Five decades of supporting tennis: BNP Paribas returns to back star-studded Singapore Open

[SINGAPORE] Some of the world’s top female tennis players – including Filipino sensation Alexandra Eala – will be making their way to Singapore soon for a high-profile tournament that comes with a prize pool of US$1.25 million.

The Singapore Tennis Open (STO) presented by BNP Paribas takes place from Sep 21 to 27 at The Kallang’s OCBC Arena, with this being the only WTA 500 event in South-east Asia this season.

The “500” refers to the total number of ranking points awarded to the winner. The previous edition of the STO – which was held in January 2025 and marked Singapore’s return to the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tour calendar after an absence of more than six years – was a lower 250-level tournament.

Much of the attention will naturally fall on the 21-year-old Eala, who has enjoyed a successful season so far and recently won her first WTA title – the Mubadala DC Open in August, which is also a WTA 500 event.

That made her the first player from the Philippines to win a WTA singles title, and she did so by defeating American Jessica Pegula – the current world No 3 – in three sets.

Pegula is also among the other confirmed players on the list in Singapore. She will be joined by the reigning French Open winner Mirra Andreeva, world No 10 Amanda Anisimova, last year’s STO champion Elise Mertens and China’s No 1 Wang Xinyu.

BNP back on board

The presenting sponsor of the Singapore Tennis Open is a familiar name to many tennis fans here. BNP Paribas was the title sponsor of the season-ending WTA Finals when that prestigious tournament was staged in Singapore from 2014 to 2018.

The global bank, whose headquarters is in Paris, has a long relationship with tennis that dates all the way back to 1973.

It is the official and main partner of the French Open, which is among some 550 tournaments around the world – both at the professional and amateur levels – that BNP sponsors. The company also backs grassroots and wheelchair tennis, and finances numerous educational and social events linked to the sport.

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As such, it was an easy decision for BNP Paribas to sponsor the Singapore Tennis Open this year, said Karine Delvallee, the bank’s chief executive officer for South-east Asia.

“We decided long ago to sponsor tennis. We could have done so with other sports too, but we chose tennis because tennis is a sport that is very inclusive,” she said in an interview this week at the bank’s Singapore office at Ocean Financial Centre.

“It’s not a sport for the elite, and I feel it is for everyone. In France, there are many tennis players at all levels and it’s common for most small villages to have a court where children can play after school. It’s very accessible, and I would say it’s like football here in Asia.”

Delvallee, who joined BNP 33 years ago and has been in her current role since February 2025, also spoke of the values of the sport and how these resonate with those of the bank.

“When you are watching the top players on court, you can almost feel the pain they go through during the matches because in some cases they have to compete for many hours,” she said.

“They have this strength and enthusiasm that they bring to the competition, and they are able to show these qualities and passion to the spectators. In the arena or stadium, being so close to them, it’s almost like we feel we have a connection with the players too.”

Commitment to infrastructure financing

Beyond its support for the tournaments, BNP Paribas has also brought its “infrastructure-first” approach to Singapore to do its part to ensure the country has the facilities to stage the world’s top sporting events.

This approach began in 1973 with the French Open in Paris, where one of the bank’s branches provided the financing that was needed at the time to expand the tournament’s Centre Court.

Delvallee shared how this strategy was mirrored in Asia more than a decade ago when BNP Paribas was part of an 11-bank syndicate that provided the critical debt financing for the private-public partnership to build what was then known as the Singapore Sports Hub.

The Sports Hub was taken over by the Singapore government in 2022 and later rebranded as The Kallang in late-2025. The OCBC Arena – where the Singapore Tennis Open will be played – is one of the many venues at The Kallang.

At the Singapore Tennis Open, BNP Paribas will have an initiative where every point scored during the tournament will be converted into a donation to Daughters of Tomorrow, a Singapore-registered charity that empowers women from low-income families to achieve financial independence.

“I’m very enthusiastic about the WTA being back in Singapore, because tennis fits in well with our culture and strategy,” added Delvallee.

Tickets for most sessions of the Singapore Tennis Open are still available at Sistic.