Texas women’s tennis wrapped up the 2024 ITA Women’s All-American Championships with 14 wins, mostly thanks to outstanding performances from new faces on the team.
The tournament took place in Cary, North Carolina, from Saturday, Sept. 21 to Sunday, Sept. 29, and is known for highlighting the country’s top NCAA Division I players.
Texas earned three victories in the opening round of pre-qualifying on Saturday as freshmen Carmen Herea and Ariana Anazagasty-Pursoo produced all three wins. They each competed in their own singles matches and then partnered up later in the day for a doubles match. The pair defeated No. 82 Nibedita Ghosh and Akari Matsuno of Notre Dame, advancing to the next pre-qualifying round on Sunday.
Junior No. 96 Vivian Ovrootsky and freshman No. 104 Ashton Bowers were selected for the qualifying round entering the tournament, and Anazagasty-Pursoo and Herea joined them after winning their singles matches. Anazagasty-Pursoo and Herea also secured a spot in the qualifying round as a doubles pair after receiving a bid as an alternate despite falling short in the last round of pre-qualifying.
Ovrootsky, Bowers and Herea earned first-round qualifying victories in singles on Monday. Anazagasty-Pursoo, though, lost to No. 106 Berta Passola Folch of Cal, 6-1, 6-0. She then played in a consolation draw against Zoe Hammond, winning her match 5-7, 6-2, 6-3. Duo Anazagasty-Pursoo and Herea lost their matchup against No. 54 Valencia Xu and Valerie Glozman of Stanford.
Herea and Bowers both played their way into the singles main draw on Tuesday. Bowers came back from a set down to win two tiebreakers over No. 60 Reece Carter of Washington. Herea took control of the match with a 4-0 run to earn the win over No. 113 Maria Juliana Parra Romero of Florida State. Ovrootsky lost her second match of qualifying play to No. 83 Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer of UCLA.
Because she was not pre-selected like Ovrootsky and Bowers to be in the qualifying round, Herea won six straight matches before reaching the second round of the singles main draw, marking a long journey towards this stage of the tournament. However, she fell short to No. 12 Julia Fliegner of Michigan, 7-5, 6-4. In the end, Maria Sholokhova of Wisconsin earned the singles title of the tournament while Gabriella Broadfoot and Maddy Zampardo of NC State won the doubles title.
Overall, the Longhorns gained valuable experience against top-ranked players from all across the nation, with Herea shining the brightest. Coming up for the Longhorns is the ITA Texas Regionals starting on Thursday, Oct. 10 in Fort Worth, Texas.
