To understand how Vancouver — which, as Canada’s third-largest city, has long stood in the tennis shadow of Toronto and Montreal — won the right to host the 2023 Laver Cup, start with the big picture. From 2,500 feet.
In April 2019, the morning after Laver Cup officials flew in from New York, the first thing their hosts in Vancouver did was pile them into a seaplane.
Climbing out of Vancouver Harbour, the pilot circled above skyscrapers and sports arenas before heading north over cedars and glacial lakes towards Black Tusk, the region’s volcanic peak. Whistler Mountain beckoned in the distance. After an hour of sightseeing, the plane dropped behind the 2010 Olympic Cauldron.
It was a powerful reminder of the city’s hospitality heritage.
Steve Zacks, the Laver Cup CEO, remembers having a lot of confidence in the pilot. “Once you’re up there, it’s just a beautiful perspective of the city and all the surrounding areas,” he said in an interview.
But it was the Vancouver experience — and the burgeoning grassroots tennis scene — that convinced him and his team to take the Laver Cup to a city that hadn’t staged a major tennis event in half a century.
“The appeal of Vancouver is that it’s a modern city, a business center and on top of that, they had the infrastructure and experience to host a major sporting event,” he said.
Since the 2010 Winter Games, Vancouver has been the site of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup finals, several Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers for Canada’s national tennis teams, Rugby Sevens, and an LPGA golf tournament. And, in 2026, Vancouver will be the host city for the FIFA Men’s World Cup.
In 2025, Vancouver and Whistler will also host the Invictus Games, an international adaptive sports competition for injured military personnel.
As a professional hockey city, Vancouver’s elite tennis resume has been thin, with a well-regarded but second-tier professional men’s tournament in recent years.
The last time Vancouver was a stop on the men’s international circuit was in 1973 and the tournament was sponsored by a cigarette company. Rod Laver himself won the Vancouver tournament in 1970, his first year.
Laver, 85, will be invited to the group event, which Roger Federer co-created in his honour. For three days from Friday, the Laver Cup will roll out the signature black pitch inside Rogers Arena to showcase six of Europe’s top players against six from the rest of the world. Federer, who retired last year, will make the toss in the doubles final on Sunday.
“There’s no other way to invite tennis greats to Vancouver unless they’re playing for their national team,” said Michelle Collens, Sport Hosting Vancouver’s senior manager and the bid’s mastermind. “This is our chance to put us on the map.”
While Canada has recently developed stars like Felix Auger-Aliassime, Denis Shapovalov, Leylah Fernandez and Bianca Andreescu, they have emerged from Montreal and Toronto. These cities host top tournaments before the United States Open each summer.
Jonathan Wornell, the executive director of British Columbia’s regional federation, Tennis BC, sees the Laver Cup as ushering in a generational change. “I think it’s going to cause this next surge in the sport,” he said.
In fact, it has already begun. Every July, Vancouver hosts one of the largest amateur tennis tournaments in North America. This year, this event – the Stanley Park Open – attracted 1,700 participants of all ages, 200 more than in 2022.
Since 2019, players in schools and development programs have doubled, to 24,611 in 2022 from 12,260 participants in 2019, according to Tennis BC.
Youngsters are clamoring for places, and not just in tournaments. The Laver Cup held trials for kids with a ball that drew 360 competitors for just 24 slots.
“The demand for ball kids has been crazy,” said Sierra Roberts, the Laver Cup ball crew manager. “There is so much buzz.
“For a lot of the young professionals,” he said, the players in the tournament are “the heroes they never get to watch or be ball kids.”
Helping young people is where this offering began – at a golf tournament. In September 2018, Collens was at a charity golf event outside Vancouver raising money for local children to play organized sports when she was paired with Dave Pentland, a shipping executive. He was also an avid tennis player.
“I asked him, ‘What do you think about the Laver Cup — is that real?’ he said. Pendland promised to let her know as he was leaving the next day for the second iteration of the event, in Chicago. He sent Collens dazzling photos of the guest suites and the court. his contacts put Zacks in touch with Collens.
As event manager for the 2010 Winter Games, Collens specialized in hospitality. In 2019, he had designers build an app for Zacks’ scouting team that ran a digital itinerary, with the Laver Cup logo at each location on a map. A mixologist made special cocktails named after the city’s highlights.
However, Boston won for the 2020 event, which was then moved to 2021 due to Covid. The event alternates between European and global locations, and London has been selected for 2022. By then, the Laver Cup had hired a London-based company to handle growing interest from about 60 cities, Zacks said.
Vancouver, with its established connection and international appeal, beat out about 20 cities vying to host the 2023 “Ryder Cup of tennis,” as Zacks calls it. The Laver Cup’s mission, he added, was to grow the game by bringing it to “new fans and new locations.”
The event kicks off Thursday with a community practice at Rogers Arena, with ticket proceeds going to a local charity. That evening, guests and players will attend a black-tie gala in the glass-windowed convention center overlooking the harbor. The Olympic Cauldron, resting on a fountain outside, will be lit in the colors of red (for Team World, including Canada and the United States) and blue (Team Europe).
A wrinkle in the meticulous plan appeared when Coldplay sold out two concerts during the Laver Cup at BC Place, a 55,000-seat venue directly across from Rogers Arena, which seats 17,000 for tennis. Hotel room rates have skyrocketed, Collens admitted.
But he assured Laver Cup officials that they had handled much larger crowds and simultaneous events, including the Winter Olympics.
“I invited you to my city,” Collins said she told them. “I’ll hold your hand and make sure you have a seamless experience setting this up.”
