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Players battling to make Saturday shootout
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Players battling to make Saturday shootout

Denmark's Rasmus Højgaard was among those needing a strong finish in order to reach the latter stages of the Aphrodite Hills Cyprus Showdown after lightning caused the second round to run into Saturday.

Rasmus Hojgaard

The top 32 players and ties will have their scores reset ahead of the third round, where the top 16 and ties will then progress to Sunday.

With 23 of the 105-man field still having holes remaining when bad light caused play to be abandoned on Friday, six under looks likely to be the mark needed to make the cut.

Højgaard is five under for the week with three holes to play – enough currently for a share of 34th – with the 19-year-old likely to need a birdie over the closing holes to keep his hopes of a third European Tour title intact.

Finland's Mikko Korhonen is also on five under with four holes to play, with Sweden's Rikard Karlberg seemingly needing an eagle on the par five last at four under with one to play and England's Marcus Armitage four under with five holes remaining.

For the second week running Jamie Donaldson features prominently on the leaderboard, with Welshman leading the way on 12 under with three to play.

Clubhouse leaders James Morrison and Johannes Veerman are safely through on 11 under after rounds of 63 and 64 respectively, with Steven Brown, David Horsey, Romain Langasque and Joost Luiten home and hosed a shot further back.

Finland's Sami Välimäki is also ten under with two to play.

Another 19 players are in the clubhouse at six under or better, with Spain's Jorge Campillo (nine under with three to play), Sweden's Marcus Kilnhult, France's Joël Stalter and Antoine Rozner, Finland's Kalle Samooja and Poland's Adrian Meronk (all six under) all with work still to do over the closing holes.

American Veerman said: “I putted really well. We have the advantage of playing here last week – I hit the ball really well last week but didn’t make that many putts. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we were working on my putting and I’ve putted really well these last two days.”

Asked what he might need to do to reach Sunday's final round, the Qualifying School graduate added: “I want to say three but I’m going to say four. It depends how they set the pins. 

“The greens are big with a lot of swales and slopes. It depends how it is set up tomorrow, if it’s tough it could be two under, but if they move the tees back and put the pins in accessible positions it could be three or four.”

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