Tennis Canada will award a singles main-draw wild card entry to the highest Canadian man and girl accumulating probably the most factors in nationwide occasions previous the Nationwide Financial institution Open in Montreal and Toronto.
The 2025 version of the Nationwide Financial institution Open will likely be held July 26 to Aug. 7 with the WTA heading to Montreal and the ATP in Toronto.
The “Highway to the NBO” was already underway as professional tennis tournaments in Canada after the 2024 Nationwide Financial institution Open had been factored into the rankings.
Kayla Cross of London, Ont., ranked first amongst ladies for the Montreal wild card with 120 factors and Liam Draxl of Newmarket, Ont., topped the lads’s race with 72.
“This new competitors is certain to construct the joy within the months main as much as the 2025 Nationwide Financial institution Open, and we will’t wait to see the way it interprets onto the court docket,” stated Valérie Tétreault, event director of Montreal’s NBO in a press release Thursday.
“Not solely can we consider that this can be a improbable solution to elevate our Canadian occasions, however it would additionally create some fascinating and galvanizing storylines within the run-up to our largest event of the yr.
“For the gamers themselves, the Highway to the NBO provides a singular alternative to showcase their expertise on dwelling soil and in the end provides everybody an equal likelihood of incomes a spot in the principle draw of our world-class occasion.”
The factors system used to find out the standings is predicated on the ATP and WTA singles rating factors earned by every participant on the devoted occasions.
Occasions held in July, nevertheless, will likely be price double the factors. Within the occasion of a tie, the participant ranked the very best following the replace on July 21, 2025, will obtain the wild card.
If the participant on the high of the standings by the tip of the competitors can’t take part on the NBO, or has already acquired direct entry into the event, the wild card will likely be allotted to the following participant with probably the most factors, Tennis Canada stated.
As well as, the participant with the second-most factors within the males’s Highway to the NBO standings will obtain a wild card into the NBO qualifiers.
On the ladies’s aspect, Tennis Canada introduced its intention to host a pre-qualifying event to find out two extra wild playing cards for the NBO — one for the principle draw and one for the qualifier.
“The Nationwide Financial institution Open is coming into a brand new period, with its expanded 12-day format and 96-player important draw, which has opened the door for us to discover completely different and inventive methods of allocating our wild playing cards,” defined Tennis Canada high-performance vice-president Guillaume Marx within the assertion.
“We now have eight main-draw wild playing cards for the WTA occasion and 5 on the ATP aspect, giving us the chance to create the Highway to the NBO, an idea we have thought-about doing for a few years. One factor we have all the time stated is how vital our Canadian skilled occasions are to the expansion of the sport and the skilled pipeline in our nation, and this competitors solely reinforces that perception. Gamers will now have much more causes to play at dwelling, and we won’t wait to see how issues unfold because the summer season approaches.”
The three remaining tournaments within the ladies’s factors race are W15 Trois-Rivières and W15 Montreal in March and the Granby Nationwide Financial institution Championships in July.
The remaining tournaments counting within the males’s race are the M15 Sherbrooke and M15 Montreal in March, M25 Laval in June and the Winnipeg Nationwide Financial institution Challenger and the Granby Nationwide Financial institution Championships in July.
