Twenty-five years, the Florida women's tennis team went undefeated on the way to the program's first NCAA crown.
Silver Anniversary Homecoming: 1992 NCAA Champs to be Saluted
Friday, November 17, 2017 | Women's Tennis, Chris Harry
The Gators won their first national title in women's tennis 25 years ago.
Case in point: The 1991 Lady Gators (yes, that's what they were called back then) went 31-0, with a defeat of the top-ranked juggernaut Stanford, only to lose to UCLA in the NCAA semifinals.
Maybe that's what made 1992 all the more special.
"Looking back, I don't really know that our team was that different," recalled Andrea Farley, then a junior with that team. "But I think having come so close and losing that year before really allowed us to have a better, more focused mindset the next year."
Oh, and the arrival of freshman Lisa Raymond, one of the most dominant players ever to appear on a collegiate tennis court, certainly helped.
All the '92 Gators did was go a perfect 30-0, capping their rampage run with a 5-3 victory over Texas in the NCAA final, a match that was played (perhaps fittingly) on the outdoor courts at Stanford.
Now, 25 years later, the members of that team — Coach Andy Brandi included — will be back in Gainesville this weekend for a silver-anniversary celebration of one of the most authoritative team achievements in Florida athletic lore. First will come the hugs, the catching up, the reminiscing, exchanging of family photos and raising glasses at a Friday reception. On Saturday, the team will be honored with a video salute and take a bow during the Florida-UAB football game.
"We've all been texting one another the past week," Farley said of the run-up to the reunion. "We're all really excited."
When Brandi retired to go into private coaching after the 2001 season, the Gators had three national titles on his watch. Enter Roland Thornqvist, by way of North Carolina, who continued the tradition of women's excellence. Thornqvist has won four NCAA titles in the 16 years since, including two straight in 2011 and '12, plus the one the Gators claimed just last May.
Thornqvist was a sophomore player for the Tar Heels a quarter-century ago, but remembers that UF team and its coach very well.
"To this day, I believe that's the best team ever assembled in the history of college tennis," Thornqvist said. "Just look at the numbers."
The most glaring, of course, is that 30-0 mark, which included 14 shutout victories. And Raymond, the rookie, led the way.
Playing at No. 1 singles, she went 50-4 (fall season included), then 24-4 in the spring and battering foes by an aggregate 26-0 in indoor, SEC and NCAA tournament play. She remains the only NCAA player, male or female, to win three collegiate grand slam titles in one season, as she claimed the ITCA Clay Court, the ROLEX National Indoor and, finally, the NCAA singles crown in the days that followed Florida's team championship.
But back to that team thing.
The Lady Gators had come close in the years prior, and because of that had developed a reputation as a program that couldn't handle pressure late in the game. On that front, Brandi deserves a lot of credit for focusing his players for that postseason.
Brandi took an non-conventional approach to the '92 NCAA Tournament, coming up with a theme that came to him after watching his young son play a video game called "Duck Hunt." He told his players they were going duck hunting, plain and simple. A team point in a match was one duck. They'd need five ducks each time out to move on.
The coach even wore a goofy camouflaged hunting hat.
Said Farley: "We all rolled our eyes at first, but it kept us loose and relaxed."
UF beat No. 13 USC 5-0 in the first round, then No. 7 UCLA 5-0 in the second, and No. 4 Duke 5-1 in the semifinal.
Against No. 3 Texas, which had eliminated Stanford in the other Final Four match, the Gators started off slowly. Even Raymond, fell behind 3-0 in her match at No. 1 singles against Susan Gilchrist. Thoughts of here-we-go-again could not be helped.
Frustrated, Raymond made her walk to the sidelines to meet with Brandi and get some pointers. The coach had a reputation of being tough on his players, especially in the heat of the moment.
His words to his star: "Quack! Quack!"
That was it.
Raymond rebounded from that opening set to win in three. Meanwhile, Holly Lloyd and Jill Brenner wrapped straight-set wins at No. 2 and 6 singles to put the Lady Gators up 3-0. Kristin Osmond, playing No. 5, won a pivotal three-set match to make the score 4-2 heading to the doubles point, which was played after singles at the time. Doubles matches counted a point each then, as opposed to the current best-of-three getting a single point.
Osmond and Erika Kuttler bagged the deciding duck in doubles.
Lloyd, a senior who had suffered through some agonizing postseason moments, had this to say afterward: "For years we've being hearing how we couldn't do it. Hearing about 'The Gator Choke.' This is something we've been waiting for a long, long time."
Now, after a 25-year wait, they get to relive it all over again.
Brandi is now co-head men's coach at LSU, alongside his son. Raymond retired two years ago after one of the longest and most decorated doubles careers, winning 11 Grand Slam events before walking away in 2015 at the age of 42. Farley is now a partner in the Atlanta law firm she's been with for 20 years. Brandi, Raymond and Farley are in the UF Athletic Hall of Fame.
Post-Gator success stories on this team abound.
And now they're all coming back.
"I think that speaks volumes to the relationships they had with their coaches and one another," Thornqvist said. "It's going to be great to see them all. They may not recognize me now with all my gray hair, but it'll be cool to hear their stories."
Florida Women's Tennis | Scarlett Nicholson Mic'd Up
Thursday, February 12
NCAA: Roland Thornqvist Press Conference 5-5-24
Sunday, May 05
NCAA: Coach Thornqvist & Rachel Gailis 5-4-24
Saturday, May 04
Roland Thornqvist Postmatch NCAA Second Round 5-6-23
Saturday, May 06
