NATIONAL BANK OPEN

August 13, 2026

Karl Hale

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the end-of-tournament press conference with our tournament director, Karl Hale. Karl will take some questions from the media in just a second. But first, why don't you summarize your thoughts on how the last 12 or 13 days have gone.

KARL HALE: Yeah, wow. I mean, incredible. As you all know, the National Bank is what fuels tennis in Canada, the resources that provides grass roots development and inspires the next generation of athletes in Canada.

The National Bank Open was just incredible. We saw nine of the top-10 players, four of the top-10 players in the world were the seeds in the semifinals, the first time since 2000.

We had record crowds. We had 24,000 people go through the gates on opening day.

The momentum continued all the way through to today where we think we're going to estimate about 215,000 to 216,000, which is a WTA Toronto record for women, but it's on par with the men.

But in addition to that, I think the difference of this tournament was the connection. The connection of the players to the fans, the tournament to the community, and the event to tennis in Canada.

Everybody saw all of these new families, young people, and life-long fans come to the tournament.

I had a text from a fan that said, I came for one match, this is my fifth match on Tuesday. I love tennis, and I'm a fan of the National Bank Open presented by Rogers, so it was outstanding.

We all saw the Alex Eala effect with our Filipino community, where we had thousands of flags waving, and new engagement from new fans of the tournament.

Also saw Leylah Fernandez get to the round of 16, beat the No. 5 player in the world. Other Canadians advance.

Vicky Mboko even came on the grounds to engage with the fans and the tournament.

So just incredible engagement from all of our players and partners.

Also, off site, the activations were well attended and well engaged. We opened the tournament opening week with our 25-year celebration of Rogers. We had $2.50 hot dogs, I hope you engaged in that. We gave away 500 racquets that day.

Rogers has been instrumental in the growth of not just the tournament, but tennis in Canada, so we celebrated them.

Our middle weekend was Tennis Festival Weekend. We had a retro party, we had happy hours, we had a coffee party, and just younger people coming to the tournament, which is what we all want.

And then we capped the week with Championship Week. We had Psycho Bunny Day, gave away 8,000 hats. We had our Unmatched Gender Equity Conference which had sold out, 500 people. We had our Impossible Shot last night. Unfortunately, it was impossible last night. And then we're finishing with our finals today.

So, in conclusion, the connection we've had to our community and Canada and the world has shown that Toronto is a top-tier tennis city, and Canada and the tournament is a top tennis tournament in tennis nation.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. You mentioned the Eala impact. How would you sum it up? Describe her impact on this tournament.

KARL HALE: Yeah, it was just unprecedented. We've never seen anything like that in Toronto before. It was unexpected.

We saw the momentum build from February in Doha, and over the past year. And it really culminated in the week of, which every match she played it sold out.

She was just so engaging with her fans and the community. It was really beautiful to see her so loyal to her fans. The fans just get so excited about her.

Q. It wasn't just the Eala effect. I saw Polish flags, Ukrainian flags yesterday. Can you speak to how the international flavor of this event has grown in your time as tournament director, and how you keep these fans continue to be engaged and connected beyond this tournament.

KARL HALE: Yeah, I think one of the uniquenesses about this event in particular this year was, in the past we saw tens of flags from various nations throughout. This year we saw hundreds and thousands of flags.

Last night you saw the engagement of the fans with each other, which was great to see.

In addition to that, you saw the fans staying until the end of the session for the whole tournament. So people were staying until midnight basically to see their players.

So the fans were really loyal with the players, and the players were fully engaged with the fans.

Q. What are the chances we'll see a roof installed at Sobeys Stadium some day?

KARL HALE: Well, at this time we're focused on Montreal. We're going through that feasibility study. So after we go through that process, then we'll look at Toronto.

But as you know, Toronto was built in 2004, and it's a newer stadium, so we'll focus on Montreal for now.

Q. Wondering now, with a couple years of the two-week format, what you've seen as the biggest gains and maybe areas that could be better moving forward?

