Texas women’s tennis kept its streak of sweeps alive, beating Brown 7-0 on Sunday to advance its record to 8–1 and remain undefeated at home in a win that served as a battle between the programs past and present.
The Bears’ head coach, Lucie Schmidhauser, is recognized in the Longhorns’ hall of honor for her remarkable efforts in UT’s 1993-1995 seasons. In 1998-2001, Schmidhauser returned to Texas as an assistant coach.
“It was definitely nice to see her and have the opportunity (to play Brown). It felt really good,” Longhorns head coach Howard Joffe said. “Obviously, she’s one of the great players we’ve had come through this program. She’s just getting started at Brown. I truly expect she gets the reigns overtime for Brown to become one of the best in the Ivy and a very good team.”
While senior Anna Turati completed a clean sweep over her opponent Devon Jack, (6-0, 6-0), Brown put up a fight elsewhere.
All eyes were on junior Fernanda Labraña as she fought neck-and-neck in the final match against Brown sophomore Julia Newman. The Longhorns team broke the silence at Texas Tennis Center as Turati led the team in a “Texas Fight” chant to encourage Labraña, and she came through with the 6-2, 7-6 victory.
“I think it wasn’t my best tennis today. I’ve been sick for the whole week so my energy wasn’t super high,” said Labraña of her 6-2, 7-6. “But I’m happy I got it done, and it was nice to play with the whole crowd and my teammates supporting me.”
In doubles, Labraña and freshman Adri Nagy finished with a victory, while freshman Gabby Cusano and sophomore Marta Perez Mur added to a win by the Turati twins and clinched the doubles point.
“She got her first college win here at Austin where she’s from and in front of the crowd, and I’m just really happy for her,” said Perez Mur of playing doubles with Cusano.“I have a lot of fun when I’m on the court with her. I’m happy we were able to give the point to the team.”
The win had been a longtime coming for Perez Mur, who had to redshirt the 2019 season after a knee injury.
“It was actually super special,” Perez Mur said. “I was thinking about it on Thursday. … It’s been like 22 months since I last played singles here. And I’m honestly just trying my best to help the team out, every single match we play.”
While Texas’ back-to-back sweeps have the Longhorns riding a wave of momentum, there is no easy road ahead. The Longhorns take on No. 3 Stanford next weekend in their toughest test yet this season.
“I expect to have the two-time national defending champions playing us next Saturday, so I expect us to have our hands full and I definitely think it’s a very even matchup,” Joffe said.
