Texas Women’s Tennis: Freshmen standouts help win national title

In a big weekend for the Texas women’s tennis program, the team was able to win their third National Championship in its history. The last title that Texas won on the court came back in 1995. The one prior to that was in 1993. Texas got the win in the NCAA Championship over the five-seed Pepperdine, in a 4-3 series edge.

Texas faced Pepperdine at UTSA’s campus this weekend for the NCAA Championship. This win over Pepperdine this weekend moved the Longhorns record on the season to an impressive 31-1.

This win in the national title matchup for the Longhorns reportedly took more than four hours to get to. The freshman from Geneva, Switzerland, Lulu Sun got the final set win for the Longhorns to win the national title. She was one of multiple Longhorns freshmen that helped guide this team to get the series edge over Pepperdine.

In Sun’s match to round out this series with Pepperdine, she got the wins in the first and third set to take the win for Texas. Sun also came up big in the doubles set for the Longhorns, with fellow freshman standout Kylie Collins, in a dramatic showdown that required a tiebreaker against Lisa Zaar and Ashley Lahey.

Lulu Sun helps lead Texas women’s tennis to a National Championship

Yet another freshman standout for the Longhorns, Peyton Stearns, wound up winning the Most Outstanding Player throughout the NCAA Tournament among singles. Texas also had two others that were named among the top five for singles in the NCAA Tournament.

The top-ranked doubles pairing in the tourney also came from the Longhorns. Sun and Collins were the top duo, and the pairing of Charlotte Chavatipon and Stearns ranked third among the doubles for the tourney.

This was the second National Championship that the Longhorns have won during the 2020-21 athletic calendar. Texas also won the national title in men’s swimming and diving a few months back.

Getting this title in women’s tennis gives the program the third in its history. And it’s the 57th National Championship in athletics in the history of the University of Texas.

The lone loss on the season for the women’s tennis team came against the No. 1 ranked North Carolina Tar Heels back on Feb. 7, in an event that was held at the home of Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater.