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Cape Town - Thomas Pieters mastered the windy afternoon conditions to fire a second round 66 and join Ryan Fox in a four-way tie for the lead heading into the weekend at the World Super 6 Perth.
New Zealander Fox recorded a second consecutive round of 68 to set the target at eight under par alongside Australia’s Matthew Griffin and Panuphol Pittayarat of Thailand, with Pieters joining them at the top of a congested leaderboard at Lake Karrinyup Country Club.
The innovative World Super 6 Perth format will see the top 24 players after three rounds of stroke play progressing to the six hole knockout match play on the fourth and final round on Sunday, with the top eight receiving a bye into the second round.
Belgian Pieters, who secured the Melbourne World Cup of Golf alongside countryman Thomas Detry on his last visit to Australia, has some match play pedigree having claimed four points on his Ryder Cup debut in 2016.
"People can shoot low tomorrow and the cut-off for 24th place could be six, seven under. So maybe I'm a couple shots in, but if you get careless, then I think you can drop a lot of spots easily," said Pieters.
"I think I'm going to go out there tomorrow and act like it's a stroke play event, and you always want to be in the first place. If you're not, I don't think you're mentally taking it the right way."
Fox missed out on the match play stages after losing in a play-off at Lake Karrinyup in 2017 and finished a shot out of the play-off 12 months ago.
"The last couple years I've eyed that top 24 from sort of around the morning and it hasn't worked out very well for me. I'll try to aim a little higher this year and see what happens. It looks like it might blow tomorrow afternoon as well, so might be a case of just trying to hang on," said Fox.
"Certainly no taking the foot off the pedal, just got to try to make some birdies and try to finish as high as possible. There is a little bit of bonus for finishing in that top eight, getting the first round off, and I'll certainly be aiming for that."
Englishman Richard McEvoy, Scot Robert Macintyre and Australian Matt Jager are one shot off the lead at seven under par, with Spain’s Adrian Otaegui and Frenchman Clément Sordet amongst a group of five players at six under par.
Round two scores:
136 T Pieters (Bel) 70 66, P Pittayarat (Tha) 70 66, R Fox (Nzl) 68 68, M Griffin (Aus) 69 67,
137 R McEvoy (Eng) 67 70, R Macintyre (Sco) 70 67, M Jager (Aus) 69 68,
138 A Otaegui (Esp) 70 68, B Henson (USA) 71 67, C Sordet (Fra) 71 67, B Campbell (Nzl) 67 71, B Kennedy (Aus) 68 70,
139 M Lee (Aus) 70 69, D Lawson (Aus) 69 70, G Forrest (Sco) 74 65, S Jeffress (Aus) 70 69,
140 J Harding (RSA) 71 69, B Evans (Eng) 72 68, J Campillo (Esp) 73 67, M Hoey (Nir) 68 72, Y Chang (Kor) 70 70, C Syme (Sco) 73 67, S Kim (USA) 72 68,
