‘21 SENIOR ISSUE VIKING LOGUE PRESENTS
Casey Hishinuma guides Fremd Tennis to success on and off the court
from the tournament by a lower-seeded opponent. Realizing how much his lack of confidence was heeding his gameplay, Casey called for a change.
BY PAVAN PANDURANGI I used to associate being an athlete with years of monitored training and dieting. That was until I saw Casey Hishinuma drain four bottles of Mountain Dew over the course of a week during our post-practice drives back home. Though Casey admits to maintaining a “not-so-healthy eating regimen,” it doesn’t change the fact that his presence on the court has left a mark that will guide the next generation of Fremd tennis stars.
“I feel like my win against [New Trier’s] Nikita [Filin] has been the capstone of my career,” Casey said. “Over the past couple of years, I went from losing matches I should’ve won easily to winning matches against opponents who, on paper, are better than me.” Over his four year career, Casey also developed an outlook on tennis that he believes is crucial to ensuring that Fremd succeeds in the future: players should compete for the team, not simply to win their match. He points out that, unlike most other high school sports, tennis involves multiple matches occurring within the same meet. His goal is for each team member to treat his match as if he were the deciding factor of the meet.
As a freshman, Casey couldn’t help but become intimidated by his experienced opponents. He caved in to pressure from opposing teams and feared cheating them with invalid line calls. “It was really bad against [Stevenson’s] Zach Kim. Every time I called a ball ‘out,’ he would glare at me,” Casey said. “It was basically like I couldn’t call any ball out, even if it was miles past the baseline.” But it wasn’t just line calls. Casey had a hard time recovering from tough losses against opponents of his caliber. “I was down for a week after I lost against [Palatine’s] Jackson [Spurck],” Casey said. “If ‘choke’ was a person, it would’ve been me.” Casey’s freshman year state run was halted by the eventual state champion, and following this loss, he was eliminated
During his last season at Fremd, Casey has overcome his past rivals, beating Spurck without dropping a game. In addition to defeating his freshman-year competitor, he achieved his greatest high school tennis accomplishment: earning a victory after going down a set against New Trier.
Tennis is just as much of a sport off the court as it is on the court for Casey. Between his underclassman and upperclassman years, he focused not only on his groundstrokes and volleys but also on his mental strength and tenacity in school. “I’m not sure how much better I would’ve been able to get without taking time to work on myself,” Casey said. “But once I did that, things started to click more often.”
“Although it might not seem like it, tennis is a team sport,” Casey said. “So, whether you’re the first one off the court or the last one off the court, you matter. We have to play with the team’s best interest in mind.” From the first time he walked onto Fremd’s courts, Casey has shown his teammates that high school tennis is rooted in collaboration, not competition. His willingness to address the importance of each player’s contributions to the team effort have transformed Fremd Tennis from a loo-
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