Florida Gators Women's Tennis - History

History

The origins of the Florida Gators women's tennis team date to 1960, when Florida undergraduate Alice Tym organized and led a successful intercollegiate women's tennis club team. As Title IX expanded opportunities for women in college sports, the University of Florida sponsored its first intercollegiate varsity women's tennis team in 1972–1973. In the early years of the program, the Lady Gators were a perennial top-ten team in the national championship tournaments sponsored by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), including a second-place finish in the 1980 AIAW tournament.

Since the NCAA began sponsoring national championships in women's sports in 1981–1982, the Lady Gators have won five NCAA team championships, four NCAA singles championships, and four NCAA doubles championships. In addition to their five NCAA team championships, the Lady Gators have also finished second in the NCAA national championships tournament seven times, including 1988, 1990, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2002 and 2010. As a team, the Gators have failed to qualify for the AIAW and NCAA national championship tournaments only three times (1973, 1986 and 2009).

The Gators have also dominated the Southeastern Conference, winning twenty-five conference championships and seventeen SEC tournament titles since the SEC sanctioned women's tennis as a conference sport in 1980.