Englishman Andy Sullivan on Friday cranked up his bid for a third European Tour title this year when he fired his second straight round of seven-under 64 to move three shots clear at the Portugal Masters.
A 36-hole total of 14-under at the picturesque par-71 Oceanico Victoria Golf Course put the 29-year-old in command, following perfect early conditions that are predicted to worsen over the weekend.
In January, Sullivan won his first European event at the South African Open Championship and followed that with more success at the Joburg Open when he led home the field by two strokes in March.
Photo: AFP
Belgian hotshot Thomas Pieters, 23, who earlier this year won the D+D Real Czech Masters and KLM Open, is Sullivan’s closest rival. Pieters stands at 11-under, and finely poised after a 66 to follow his opening 65.
Spaniard Eduardo De La Riva bounced back from three front-nine bogeys to reel off five birdies in eight holes as he lies on 10-under along with Austria’s in-form Bernd Wiesberger.
The Vienna native is already his country’s most successful golfer with three European Tour wins and he got off to a flyer with an eagle at the second before going on to match Sullivan’s second round best of 64, flawed by just the isolated bogey.
Sullivan finished strongly with four birdies down the stretch, including his second in consecutive days at the seventh, where he chipped in from the edge of the green to underline the sharpness of his short game.
“Seven [the seventh hole] was just ridiculous,” Sullivan said. “We were just thinking to ourselves just 1-foot for par would really be nice. To see it go in was a massive relief, not having to have that putt coming back.”
Englishmen Tommy Fleetwood and Anthony Wall are tied for fifth on nine-under, five back.
A shot further back are Danish veteran Thomas Bjorn, his compatriot Soren Kjeldsen, South Africa’s Trevor Fisher Jnr, Adrian Otaegui of Spain and England’s Chris Paisley.
Belgium’s 2012 Ryder Cup winner Nicolas Colsaerts, who shared the overnight lead with Sullivan, slumped to a second-round even-par 71 and now lies seven strokes down the leaderboard.
Multiple major winners Martin Kaymer of Germany and Irishman Padraig Harrington both crept inside the cut-line, on two-under, but are unlikely to contend with 12 shots to make up.
The bad weather expected yesterday has forced organizers to begin play at 8am in a shotgun format that means groups will begin at the same time from different holes on the course.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier