Swede Johan Edfors boosted his attempt to end a five-year victory drought when he shared the lead with four other players after shooting a 65 in the Andalucian Open first round on Thursday.
Edfors was joined on five-under-par by fellow Swedes Oscar Floren and Rikard Karlberg and British pair Jamie Elson and Robert Rock.
Of the quintet only Edfors has previously won on the European Tour although he has not done so since 2006 when he triumphed three times and was unlucky not to make the Ryder Cup team that beat the US at the K Club in Ireland.
Apart from Floren, the others had the luck of the draw and played in the morning before a stiff breeze blew at the Parador de Golf course overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
“I had been planning to take this week off because I did not play well in the event last year,” former Scottish Open, British Masters and TCL Classic champion Edfors told reporters. “But then I decided to come and it was a good decision.”
“The course is in great shape and the weather during my round was absolutely lovely. I know I have not won for five years, but I feel my confidence is starting to come back,” he added.
Edfors, who graduated from the second-tier Challenge Tour at the end of last year, benefited from a change in conditions when the wind dropped again for the last nine holes of his round.
Rock’s 65 was encouraging for the Englishman after he parted company with long-time caddie Jamie Lane following a lowly 58th-place finish at last week’s Sicilian Open.
Fellow Englishman Elson is still trying to make up for lost sleep after the event in Sicily carried over until Monday because of bad weather.
“I only got back home to England at 9:30 on Monday night and on Tuesday I had to set my alarm for 3am to get my plane to Malaga,” he said. “But when you play well you do not tend to feel the tiredness.”
The little-known Karlberg, 24, sprinkled his round with seven birdies and two bogeys.
Among the five players who carded 66s to lie one shot off the lead was 1999 British Open champion Paul Lawrie who also played his round before sitting down to lunch.
European Ryder Cup captain Jose Maria Olazabal and his predecessor as skipper, Colin Montgomerie, opened with matching 70s, while tournament promoter Miguel Angel Jimenez registered a 72.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with