Isaac Buckingham may have been a dominant force on the tennis courts this summer, but his desire to play a handful of sports is more about having fun than counting wins and losses.
The 13-year-old Corner Brook native is a competitive alpine skier with Marble Mountain’s alpine racing team during the winter months and he kicks around the soccer ball with the Western Wolves in the provincial U13 male soccer league almost every weekend of the summer.
But, he had room for something else so he opted to pick up the tennis racket.
It appears he’s pretty handy with it.
Buckingham, who is heading to Grade 9 at Corner Brook Intermediate in the fall, won the U14 and U16 male singles titles at the 2018 Corner Brook Junior Open Tennis Tournament Thursday at the Wellington Street tennis complex.
I’m happy to win obviously, but it’s still all about the fun for me. It’s not the most competitive sport I do,” Buckingham said Thursday moments after winning the U14 singles crown. “I’ve just always found it a lot of fun to hit the ball and get better at it.”
Tennis is a game he easily embraced and Buckingham can’t figure out why the number of youth banging around a tennis ball are so low in Corner Brook when it’s a relatively inexpensive sport that has a tennis racket as the only thing a person needs to get started in the sport.
“You can get into it pretty quickly and I think it’s easier than other sports to pick up,” he said.
He had a lot of fun on the court this week. He wished he could have played more games, but he appreciates the opportunity to be able to play the game and has no plans to slow down anytime soon.
