VILLANOVA, Pa.—Three full days of competition to open the 2021-22 campaign wrapped up on Sunday evening on a successful note as Villanova had five of its competing teams finish in the top eight of their respective draws at the 10^th annual Villanova Invitational this weekend. The highlights of Sunday's final round came in the White Draw where sophomore Anthony Prokurat (Manalapan, N.J.) and junior Justin Suarez (Manila, Philippines) finished in second place. The team of sophomore Noah Winton (Columbia, Mo.) and senior Matthew Jones (Dallas, Texas) finished third in the White Draw.
 
The weekend was a successful one for the Wildcats as all 13 members of this year's team competed at least once during the three-day tournament at the Villanova Tennis Complex. Villanova went 24-18 (.571) overall in singles matches and 11-11 (.500) in doubles matches for the weekend. Jones and sophomore Ryan Nguyen (Oakton, Va.) were each 4-0 in singles competition during the tournament, while Jones and Winton went 3-1 in doubles to help secure their third place finish.
 
Prokurat and Suarez played in the championship match of the White Draw against Jordan Paul and Michael Bukhalo from Lehigh. Their berth in the final was not clinched until earlier on Sunday when Suarez defeated Jorge Quintana from Loyola (Md.) in straight sets (6-4, 6-2) to break a 1-1 tie in a third round match. That match had begun on Saturday with Quintana and Liam Rompre defeating Prokurat and Suarez in doubles (6-0), but Prokurat responded with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Rompre in singles to force the Suarez match against Quintana on Sunday morning.
 
In the championship match later in the day the team of Paul and Bukhalo scored a 7-5 win in doubles. Suarez faced Bukhalo in singles and won the first set before ultimately falling 3-6, 6-3, 10-6 as the Mountain Hawks clinched the first place finish. Suarez had a remarkable weekend as he went 3-1 in singles competition while playing a third-set tiebreaker in all but one of those matches. He set an early tone for the weekend late on Friday afternoon when he gutted out a 6-7 (4), 6-0, 18-16 win over a Loyola (Md.) opponent to advance himself and Prokurat into the second round.
 
Suarez's win over Quintana on Sunday morning also determined the third place match in the White Draw which pitted Winton and Jones against Rompre and Quintana. Villanova swept the third place match by a 3-0 score, including a 6-3 win in doubles. Winton defeated Rompre (8-2) and Jones beat Quintana (8-4) in singles to tally the third place result.
 
The final Wildcats team in the White Draw included junior Will Gatti (Pittsburgh, Pa.), senior Collin Klumb (Leawood, Kan.) and junior Daniel Cheng (Los Angeles, Calif.). Cheng teamed with Gatti for a third round doubles win on Saturday and also won his singles match in the third round to set up a meeting between Gatti/Klumb and the Loyola (Md.) team of Edik Pribitkin and Matt Cardano on Sunday afternoon. The Greyhounds won the three matches on Sunday as Gatti, Klumb and Cheng wound up in 10^th place in the draw.
 
Villanova occupied the fifth, sixth and seventh places in the Blue Draw when competition had come to a close for the weekend. Sophomores Josh Robinson (Potomac, Md.) and Eitan Khromchenko (Manalapan, N.J.) won an all-Wildcats fifth place match over teammates Alex Kim (Cary, N.C.) and Nguyen by a 2-1 score. Robinson and Khromchenko won the doubles match, 6-2, before both singles matches went to tiebreakers in an unsurprisingly even competition. Robinson outlasted Kim (6-1, 3-6, 10-8) to clinch the fifth place finish while Nguyen stayed unbeaten on the weekend with a 7-5, 5-7, 10-8 decision over Khromchenko.
 
Kim and Nguyen only reached the fifth place match after defeating the third Villanova team in the Blue Draw, the all-freshman squad of Trey Fourticq (Los Angeles, Calif.) and Lukas Choi (Franklin Lakes, N.J.), in the third round. Their matchup saw Kim and Nguyen post a 6-4 doubles win and an 8-1 singles victory by Nguyen over Choi to clinch the result. Fourticq knocked off Kim, 8-2, in their singles match.
 
In the seventh place match on Sunday, Fourticq and Choi were default winners over a team from Saint Joseph's.