Sebastian Soderberg’s magical period continueswhich is riding the positive wave of recent weeks and flies away after two rounds at the 2024 Volvo China Open. At the halfway point of the Chinese DP World Tour tournament, the Swede breaks away from the competition and takes the lead with a total score of -16. They are well three shots ahead of his closest pursuer, the Englishman Paul Waring, and four over an excellent Guido Migliozziwho puts in a decidedly convincing second lap and is finally seen again in the upper areas of the leaderboard.
Soderberg is coming off two consecutive second places and is determined to climb the final step to finally raise his arms to the sky on Sunday afternoon. A victory that would have a decisive specific weight, would in fact also make him impose himself in the Asian Swing and would secure a ticket for the second Major of the season, the PGA Championship, now upon us. The Swede, after yesterday’s -9, starts from the 10th and is decidedly hot: in fact, he has made six birdies up to the 18th, on the first two nines, with no bogey. First mistake arriving at 1, but promptly redeemed by the hits gained at 6 and 8 at the end of the round. All this gives Soderberg a partial score of 65 (-7), for a total of -16 and a fairly clear mid-week dominance.
Second position at -13 for Waringwho also closed his eighteen holes in 65 strokes with eight birdies and a bogey, arriving at the difficult par four of the tenth. Encouraging signs are also arriving from Migliozzi, who confirms how good he was yesterday and remains in the wake to try to fight for the victory over the weekend. Guido is third solo with a score of -12, the result of a more than positive lap of 67. The first nine were very good for the Italian, who scored birdies on the 2nd, 5th, 6th and 9th, also coloring the 11th and 14th red. When he was chasing Soderbeg, the first slowdown came with the bogey on the tremendous 15, and a few opportunities left on the table in the last three holes but he missed out on second place.
On the par 72 course of theHidden Frace Golf Club (Shenzen) interesting trio in 4th place at -11: Gordan Brixiwith the Czech losing a shot at 18, the Spaniard Adrian Otaeguiauthor of a great 66 but also slowed down by the bogey on the 18th, and the Swiss Joel Girrbach. Seventh position with an overall score of -10 for the tandem composed of the South African Zander Lombard and from Filipino Lloyd Jefferson Gowhile the Transalpine completes the top-10 tied at -9 Frederic Lacroix and the Austrian Matthias Schwab.
The team performance of the Azzurri was very good, with six out of eight playing at the weekend. In addition to Migliozzi, yesterday he was among the top ten Filippo Celliwhich today, however, slows down, especially in the last nine which closed at +3, and with a tight par straight round in 25th place. There are three Italians who share the 42nd place at -4: Lorenzo Scalise (70), Andrea Pavan (71) e Edoardo Molinari (71). On the limit instead Matteo Manassero, which with its -3 overall (and for the day) remains in 58th place with the last score needed to continue the tournament. However, they remain outside the cut Renato Paratore And Francesco Laportawho finished in 102nd and 11th place respectively with totals over par of +1 and +2.
