Tennis tournaments in Canada began in the summer of 1881. The first men's lawn tennis tournament in Canada was held July to August 1881, and was held at the
Toronto Lawn Tennis Club, with men competing. September the same year, the Montreal Tennis club held a similar competition, open to male and female players. By 1887, the Toronto event was being advertised as the Canadian championship. The Canadian Lawn Tennis Association was founded in 1890 and took over the administration of the Toronto event, running its first championship tournament August that year at the Toronto club. Although women played in competitive and exhibition games at events across Canada throughout the 1880s, they first participated in the Lawn Tennis Association's event in 1892. With
Wimbledon and the U.S. National Championships, the Canadian tournament is among the three oldest tennis competitions in the world. Prior to 1968 the tournament was known as the Canadian National Championships. The tournament was part of the
WCT circuit briefly in 1971 before joining the
Grand Prix circuit from 1972 till 1989. The tournament was sponsored for a number of years by tobacco brands. In the 1970s,
Rothmans International was the chief sponsor, followed by
Player's Limited in the 1980s, and then
Du Maurier from 1995 to 2000. From 1988 onward, these sponsorships relied on a loophole in Canadian tobacco marketing law; while cigarettes couldn't be advertised directly, the tobacco companies could provide corporate sponsorship, and as a result they formed subsidiaries named after the brands as
surrogates. However, the federal government announced in 1998 that the loophole would be closed in late 2003. Rogers Communications, a Canadian communications and media company, then took over as the new presenting sponsor in 2000. The event was played on clay until it was switched permanently to hard courts in 1979. Up to the end of the 1980 Canadian Open, both the men's and women's tournaments were played as a single combined tournament at the
National Tennis Centre in Toronto. In 1981, the men's tournament was played at the
Jarry Park Stadium in Montreal for the first time. Similarly, 1982 was the first year in which the women's tournament was played in Montreal. From 1981 to 2019, the men's event was played in Toronto in even numbered years and in Montreal in odd numbered years, while the women's event was played in Montreal in even numbered years and in Toronto in odd numbered years. After the 2020 tournament was cancelled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament since 2021 has seen the men play in Toronto in odd numbered years and in Montreal in even numbered years, and the women play in Montreal in odd numbered years and in Toronto in even numbered years. The most recent Canadian men's player to win the Canadian Open was
Robert Bédard who won the championship in 1955 over compatriot
Henri Rochon in the final, again in 1957 over
Ramanathan Krishnan in the final, and finally in 1958 over
Whitney Reed in the final. The most recent Canadian women's player to win the singles title was
Victoria Mboko who won the women's singles championships over
Naomi Osaka in 2025. In 1989, two Canadian male tennis players,
Grant Connell and
Andrew Sznajder, reached the quarterfinals of the event. They were eliminated by
Ivan Lendl and
Andre Agassi respectively. Lendl has been the tournament's most successful singles player, reaching the final nine times and winning the title in 1980, 1981, 1983, 1987, 1988, and 1989. In 1995, Andre Agassi and
Pete Sampras met in the final, the third of the four times that the two top-ranked men's players would meet that year, after the Australian Open and
Indian Wells Open. Agassi's tournament win helped him regain the number-one ranking, which he lost to Sampras after they played each other again at the US Open.
Du Maurier Open In 1997, the Canadian federal government introduced legislation restricting the ability of tobacco companies from sponsoring sporting events. The tournament was faced with losing its title sponsor, and eventually du Maurier was replaced. Rogers and AT&T Canada became the title sponsors for the women's event in 2001. In 2004, the tournament became part of the
US Open Series, in the build-up to the
US Open Grand Slam tournament. The women's tournament was moved to just before the US Open. Consequently, top players sometimes withdrew from the tournament at the last minute to rest for the upcoming US Open.
Rogers Cup In 2005,
Rogers Communications became the title sponsor for the men's tournament. In 2007,
Novak Djokovic won the men's tournament for the first time, becoming the first man to defeat both Nadal and
Roger Federer in the same event. In 2009, WTA CEO
Stacey Allaster implemented rules reclassifying the women's event as a
Premier 5 event, which guaranteed at least seven of the top ten players. The WTA's rules required each year-end top-10 player from 2008 to participate in at least four Premier 5 tournaments in the 2009 season, or face the threat of fines or docked ranking points. Consequently, 19 of the top 20 female players took part in the 2009 Rogers Cup draw. The ATP mandated participation for the men's tournament as a "1000-level" series event. Beginning in 2011, the men's and women's tournaments were held during the same week, with each event alternating between Montreal and Toronto. In 2020, the men's and women's tournaments were postponed to 2021 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. On March 22, 2024, the
ATP Tour announced that the tournament would be expanding to a 12-day format for men, with the draws expanding from 56 to 96 players. ==Event titles==