As Tennis Canada prepares to host the National Bank Open women’s tennis tournament in Toronto this year, the sports organization has launched a new campaign reflecting its goal of promoting gender equity in the sport.

The new “Best of Women’s Tennis” campaign promotes the National Bank Open Tournament, a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tour stop that runs from August 4 to 12. The campaign describes the tournament as not just featuring the best of women’s tennis, but the best of tennis, period. The campaign uses “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” by Shania Twain, to sell the tournament with an iconic song recognizable to Canadians both men and women.

Tennis Canada’s new campaign reflects the commitment it’s made in recent years to advance gender equity in tennis, launching the Game. Set. Equity. initiative last year, that covers a five-year roadmap to advance women’s tennis in Canada, including the goal of providing equal prize money to men and women champions at the National Bank Open as of 2027.

Tennis Canada senior director of marketing, content and monetization Alexandra Begin says that the organization’s goal is to increase fandom around tennis, regardless of which gender is playing, and to better promote the sport to Canadians.

“We want to inspire people. We want to realign toward what should prevail in the world of sport, an environment where a recognition of talent and passion transcends gender,” Begin tells strategy.

As the National Bank Open has a men’s side of the tournament occurring as well, in the past, it’s promoted both the men’s and women’s tournaments with one marketing campaign. It’s only in recent years that Tennis Canada has begun running separate campaigns for the men’s and women’s sides, and last year it was a factor in record-high attendance for the event.

Begin says that Tennis Canada’s research around the sport, which informed the new campaign, found that some consumers have less interest in women’s tennis compared to men’s, or they found the sport boring overall or were confused by the rules. These were biases, Begin says, that Tennis Canada wanted to address with a campaign that could promote the passion and excitement of the upcoming tournament.

The tournament’s campaign is also working to try to bring in younger audiences to the sport. Part of this is by advertising the wide range of experiences that make up the tournament, outside of just the action on the court, with special activations around the event, as well as the athletes competing in the tournament.

“We need to really build that audience. Because it’s an older audience up to now,” Begin says. “40 to 55 is our core, and knowing that we now have newcomer athletes, we can use that to drive [younger audiences] to come to our tournament.”

The campaign was produced in collaboration with Montreal-based agency Sid Lee, which also oversaw the media buy. PR on the campaign was handled internally.