Spain's Rafael Cabrera-Bello held the clubhouse lead as he looked to turn yet another good performance into an overdue third European Tour title at the Alstom Open de France.
Cabrera-Bello has finished fourth, 13th, second and 11th in his last four events, but bogeyed the 72nd hole in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open to miss out on a play-off and shot rounds of 74 and 71 after taking the halfway lead in Munich last week.
The 31 year old added a 70 to his opening 68 to set the clubhouse target on four under par, one ahead of Francesco Molinari, Jaco van Zyl and the English trio of Tyrrell Hatton, James Morrison and Daniel Brooks, whose 66 was the lowest round of the week so far and contained six birdies, an eagle and three bogeys.
Cabrera-Bello turned in a one under par 34, but bogeyed the fifth before holing a ten foot birdie effort at the next.
Another dropped shot followed on the seventh after his decision to chip from the green backfired, but he converted from 20 feet on the next to bounce back once more.
“Obviously the scoring has been good; two consecutive rounds under par on this course is very good,” said Cabrera-Bello. “It's a very tough course. There is less rough this year, yes, but it is still hard.
“It was very hot out there yesterday. It's been getting hot throughout the day today and the turf is definitely getting harder.
“The best thing about it is I haven't had really much, much trouble. I've made some bogeys of course, but never put myself in position of shooting a high number.
“Obviously some things have been going wrong because my scoring during the first two days, or even Saturday, as well, compared to Sunday is not quite the same. But I'm working on that, so I'm going to keep knocking on the door and one day, it will open.”
Hatton was annoyed to bogey the par five ninth, his closing hole, in a 68 after taking four to get down from the edge of the green, but said: "I've been trying to get better with how I deal with shots.
"I got a bit flustered on the last there and hit three not-so good chip shots, but it's a learning curve and I am trying to get better."
