Seven-time Grand Slam champion and former World No. 1 Venus Williams will likely be heading to Toronto this summer season because the keynote speaker of the UNMATCHED: Gender Fairness in Sports activities Convention introduced by Tennis Canada and Nationwide Financial institution. Happening on Wednesday August 7, this yr’s UNMATCHED theme will concentrate on Champions of Fairness, impressed by Group Canada’s victory on the Billie Jean King Cup finals in addition to the wave of triumphs taking place throughout the board in a historic yr for girls’s skilled sport.
A champion on the court docket, with 49 WTA singles titles, 22 doubles titles and 4 Olympic gold medals, Williams has made an equally important influence off the court docket, as a pioneer within the WTA’s drive for fairness,
an entrepreneur and inside designer. “The battle for fairness is near my coronary heart and can proceed to be so lengthy after my tennis profession is over,” stated Williams. “I’m excited to be a part of Tennis Canada’s dedication to gender fairness and to drive the dialog ahead by talking at UNMATCHED and being surrounded by different athletes who share my ardour for championing the leaders of tomorrow.”
After making a landmark speech to the Grand Slam Committee on the eve of profitable the 2005 Wimbledon last, the next yr Williams wrote an impassioned letter in The Occasions newspaper, arguing that ladies ought to obtain the identical prize cash as their male counterparts. In 2007, Wimbledon made the historic announcement of parity and, appropriately, Venus was the primary girls’s champion to obtain the identical quantity as the lads’s winner that yr, Roger Federer.
Beneath is the checklist of confirmed audio system with further individuals to be confirmed within the coming weeks.
Host:
Hazel Mae: Host and reporter, Blue Jays on Sportsnet, returning as host of UNMATCHED for second successive yr.
Audio system:
Marie-Philip Poulin: The primary hockey participant of any gender to attain in 4 Olympic gold-medal video games, together with the game-winner in three, Poulin was named group captain of the PWHL Montreal group at the beginning of its inaugural season in 2023.
Carmelina Moscato: Former skilled soccer participant turned elite coach, Moscato has 94 caps for Canada, performed in three FIFA Girls’s World Cups, and received an Olympic bronze medal.
Natalie Spooner: After three straight medal-winning appearances with the Canadian girls’s Olympic hockey group, Spooner – who gave start to her son Rory in December, 2022 – led the PWHL in factors and scoring by way of the inaugural season, main Toronto to the playoffs. Additionally named PWHL MVP and prime ahead.
Laura Stacey: Competed within the Winter Olympics for the Canadian girls’s hockey group, incomes a silver medal in 2018 and a cherished gold in 2022. She was additionally named alternate captain for Montreal’s PWHL group.
UNMATCHED is a part of Tennis Canada and Nationwide Financial institution’s Sport. Set. Fairness. dedication, an bold and holistic technique that focuses on how the federation will advance gender fairness in any respect ranges of the tennis ecosystem over the subsequent 5 years. In June 2023, Tennis Canada and Nationwide Financial institution proudly introduced that the Nationwide Financial institution Open introduced by Rogers (NBO) would attain an all-important milestone by awarding the identical quantity of prize cash to its ladies and men gamers starting in 2027, with incremental will increase till then.
“In our third yr of internet hosting UNMATCHED, we’re striving to boost the bar,” stated Eva Havaris, Senior Vice President of Tennis Growth and Partnerships, Tennis Canada. “By welcoming Venus Williams as our keynote speaker, following Billie Jean King in 2022 and Maria Sharapova in 2023, we really feel our theme, Champions of Fairness, is completely encapsulated. We’re all about champions constructing champions and are asking those that buy a desk to supply at the least certainly one of their seats to a subsequent gen chief of their group to advertise mentorship and accessibility, this manner they’re already taking motion earlier than they set foot within the room.”
On the finish of 2023, The Worldwide Tennis Federation (ITF) acknowledged Tennis Canada’s dedication to fairness by saying it as a recipient of the Gold Benefit All award. Tennis Canada has invested a big period of time and sources into bringing the ladies’s sport to the subsequent stage, with the 2023 and 2024 NBO advertising and marketing marketing campaign stating that one of the best of girls’s tennis is one of the best of tennis, interval, being a transparent instance of those efforts.
Tickets for the 2024 UNMATCHED convention are on sale at TICKETS, whereas the Nationwide Financial institution Open introduced by Rogers in Toronto will happen from August 4-12.
Venue: Paramount Occasion House | 222 Rowntree Dairy Street, Vaughan, ON, L4L 9T2
Wednesday August 7, 2024 | 11:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. EST
For extra details about the convention please click on right here.
