I completed the Canadian tennis double this year with a day at the Omnium Banque Nationale in Montréal. We had tickets for the Thursday to watch third round action. Unfortunately our day was cut short by the rain but it was still a worthwhile experience to soak up some live tennis at a new tournament. I hope this post might be of use for anyone considering a trip to the tennis in Montréal.

Buying tickets

Tickets for the 2023 Montréal tournament were already on sale in December 2022 when we started planning the trip. It was easy to find seats although the best ones close to the court were not available. Montréal seems to be a more popular event than Toronto. In 2023, 220,000 people attended the Montréal tournament compared to 175,000 in Toronto. Tickets are already available for the 2024 edition of the Omnium Banque Nationale.

The main stadium is called Stade IGA and has three tiers: 100 (lower tier), 200 (middle tier) and 300 (upper tier). Like Toronto, there are a variety of pricing options depending on how close you are to the court. We searched all the different options to find the best trade-off between price and proximity to the court. There are some seats on the main stadium that are not in the sun – if you’re looking for shade then go for the back few rows of the circular-shaped stand behind the players (sections 216 to 222). Section 218 and Row T is definitely in the shade at the start of the day!

When purchasing tickets, you need to create an account on the website. You can use the same credentials for your Omnium Banque Nationale account if you have an account with Ticketmaster Canada. We had no issues purchasing tickets online. We paid $198 CAD for a pair of tickets (roughly £120).

After our day session was cut short by rain, we did consider buying a night session for the Friday as the tournament offered us a 50% discount. Once the prospect of a Kvitova-Sabalenka quarter-final faded I gave up on that idea. I’m so glad we did because we would have gone for tickets on the night session that finished at 3am in the morning 😂.

Getting to and from the venue

Stade IGA is located at Jarry Park in Montréal. We used the Société de Transport de Montréal (STM) which is the metro. We were in Montréal for three days so bought the 3-day All modes A card for $21.25 CAD. It was perfect for us as the card could also be used for the bus that goes between Downtown Montréal and the airport. We stayed near Old Montréal so took the metro from Champ-de-Mars to Jarry on the Orange line. This took about 15 minutes. There are several metro stations for the tennis and De Castelnau on the blue line is closer to the venue.

Montréal Metro Map (Source: https://www.stm.info/en/info/networks/metro)

We were early so got off at Jarry and walked to the venue. It was a nice walk through the quiet streets of Jarry with boulangeries on most corners and then through the park. The Montréal tournament grants you free travel on the STM metro with a ticket for both journeys to and from the tennis. We’d already purchased the travelcard so didn’t test this.

Entering the grounds & what to take

There are three entrances to the ground. We approached from the Jarry direction so came in the North entrance (Entree Nord). One difference with Toronto is that the grounds in Montréal open at 10:30am, not 10am. This is a shame and seems rather late when play on the outside courts starts at 11am. We arrived early and there was already a small queue forming. The volunteers were so friendly and spoke to everyone. They opened the gates at 10:25am and it only took five minutes to go through security.

You are allowed to take in a small rucksack to the venue. My camera was checked (it’s an 18-200mm lens) but it was fine. We took in some snacks too. I forgot to empty the water out of my drinks bottle. They didn’t say anything and it was fine. I’ve found for most tournaments that they are more lenient than what they put on their website – I think it’s to try and put people off bringing in food and drink so you spend more money in the grounds!

The courts

A map of the grounds and location of all the courts can be found here on the Montréal website.

Stade IGA

It was a real wow moment when we walked into the stadium for the first time. Stade IGA seats 11,815 people and it’s a beautiful stadium. By the way, IGA is a supermarket in Canada which I didn’t realise until we went in one in Montréal! We went into the stadium before the first match as had spotted Coco Gauff on the practice schedule. I’d never seen Coco live before after she went out of her way to avoid me at Eastbourne this year 😂. Very happy to finally tick Coco off my live list. Still not seen her play a match though!

Our seats were in the circular-shaped stand behind the court in section 218 and row T. The general view was great. It wasn’t ideal for taking photos with people’s heads in the way and the glass screens that lined the central concourse. The leg room was better than in Toronto but the seats were uncomfortable. They clattered every time you get up!

