Florida Gators women's tennis

The Florida Gators women's tennis team represents the University of Florida in the sport of tennis. The Gators compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and the Southeastern Conference (SEC). They play their home matches in Linder Stadium on the university's Gainesville, Florida, campus, and are currently led by head coach Roland Thornqvist. In the thirty-nine-year history of the Gators women's tennis program, the team has won twenty-five SEC championships and seven NCAA national tournament championships. 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).