Commitment Profile
Blue Chip Senior Gaby Pollner Chooses the Tigers
by Clair Maciel, 26 January 2016
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Ever since she first moved to Boca Raton, Fla., five years ago to develop her tennis, Westchester, N.Y., native Gaby Pollner has built a strong junior career résumé that includes appearances at two junior Grand Slams and a career-high ITF ranking inside the top 130. And now that she is taking the next step into a college career, the Blue Chip recruit has announced that she will return to her northern roots this fall and play for the Princeton Tigers.
After debating between nine universities, Pollner said it was a combination of factors that made her feel that Princeton was the right choice for her.
"It was a tough decision process for me, but in the end, I really liked the atmosphere of the campus in general, and I got along great with head coach Laura Granville, which was a driving factor for me," Pollner said. "Academically, Princeton is a very attractive choice considering that I'm interested in history and political science, and of course the tennis team had great chemistry, which I liked. Princeton just had everything that I was looking for in a university, and it was one of those decisions that just feels right, and I'm excited about my choice."
Pollner's journey to Princeton began five years ago, when she made the big move from New York to train at the Evert Tennis Academy in Florida. At the time, she was in seventh grade and nursing a broken arm, and tennis was not exactly a serious priority for her. But all that changed once she moved to Boca Raton.
"Coming to Florida was a huge adjustment," Pollner recalls. "I went from attending a private school and only playing tennis maybe two hours a day, to spending four to five hours a day on the court. I just wasn't playing enough back home, and I wasn't getting the kind of exposure to high-level competition that I needed. Even though it was an adjustment, it's one that I'm glad happened because I wouldn't be where I am today or have these kinds of opportunities if it hadn't happened."
Pollner's junior career has been quite a successful one in which she won a Bronze Ball at the 2015 USTA Winter Nationals, played in the qualifying rounds at the 2015 Junior Wimbledon and Junior US Open events, and traveled the world to compete at events held in Germany, Austria and Costa Rica, to name a few. It's this kind of international experience that Pollner said she values the most in her junior career.
