will have a positive effect in the Canadian Open?

VALERIE TETREAULT: I mean, I think in 2028 we're going to be in a much better position than last year, so I am seeing it positively. I'm anxious to find out exactly what the plan is with the ITF for the weeks and how many days so that we can start working on the calendar.

Already last May in some meetings with the ATP and WTA I think that, you know, after last year we want to make sure that we start talking quite early about 2028 and make sure that we are in a better position. Obviously it's going to be on hard court. It's much closer. It's earlier. So I think all the elements are there and are going to help us.

That being said, because of now the new 12-day format, there's some opportunities to maybe find a way that is kind of like an in between what we have this year and what we used to have with the seven days of main draw. So that's something that we want to do some work on with the help also of Cincinnati, because I think the best is for us two to figure it out together before we can come with an official proposal to the tours.

Q. So it's not 100% certain that in Olympic year we go back to the --

VALERIE TETREAULT: To seven? No, no.

Q. That is also for Cincinnati?

VALERIE TETREAULT: Exactly, yeah, yeah. Thank you.

Q. Going back to Canadian players, we have one player who remains in the tournament now. Any thoughts on Victoria Mboko, hopes for her?

VALERIE TETREAULT: It's been amazing to see her play in Montreal. I think from the moment that we announced that she was going to get a wild card into the main draw, we've been telling fans that she was one to watch after the incredible start to the season that she's had.

To think that at the beginning of the year she was a player ranked 350 in the world, and to see where she is now not only in terms of the ranking, but in terms of how she's able to play against some top players and to manage really any situation really.

This week, I mean, it was probably the first time that she was playing matches this late, especially the ones that she played that she was scheduled second of the night session in front of, you know, pretty big crowds as well, crowds that are expecting her, that are showing up for her, but I think she's showing great maturity already.

I've always said that I got to know her a little bit starting at the age of 14 when she joined our National Tennis Center. There are some things that you can learn obviously as a tennis player, but in terms of the champions that we see in tennis and in any sport, it always feels like there's something special about them. It needs to be in you, and I think she has that in her. We can see that right now just by how composed she is.