CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — University of Texas women’s tennis sophomore Peyton Stearns earned the NCAA Women’s Tennis Singles Championship while Texas men’s tennis senior Richard Ciamarra and sophomore Cleeve Harper won the men’s NCAA Doubles National Championship on Saturday.
Stearns posted an impressive 6-3, 6-2 victory against Connie Ma of Stanford, becoming the first woman to win the NCAA team and singles title in the same year since Nicole Gibbs of Stanford in 2013. Stearns is just the fifth woman to accomplish the impressive double since 2000, as she joins Laura Granville of Stanford (2001), Amber Liu of Stanford (2004), Mallory Cecil of Duke (2009) and Gibbs (2013). Stearns also advanced to the NCAA Doubles Quarterfinals with partner Allura Zamarripa.
Ciamarra and Harper battled to a 5-7, 6-4, 1-0 (7) victory over No. 2 Matej Vocel and Robert Cash of Ohio State. It marks the seventh doubles title in UT history by six different pairs, and the first since 2015 when Lloyd Glasspool and Søren Hess-Olesen won it. It is also just the second since 1944 when John Hickman and Felix Kelley won it, while Hickman and Walter Driver took it in 1943. The others include Bruce Barnes and Karl Kamrath in 1931, and back-to-back wins by Lewis White and Louis Thalheimer in 1923 and 1924.
