Texas women’s tennis traveled to California on Friday to face No. 8 UCLA in the women’s NCAA tennis tournament Sweet 16. The Longhorns’ impressive season came to an end when they fell to the Bruins in a 4-1 decision.
Texas entered the match as the underdog, ranked No. 9 in the tournament. With previous wins against Georgia Tech and Harvard, UCLA was Texas’s greatest competition of the tournament so far.
The match pulled away from the Longhorns as quickly as it started. After losing the doubles point due to a tiebreaker of the deciding match, Texas went into singles matches. Usually a strong point for the Longhorns, Texas struggled against the Bruins to pull out crucial wins. The only victory of the day came for the team on court four where graduate student Tanya Sasnouskaya defeated junior opponent Elise Wagle, preventing a shutout. UCLA would go on to win on courts one, three and six to secure the match and advance to the Elite Eight.
Texas began the tournament with an easy win against Ivy League opponent Harvard, shutting out the Crimson 4-0. Three matches went unfinished against Harvard, with dominant singles wins from the Longhorns on courts three, five and six.
The Longhorns carried their success into the second round, narrowly defeating Georgia Tech 4-3. Despite a two-hour rain delay, Texas carried on, taking the doubles point and collecting wins in singles due to the efforts of senior Charlotte Chavatipon, Sasnouskaya, and sophomore Vivian Ovrootsky.
Though their season ends with disappointment, Texas walks away with yet another dominant regular season performance. Finishing the season with a 23–6 overall record and 12–1 conference record, Texas’s only conference loss came against No. 1 Oklahoma State. The Longhorns finished the regular season on a seven-game win streak, their longest streak of the season.
Texas had different postseason success this season than they have had in years past. Only a couple of years ago, the Longhorns became back-to-back national champions in 2021 and 2022. In the Big 12 tournament, the team reached as far as the finals before falling short once again to Oklahoma State. Though the team prospered in the regular season, a postseason run to the national championship was met with difficult competition on the court.
Of the eleven players on the roster, five are seniors or graduate students and will be leaving the team. With a little less than half of the roster departing, Texas will need to look to its younger members to guide them to success in the future and once again reach the level of champion.
