England’s Justin Rose and Dane Lucas Bjerregaard matched each other shot-for-shot during the third round of the Hong Kong Open yesterday as the duo surged four strokes clear of the chasing pack heading into the final round.
World No. 7 Rose, who led Bjerregaard by a stroke at the halfway stage, holed two eagles and two birdies in a blemish-free round of six-under-par 64 to move to 15-under.
Bjerregaard, who has three top-10 finishes in the past month, improved his chances of a first European Tour title by carding a 63 with a bogey on the last putting him on level with 2013 US Open champion Rose.
Photo: AFP
“It was great. I really enjoyed it out there with Justin,” Bjerregaard told reporters.
“He’s a really good guy and we kept making birdies, especially around the turn,” he said.
“Obviously it’s not fun to finish off any round with a bogey and especially not today. I hit a bad tee shot on 18 there, pretty much my only bad shot of the day, so not the way I wanted to finish, but still, I’m very happy with the round today,” he said.
Rose bagged an eagle three on the par-five third and repeated the feat on the 13th before he followed that up with his second birdie of the day on the next hole.
“Lucas played unbelievable golf today,” Rose said. “I actually didn’t know much about his game and first, he’s a lovely guy and second, he can really play.”
India’s Anirban Lahiri (65), the leader on Asian Tour’s order of merit, made the turn at even-par, but gained five shots on the back nine to move to 11-under-par, claiming third position.
Fellow Indian Jeev Milkha Singh and British Masters winner Matthew Fitzpatrick were tied for fourth spot, a further shot adrift.
Four Taiwanese were still in action, with Lin Wen-tang — in a share of 13th — the best placed of them after a third-round 68 for 203 overall, while Lu Wei-chih (204 overall) was tied for 15th, C.T. Pan (205) was in a group in 19th and Chan Shih-chang (206) was in a share of 23rd.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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