Nov. 5—ROCHESTER — The top girls tennis player in Minnesota has made up her mind.
No, Mayo’s two-time state defending singles champion Claire Loftus will not be heading to play Division I tennis, though she had many suitors at that level.
Instead, she has chosen a high academic route, all while also allowing her tennis career to continue. Loftus has committed to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, one of the top medical institutions in the country.
Loftus said she settled on Johns Hopkins in mid-July, but is only now making the announcement.
In picking the college, she is following in her mother’s footsteps. Yuri Saito-Loftus — who like her husband Conor Loftus is a Mayo Clinic doctor — is a Johns Hopkins graduate.
Claire became familiar with the school at a young age, the Loftus family having made multiple trips there.
“I kind of had my eye on Johns Hopkins for a long time,” said Claire, a Mayo senior and honor student. “That’s where my mom went to school so it’s been in the back of my mind for a while now.”
In choosing to play tennis at Johns Hopkins, Loftus is going the Division III route. She likes the sound of that, knowing that had she gone Division I, the time commitment would have been considerably more.
Loftus, who plans to pursue public health at Johns Hopkins and follow a pre-med track, believes the academic/tennis ratio will suit her well there.
“Division III tennis is very appealing to me,” said Loftus, who finished the last two high school seasons combined with just one loss and two state championships. “For the past seven years of my life I’ve had to juggle school and tennis, so I know how hard it is to do both. It would have been possible for me to play Division I tennis at a big school. But for me, I am very content with the school I’ll be going to and its tennis.”
The Division I schools that showed interest in Loftus for tennis didn’t meet her wishes academically.
“They weren’t the academic standard I was looking for,” she said.
