University of Minnesota Athletics
River Hart Signs With Minnesota
11/22/2016 12:00:00 AM | Tennis
Minneapolis, Minn. - University of Minnesota head coach Chuck Merzbacher announced the signing of River Hart Tuesday.
"We are pleased to announce the signing of River Hart to play tennis at the University of Minnesota," Merzbacher said. "As the recruiting process moved on, it was apparent that River and the University of Minnesota were a perfect fit. It is important for our program to recruit a certain type of individual that blends into our family culture along with the hunger to improve and get better each and every day. River, has aspirations to play beyond college tennis. She has been committed to her game from an early age, playing and training around the world. She plays out of the famous Sanchez Academy in Naples, FL. She will immediately help us in singles and doubles. She is joining the program at a perfect time, and she will be surrounded by a hard working bunch of teammates."
Hart trained at Sanchez-Casal Barcelona for four years starting at age nine (2009-13) and then moved to Naples, Fla. to train at Sanchez-Casal from 2013-17. She was the singles champion at ITA College Showcase Event, Naples, Fla. in 2015 then had a career high ranking of 578 in the International Tennis Federation rankings. (ITF).
The Nassau, Bahamas native reached the semifinals of three ITF tournaments (G4 Jamaica Jr. International, G4 Copa Sultana-Mayaguez, G5 Panama Bowl) beating players ranked in the top 200 of the ITF. She also won three ITF Doubles Titles (G4 Plantation ITF, G4 Copa Sultana-Mayaguez, G4 Jamaica Jr. International) and reached the finals of three ITF tournaments (G4 Atlanta Itf, G4 Monterrey Country Cup, G4 Junkanoo Bowl).
The future Gopher Represented Bahamas in the IC Tennis Challenge hosted at the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in Baltimore in 2015. She won two out of her three singles matches and two out of her four doubles matches beating players that represented Mexico and Barbados.
As a student, Hart has been an Honor Roll student every year and has an accumulative GPA of 3.92. She earned the 2015 Award for Excellence in Mathematics and wishes to study and major in Architecture. Hart has been a part of Student Council for six years.
Players Mentioned
