Tennis Canada / National Bank: Girls. Set. Match.

Tennis Canada and National Bank announced today that they will partner on a long-term equality strategy for the next ten years, which will create meaningful actions and change for gender equality in tennis. The multi-faceted program is an important milestone of National Bank’s corporate partnership agreement and demonstrates the Bank’s deep and long-term support for the development of tennis in Canada. As part of the initiative, Tennis Canada and National Bank will create new opportunities for women and girls in tennis, encouraging them to continue playing and enticing even more to pick up a racquet, become life- long participants, coaches and reap the benefits of an active lifestyle and personal growth through sport. As a recent study conducted by Canadian Women & Sport in partnership with Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities found, one in every three girls drops out of sport during adolescence compared to only one in 10 boys, while as many as 62% of Canadian girls do not participate in sport of any kind. Tennis Canada has already taken preliminary steps to reach this goal within a constrained COVID-19 environment. As part of the partnership with National Bank, the organization hired a group of highly qualified women coaches and support staff, including former World No. 3 Nathalie Tauziat and former professional Lan Yao-Gallop, to act as touring coaches for young women players part of our high performance pipeline. Fellow former professional Katy Shulaeva has also been hired to coach at the Toronto Regional Training
Centre and mental strength advisor, Dana Sinclair, was added to the Tennis Canada high performance team. Moving forward, three pillars have been identified for the long-term strategy and Tennis Canada is currently finalizing the program details for implementation in 2022.