OMNIUM BANQUE NATIONALE

August 5, 2026

Valerie Tetreault

Press Conference

Q. I do hear you. I understand there's a tournament to be played and there's a story to be written, but the events of the last week have led to a situation where a much bigger part of the commercial success of the tournament was placed on very few people. I was wondering if you could tell us how you feel about it, possibly in printable words, and how you think it would be possible to go forward, even if probably you will think about this after the end of the tournament.

VALERIE TETREAULT: Well, I mean, of course, I'm not going to lie, we were hoping that Felix was going to win at least a few matches here in Montreal. I think there was a big hype on Felix. He's definitely the player everybody was talking about, and people wanted to know when he was going to play.

It's pretty rare that we can announce a day in advance that we're actually sold out for a session. That means that we really don't have any more tickets to sell, and we were quite confident it was going to be the case, of course, every time he was going to play.

Then I think, you know, we're very lucky in Montreal because we have some great fans who appreciate tennis, but appreciate the event that is the National Bank Open. That's why many buy their tickets way in advance and they don't necessarily wait to see exactly who's going to be there, who's going to play when. So they're big supporters of the event.

That's why also in Montreal it's one of those few places, I think, where there is not that big of a difference between the men and the women's event, which again, we're very proud of. So I'm confident that people are still going to come, are still going to smile. They're going to enjoy themselves during the rest of the tournament. But I think we all need to give ourselves a little bit of time now to digest the news as well.