I’d always been impressed with the atmosphere from watching matches on the TV. I was disappointed that the stadium was not full at the start of the first match between Iga Swiatek against Karolina Muchova. I’m not sure if this was due to the impending rain? Swiatek-Muchova didn’t quite live up to my expectations. This was self inflicted because my expectations were skyyyyy highhh after their terrific French Open final earlier in the year. There wasn’t a lot for the crowd to get their teeth into so the atmosphere was a little subdued. I feel like I have unfinished business with Stade IGA having only seen half a match!

Rogers Court

The second court in Montréal is much bigger than the Grandstand court in Toronto. It has a lower bowl which is ticketed and an upper bowl which can be accessed by everyone in the grounds. There are staircases that lead up to the two upper tier stands. There’s a nice view across the grounds from the top before you head into the court.

There is no security so you can wander in when you like which can be annoying if people turn up in the middle of points. Again, the seats clatter when you stand up so you can’t exactly enter quietly! The upper tier is quite steep and I like the perspective that you get for watching tennis. We had a nice view behind the court for watching the first match of the day between Jessica Pegula and Jasmine Paolini.

The outside courts

Courts 5 to 11 are in a cluster to the north of Rogers Court. As we were later in the week, we only saw practises on these courts. We watched Jelena Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok warm up together on court 5 which has stands on three sides.

The outside courts are like a maze and it must be fun to dart around in the early days of the tournament. We watched Caroline Garcia (who had already been knocked out of the tournament) practise on court 8. There was a viewing platform that you could watch from. The picture below is the closest you could get to court 8.

Practice courts

There are a trio of practice courts to the west of Rogers Court. The tournament did a great job at updating practice court schedules regularly on the tournament app and website. We knew that Iga Swiatek was practising at 10:30am on court 2 so we headed straight there when we arrived.

There are three rows of benches to watch on one side of court 2. A front row view to watch the world number one – can’t ask for better access than that! This was definitely one of the highlights of the day to see Iga up close. I was taken aback by how she was hitting so aggressively yet making so few errors.

Grounds and facilities

I really liked the venue in Montréal, more so than Toronto. It felt like there was more of a buzz going on with the venue centered around the main stadium. The Wi-Fi on the grounds was decent and better than anything we’ve ever had at the British tournaments. It was a bit spottier than in Toronto and it didn’t work so well on one side of Stade Iga.

There were water stations to fill up water bottles dotted around the grounds – the water pressure was better than in Toronto! There were plenty of toilets around the grounds but they were all very small. We came out of Stade IGA during a rain delay so obviously there were lots of queues around this time.

There’s a seating area with deckchairs in the centre of the grounds where they had a big screen showing the tennis in Toronto. This helped to pass some time while it was raining.

Food and drink

We were much better prepared than in Toronto so brought our own sandwiches to the tournament. This is much cheaper than buying something on site. Once the rain arrived and we knew it wasn’t going away then alcohol was the only option to counter the disappointment. We bought some cocktails from a drinks stand on the north stand of Stade IGA.

The tournmament has an official cocktail which is the Dragon Cocktail with Dirty Devil vodka, lemonade, red grapefruit juice, dragon fruit syrup and soda. We also tried the Montréal passion fruit mule with Dirty Devil vodka, passion fruit juice and ginger beer. Both very nice and were $13 CAD each. We kept the cups – it would have been nice if they had the tournament written on them (I still adore my US Open Honey Deuce cup from 7 years ago). Still, a nice memento from the tournament.

Shopping

We went in the main store called Tennis Giant when it was raining which had lots of tennis gear. We found a tournament merchandise stand near Entree Gary-Carter et Prestige where all the items were behind the counter. I probably would have bought a cap if I could have looked at it in my leisure but the moment passed!

Final thoughts

I’m grateful we got to see some live tennis on the gorgeous main stadium – I wanted more! It’s a great tournament. If you have to choose between Montréal and Toronto, I would definitely go for Montréal. The 2023 tournament will be remembered for the rain and the bad scheduling. My lasting memory will be legging it to the metro station in our ponchos in the torrential rain 😂.

If you have any questions about the Omnium Banque Nationale in Montréal then i’d be more than happy to help. Please leave a comment or e-mail MooTennisBlog@gmail.com