CAYCE, S.C.—In the quarterfinal round of the BIG EAST Championships Presented by Jeep, #6 seed Villanova (9-11) gave #3 seed Marquette (10-6) all it could handle in a match that the Golden Eagles won 4-1 at the Cayce Tennis & Fitness Center on Friday evening. The loss ends the season for a young Wildcats squad which showed plenty of potential throughout the 2021 campaign.
Marquette clinched the doubles point with wins in the first and third matches before going on to sweep the top three spots in the singles lineup. Freshman
Ryan Nguyen (Oakton, Va.) scored the lone team point for the Wildcats with a three-set victory in the No. 6 spot in the lineup. Almost all the matches played in the competition were closely contested with swings of momentum towards both sides. Villanova won the first set in the singles matches at the No. 2, No. 5 and No. 6 spots in the lineup.
Each of the doubles matches won by Marquette were 6-3 decisions. Sophomore
Alex Kim (Cary, N.C.) and senior
Daniel Martinez (Coral Gables, Fla.) were defeated in the No. 1 match by Luis Heredia Gomez and Fran San Andres, while sophomore
Justin Suarez (Manila, Philippines) and freshman
Anthony Prokurat (Manalapan, N.J.) fell in the No. 3 doubles spot to Rami Scheetz and Shaddy Khalafallah. The No. 2 doubles match was tied at 5-5 with junior
Matthew Jones (Dallas, Texas) and freshman
Josh Robinson (Potomac, Md.) battling Stefan Dragovic and Ian Brady back and forth.
Robinson, Prokurat and Nguyen all won their opening sets when singles competition began. Robinson faced Heredia Gomez at No. 2 singles in the match that ultimately decided the team outcome and was narrowly defeated 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. In the No. 5 singles match, Prokurat won the first set against Nikola Kijac and was later trailing Kijac 4-6, 6-3, 2-0 when the Golden Eagles clinched the team result.
The matchup between Nguyen and Brady at No. 6 singles was a good one between the pair of freshmen. Nguyen won the opening set but was shut out in the second set as Brady tied the match. He persevered for a 6-3, 0-6, 6-4 victory which was completed and in the books just before the team competition was halted. Nguyen was one of several bright spots for the Wildcats this season, going 9-6 in singles competition overall and winning seven of the 10 matches he played in the sixth spot of the lineup.
Marquette won the No. 1 singles match to take a 2-0 lead in the competition when San Andres posted a 6-2, 6-1 decision over Kim. The other victory for the Golden Eagles came at No. 3 singles where Villanova freshman
Eitan Khromchenko (Manalapan, N.J.) lost a close 6-3, 7-5 contest. In the No. 4 singles match, sophomore
Daniel Cheng (Los Angeles, Calif.) trailed Tin Krstulovic by a 7-6, 3-2 count in a match that was not completed.
The youth movement on the Wildcats roster was an exciting one throughout the 2021 season. Villanova had an overall record of 50-65 in singles matches which were played to completion during the season; of those 115 matches, all but 10 (91.3%) featured players in their first or second year of eligibility and more than half (68 of 115, 59.1%) were played by true freshmen. The freshman quartet of Khromchenko (10-8), Robinson (10-8), Nguyen (9-6) and Prokurat (9-8) all posted winning records on the year.
Martinez was the lone senior on this year's Wildcats squad and he winds up his collegiate career with 57 victories as well as winning records in both singles (25-17) and doubles (32-28) matches. Jones and Robinson were the team's most successful doubles pairing on the year and they tallied a 12-5 record which included wins in all three spots of the doubles lineup.
