The Year-Round Community Tennis Courts Program presented by Rogers is set for its most impactful year since its inception in 2022 with six municipalities selected to receive a total of $1.2 million in funding to develop covered tennis courts in 2024, Tennis Canada announced on Tuesday.
Spread across three provinces, projects in the municipalities of Niagara, Mississauga, St Catharines and Chatham-Kent, Ontario as well as Ile-Bizard, Quebec were confirmed for 2024.
Chatham-Kent officials say this funding will be used for the construction of the Tennis Dome being built at the upcoming Bear Line park project.
“We’re thrilled to have been awarded the Year-Round Community Tennis Courts Program grant provided by Tennis Canada and Rogers,” said Darrin Canniff, Mayor of Chatham-Kent, in a media release.
“This funding helps bring a tennis dome to our growing community and will provide another great venue for Chatham-Kent residents to have fun, learn new skills, and live more healthy and active lifestyles.”
Tennis Canada says four year-round courts will be created by the Chatham-Kent project with 400 additional court hours per week created by project.
Tennis Canada says an additional location in British Columbia, representing the first project in Canada’s western-most province, will be announced in the coming weeks.
Each of these projects will be provided $200,000 in seed money per project, bringing Tennis Canada and Rogers’ investment in the program to $1.2 million this year alone and the total number of completed and ongoing projects as part of the program to 14.
In its third year, the Year-Round Community Tennis Courts Program has already made a substantial impact across the country.
Completed projects in Markham and Hamilton, Ontario, Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, as well as Waterloo, Quebec have delivered 26 new covered courts, providing 4.1 million Canadians access to year-round tennis.
Each club saw its winter court bookings and membership enrollment increase dramatically for the new indoor seasons, thanks to the collective additional 3,561 hours of court time per week that were made available to their communities.
Further projects in Thunder Bay, Stratford and Toronto, Ontario are also currently under construction as part of the program.
The projects at Niagara Falls Racquet Centre (Niagara, ON), Premier Racquet Club – Mississauga (Mississauga, ON), West Island Tennis Club (Ile-Bizard, QC), and in St Catharines and Chatham-Kent, Ontario, will see a collective 22 year-round tennis courts added to their communities, accessible to over 1.06 million Canadians and accounting for a total of 2,200 additional court hours per week during the winter months.
By the end of 2024, the total number of year-round tennis courts created by the program will reach over 60 – over 35% of the program’s goal of 160.
“It’s tremendous to see this program continue to flourish as we work towards our goal of making tennis more accessible to Canadians across the country,” said Gavin Ziv, Chief Executive Officer, Tennis Canada, in a media release.
More details are available at https://www.tenniscanada.com/.