141 S Vincent (Zim) 70 71, D Fox (Aus) 73 68, J Janewattananond (Tha) 71 70, J Zunic (Aus) 70 71, T Murray (Eng) 71 70, A Martin (Aus) 70 71, C O'Reilly (Aus) 72 69, D Beck (Aus) 72 69, A Connelly (Can) 71 70, B Ritthammer (Ger) 71 70, D Gale (Aus) 69 72, G Paddison (Nzl) 70 71, P Dunne (Irl) 73 68,
142 C Crawford (Aus) 74 68, S Hend (Aus) 74 68, G Bourdy (Fra) 69 73, P Fowler (Aus) 73 69, W Ormsby (Aus) 73 69, Y Ikeda (Jpn) 74 68, M McCardle (Aus) 73 69, N Colsaerts (Bel) 74 68, J Wang (Kor) 70 72, S Chawrasia (Ind) 68 74, K Reitan (Nor) 65 77, P Langfors (Swe) 71 71,
143 J Scrivener (Aus) 70 73, M Hendry (Nzl) 73 70, P Lonard (Aus) 72 71, T Pilkadaris (Aus) 70 73, A Dodt (Aus) 74 69, D Gavins (Eng) 74 69, J McLeod (Aus) 71 72, T Lewis (Eng) 73 70, M Tabuena (Phi) 65 78, D Bransdon (Aus) 71 72, H Endycott (Aus) 71 72, Z Murray (Aus) 72 71, A Saddier (Fra) 73 70, N Flanagan (Aus) 68 75, S Kapur (Ind) 73 70, J Younger (Aus) 74 69, P Meesawat (Tha) 70 73, A Quayle (Aus) 70 73,
144 A Sandhu (Ind) 71 73, S Chan (Tpe) 72 72, M Shin (USA) 72 72, J Norris (Aus) 75 69, L De Jager (RSA) 74 70, J Veerman (USA) 73 71, N Cullen (Aus) 72 72, M Fraser (Aus) 70 74, R Green (Aus) 73 71, C S (Ind) 73 71, G Green (Mas) 73 71, D Smail (Nzl) 75 69, A Karlsson (Swe) 68 76, B Eccles (Aus) 74 70, O Wilson (Eng) 74 70, S Gregory (Eng) 73 71, M Brown (Nzl) 71 73, R Ramsay (Sco) 77 67, M Orrin (Eng) 72 72,
145 D Kataoka (Jpn) 73 72, M Manassero (Ita) 73 72, M Antcliff (Aus) 73 72, K Joshi (Ind) 73 72, M Millar (Aus) 74 71, P Saksansin (Tha) 75 70, A Bland (Aus) 73 72, P Figueiredo (Por) 73 72, A Da Silva (Bra) 72 73, M Stieger (Aus) 76 69, K Kitayama (USA) 74 71, H Leon (Chi) 73 72, G Moynihan (Irl) 74 71, J Marchesani (Aus) 72 73, D Boonma (Tha) 70 75, R Chisnall (Nzl) 71 74,
146 J Choi (Kor) 74 72, S Soderberg (Swe) 73 73, C John (Aus) 72 74, M Wright (Aus) 71 75, L Herbert (Aus) 74 72, S Leaney (Aus) 73 73, J Wilson (Aus) 75 71, M Schmitt (Ger) 75 71, J Nitties (Aus) 70 76, F Bergamaschi (Ita) 73 73, D Papadatos (Aus) 72 74, H Park (Kor) 74 72, M Nixon (Eng) 73 73, A Chesters (Eng) 74 72, D Borda (Esp) 73 73,
147 S Yongcharoenchai (Tha) 75 72, I Cantero Gutierrez (Esp) 75 72, D Drysdale (Sco) 76 71, N Fung (Mas) 73 74, C Shinkwin (Eng) 71 76,
148 G Migliozzi (Ita) 72 76, M Choi (Kor) 73 75, A Truslow (USA) 72 76, N O'Hern (Aus) 72 76, A Pike (Aus) 73 75, J Girrbach (Sui) 76 72, D Jordan (Aus) 73 75, S Manley (Wal) 73 75, P Peterson (USA) 78 70, E Kofstad (Nor) 72 76, R Allenby (Aus) 72 76,
149 M Kokocinski (Swe) 78 71, S Hawkes (Aus) 72 77, C Wood (Aus) 73 76, J Morrison (Eng) 75 74, V Madappa (Ind) 74 75, T Aiken (RSA) 71 78, K Koivu (Fin) 73 76, L Johnston (Sco) 71 78,
150 R Wannasrichan (Tha) 78 72, D Law (Sco) 70 80, N Voke (Nzl) 73 77, N Lemke (Swe) 77 73, R Gouveia (Por) 75 75,
151 M Long (Nzl) 73 78, K Johannessen (Nor) 72 79, P O'Malley (Aus) 75 76, J Felton (Aus) 77 74,
153 B Proverbs (Aus) 76 77, M Kawamura (Jpn) 76 77, D Perry (Aus) 74 79, G Ogilvy (Aus) 76 77,
154 J Todd (USA) 77 77,
155 E Ferguson (Sco) 77 78,
** D Nisbet (Aus) 72 RT,
