Stirrings about a possible roof over the main stadium court at the Coupe Rogers in Montreal are not brand new. However, they ARE back in the news this week, just before the 2019 Rogers Cup begins in Canada.

Tennis Canada, in this piece at the Coupe Rogers website, is seeking community approval for a project to build a retractable roof over the main stadium court at the Jarry Park tennis complex in Montreal.

Yet, this discussion has been going on for a few years.

It is a complicated discussion. It is a headache for Montrealers. The city has a troubled past in relationship to these kinds of issues.

I won’t deal with every important aspect of this story in one shot. There are far too many layers of the onion which need to be peeled away. I can’t make you cry. I will instead peel away one layer at a time and devote multiple pieces to this story over the next few days.

In this piece, I will tackle the global tennis aspect of the story, which is that more and more tennis tournaments are going to do what Tennis Canada is attempting to do in Montreal.

In late July at Tennis With An Accent, I wrote about the need for the U.S. Open in New York to be ready to deal with extreme heat if it occurs. 

A lot of important tennis is played in summer, whether in Australia in January or now in North America. Extreme heat, extreme humidity, and extreme rain or wind (the last of which visited Roland Garros this year) are likely to be MORE prevalent at tennis tournaments as we go along, not LESS. 

The excellent tennis analyst and commentator Carl Bialik wrote about the need for tennis tournaments to rethink how they operate relative to weather in this post from 2017.

Carl and I talked about these issues on a podcast last summer.

The idea of building a roof over a tennis court is primarily being done to prevent rain delays (for one match, at least) at a tournament. The outside-court matches might be washed out, but a tournament could still have its stadium-court match on TV.

Tennis Canada — knowing how many quality Canadian tennis players have a good chance to become stars in the 2020s — is trying to get ahead of the curve. This move is not solely about Felix Auger-Aliassime and Bianca Andreescu, but that is certainly a big part of the calculus. Having Felix and Bianca on global TV over the next 10 to 15 years will showcase Canadian tennis.

He’s heading to the third round!

🇨🇦Felix Auger-Aliassime defeats big serving American Reilly Opelka 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 at the #CitiOpen.

He’ll meet Marin Cilic next pic.twitter.com/yKnAbfBHVJ

— Match Point Canada (@MatchPointCAN) July 31, 2019

If Denis Shapovalov restores his career; if Milos Raonic can solidify his game; if Eugenie Bouchard has a late-career renaissance, a roof would enable the Coupe Rogers to feature those stories even if it rains in Montreal, and even if extreme heat makes outdoor conditions close to unplayable. A roof would provide relief from broiling weather.

The politics of a roof in Montreal are thorny. I will deal with that in a future piece. For now, though, do realize this: The desire to have a roof at Jarry Park is a good, wise, and situationally appropriate instinct. Tennis tournaments — for fans, yes, but primarily for the players and for TV — need to cover their stadium courts in an era of climate volatility. This costs money (and more will be said on that), but the investment is worth it…

…if we are interested in sustaining tennis as a professional sport and a healthy business for the next 100 years, not just the next three years.