You need to win 12 games for a victory in tennis at the Canada Summer Games. One for every year of Reece Carter’s young life.
Ranked 15th in all of Canada in the under-14 category, Manitoba’s top ranked girl’s tennis player is still only 12, trading volleys with girls who are as old as 18 at the Canada Summer Games.
“I think, they think that they can beat me, like, really easily when they see my size,” Carter said.
She’s not even yet a teen and Carter’s already been serving it up in tournaments all over the world. The soon to be grade eight student competed in Austria just last month and played in another event this past weekend in Ottawa before flying into Winnipeg just hours before her first match of the games.
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“I get to see the whole world. Not many 12-year-old’s get to see it,” said Carter. “Right now I’m tired from travelling all over the place but it’s great though.”
Between tennis and her studies at St. Mary’s Academy, her schedule is enough to make your head spin.
“I’m about on the tennis court about four hours a day. I wake up at 5:30 a.m. I train at 6:30 a.m. I go 6:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. and then I go to school,” said Carter. “And I play tennis 3:30 p.m. to sometimes 5-ish or 6 p.m. and then I go and repeat.”
But it’s those long hours on the court that’s helped get her here, and if her meteoric rise continues, Carter could become the first Manitoban to play on the WTA Tour.
“This hopefully will be the first one on the WTA. I mean that’s where it’s pointing to,” said the executive director of Tennis Manitoba, Mark Arndt. “If she can do it, there’s going to be a lot of little girls that are going to be looking up to her.”
“I really want to turn pro and be the first one,” Carter said.
The first step would be a medal at the Canada Summer Games with Carter picking up victories in both her first two matches of the event.