Francis Marion University member of the Peach Belt Conference has announced the signing of Eritrean-Swede Hermon Mikael from Karlskrona, Sweden to a national letter of intent to attend FMU in the fall of 2020. Coach Garth Thomson who is one of the top Tennis coaches and a former Francis Marion standout lead Hermon’s career until 2021 when he retired from coaching. Hermon, 5-2, is a transfer from ASA College Brooklyn campus, but she had four years of eligibility to play at FMU, one of the top Tennis schools in the USA. However, Hermon graduated with honors and after getting her bachelor’s degree has decided to transfer by registering on the college transfer portal. Hermon is a graduate of Malmö idrottsgymnasium in Sweden.Hermon attended ASA junior college in New York with the intention of playing ground tennis, but the school dropped the sport after she had already accepted a scholarship, giving her no choice but to transfer to another program.

Eri-Internationalsports.org was able to help arrange and share important information to make sure that Hermon got the best opportunity to play at a very competitive program. She accomplished her mission and also ended up being a great student-athlete that has inspired many young people. She has plans to be a part of building the sport of tennis in Eritrea. Hermon will officially announce where she will transfer to while pursuing her masters degree and able to play another 2 more years of college tennis. Meanwhile, it should be known that Hermon’s brother Joel recently represented Eritrea in the African championships of Table Tennis. Having lived all his life in Sweden, a recent visit to Eritrea gave Joel a chance to be among the first group of players to wear the flag colors of the Eritrean nation at an ITTF sanctioned event.

Good Luck and congratulations to Hermon and Joel.