KARL HALE: Yeah, I think one of the things that we've kind of noticed with the two-week event, and just tennis in Canada, is that what it looks like is a convergence of, the sport in Canada's grown tremendously, the tournament has grown tremendously. We have Canadian stars now with Felix and Vicky. Women's tennis has grown a lot.

The longer model looks like it's capturing more people. This is a record audience, it's incredible. It's really, you know, record breaking for us. So we're very happy with the two-week model at this time.

Q. In these two years it seems like the men's tournament has had more issues with dropouts than the women's.

KARL HALE: Doesn't seem, yeah.

Q. Why do you think that is, or is that a concern, or how do you see that?

KARL HALE: Yeah, we're a mandatory event. We want all of the top players here. So, after this tournament we have meetings in New York, and we're going to meet with the tours, and try to insure that we have the top player field like we did this year, nine of the top-10 players.

Q. The women will get to equal prize money next year and it's obviously been phased in to get there. Can you speak to why it's taken the time that it has, and is the extra larger format responsible also in creating that extra revenue to get there?

KARL HALE: Yeah. So, obviously it's a tremendous amount of money, so we have to engage various entities to grow to that level of equal prize money. Which is WTA Ventures, which is our partners. National Bank is a big part of that.

Also, as you said, the longer tournament increases revenue to do that.

So, once all those have come together, now we're there, and we're going to have equal prize money next year.

Q. Obviously you would have liked to have seen Vicky on court at this tournament, but what was it like to have her on the grounds for part of it? I don't know if you had a chance to catch up with her, but what's your sense of where she's at?

KARL HALE: Yeah, I mean, I spoke to her a little bit during the event. She was here for three or four days.

It was just nice to see her engage with the fans, because the fans absolutely love her. It enhanced our event to have her here as a defending champion.

As far as her recovery, we didn't talk about that. But what we want is, she's a star in the making, she is a star, so we want her to take as long as possible to get as healthy as possible.

Q. What's your confidence level that your English rights holder will follow the lead of the French rights holder and offer a full 12-day production next season?

KARL HALE: Yeah, I think after every event you go into those discussions. As you know, this 12-day model is only two years old. So after this event we'll have a discussion with them.

But this year we're really happy with how the event unfolded, and the coverage of the event.

Q. Kawhi Leonard coming the other night created a bit of a buzz. How involved were you in getting him set up there, and what does it do when someone like him rolls up?

KARL HALE: Well, you saw what happens when he rolls up (Laughing.) One of our partners is associated with him, and told us that he wants to come that day. His daughter is a big fan of Coco Gauff. So they met, you know, after it was announced that Coco wasn't able to play, so they met.

He stayed for the whole session, and had an amazing time. He's a big tennis fan, and we're obviously fans of his as well, and hope for another championship.

Q. Going back to what you said about the connection with the fans. In terms of what you were able to do with the Eala and the food, the chicken adobo and lumpia and whatnot. Has that maybe opened your eyes in terms of maybe ways to connect moving forward with other cultures as well?

KARL HALE: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's one of the hallmarks of our event about how we care about our fans, especially new fans, is trying to connect with them better.

So it was a learning moment for us. After this event we'll go back to the drawing board and see how we can do that even for more communities.

You know, we're part of this great multicultural community in Toronto, so we want everybody to be a part of this event in the future.

Q. I wonder how you reflect, in the 12-day format, about how the semifinals, like, you end on a weekday instead of on a Sunday, right, and so the scheduling ends up a little bit different. There was two great players playing at 1:00 in the morning last night in your semifinal. Like, I wonder how you reflect on how the scheduling puts you in the semifinals and the finals in this particular 12-day type of format?

KARL HALE: Yeah, I mean, I think our schedule's a little bit different than some of the other Masters Series. We have a tighter three weeks with Cincinnati, so we have to condense it a little bit.

But we love this Championship Week. We've had great ticket sales. The players love it because they get the day to rest in the morning and have a great match.

As you saw last night, the matches were just unbelievable matches. Especially that first match was just really high-quality tennis. So, for now we're going to continue this for the foreseeable future.