Reece Carter:
It’s Not Easy to
Have a Choice
By Scott Taylor, Photos by Kyle Clapham, courtesy Tennis Manitoba
Reece Carter fell in love with tennis
because her family simply didn’t have
enough to do.
The way her mom, Danya, tells the
story, we’ve all be in the same situation
at least once.
“Reece was five and we were on
vacation in Florida,” Danya explained.
“There wasn’t that much to do where
we were on the island, and there was
an old tennis court nearby. So we
went to Wal-Mart and bought some
inexpensive Wilson tennis racquets
and she just took to it. It’s kind of
ironic because now she’s sponsored by
Wilson. I think that was the last tennis
free vacation we have ever had.
“By the time she was seven, we
started to travel to Florida to take her
to tennis academies. Her first academy
was on Longboat Key and that’s when
it took off for her. We would stay in
Florida from Oct. 1 until May for the
next 4 years.”
Reece Carter is 11-years-old and
she’s one of the young tennis players to
24 / sportslife
watch in Canada. She
was ranked in the Top
3 in Canada in U-12 girls
Nationals recently. She has
been No. 1 in Manitoba for the past few
years in U-12 and U16.
She attended her first Canadian
nationals at the age of nine and won
the Flight 2 consolation title. She has
been in the championship flight of
every other national tournament since
then and was sixth in U-12 nationally
at Mt. Tremblant, Quebec last summer.
She
recently finished 12th in Winter
Nationals against 40 of the top
U-14s in the country as well.
She’s played the Little Mo
International in Boca Raton, Fla, for
the past few years and won the girls
U-10 doubles title two years in a row
and was a mixed doubles finalist and
finished fourth in singles.
She’s played and won numerous
local tennis tournaments from U-12 to
U-16 in Florida and
has won the Man/
Sask Regionals for
girls U-12 and U-14
for both the winter
(2016) and summer
(2015). She won the
Manitoba Junior
Open for girls U-14
and U-16 in the
summer of 2014 and
2015.
She has
participated in three
Tennis Canada junior
camps in Toronto
over the past two
years with the Top
20 boys and girls
in Canada and has
travelled with Tennis
Canada’s Top 4 to
represent Canada
in a Canada vs. USA competitive
training camp in Boca Raton. She then
qualified and played for Canada in
the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl main
draw international for girls U-12 in
Florida.
In a nutshell, she can play.
But it seems she also has another
love and that might make for a tough
decision in years to come. Seems Reece
also plays for Manitoba’s Provincial
Jr. Girls Golf Team. She’s still only
11, but at 10 years old she shot 72 at