Alvaro Quiros and Simon Dyson share the lead following the opening round of the Volvo China Open at the Genzon Golf Club in Shenzhen as they both go in search of their first European Tour win since 2011.
Two birdies on the opening two holes for Quiros gave the Spaniard a superb start to the tournament and the 31-year-old built on that, adding an eagle at the par-five 13th with two further birdies to card a five-under-par round of 67 having only dropped one shot at the 10th.
Quiros was happy with his start and believes it shows he is steadily improving.
He said: “It was a good round of golf.
“It was a bit of a shame on the last par five because I was half a metre away from having a great chance to make another eagle. My game is improving. You can’t see it yet on the rankings but I have been playing better.”
Dyson, whose last tournament success came in the 2011 KLM Open, carded three birdies on both the front and back nine to keep the pace alongside Quiros, with a bogey on the first the only blot on the Brit's scorecard.
Fading light
Five players failed to finish their rounds as fading light meant play was suspended and the leaders do not have much breathing space heading into Friday's second round, with Dyson's compatriots David Hornsey and Tyrrell Hatton just a shot adrift alongside defending champions Brett Rumford.
World number three Henrik Stenson can overhaul Tiger Woods at the top of the rankings with victory in Shenzen and he started steadily to finish his opening round on one-under par and four shots off the lead, while other big names Jason Duffner and Ian Poulter had differing days.
American Duffner, ranked 17th in the world, bogied three on the back nine to end one over par while Poulter tied for ninth on three under par.
Northern Ireland's Michael Hoey shot a three under par, 69, to lie two shots behind Quiros and Dyson. Hoey could have enjoyed even better fortune having made it to the turn in five under, 31, with birdies at the second, third, fourth, sixth and seventh holes but took 38 coming home with bogeys on the 12th and 16th, both par threes.
Ireland's Shane Lowry, teeing off at the 10th, managed a brace of birdies and bogeys to reciord a level par, 72. Damien McGrane was one shot further back after an opening 73, while Peter Lawrie signed for a 78.
DETAILS (Play suspended due to fading light)
67 Simon Dyson, Alvaro Quiros (Sp)
68 Brett Rumford (Aus), Tyrrell Hatton, David Horsey, Adrian Otaegui (Sp)
69 Richard Bland, Richie Ramsay, Mikko Ilonen (Fin), Ashun Wu (Chn), Raphael Jacquelin (Fra), Simon Khan, Peter Uihlein (USA), Ian Poulter, Wade Ormsby (Aus), Julien Quesne (Fra), Michael Hoey
70 Robert Jan Derksen (Ned), Francesco Molinari (Ita), Tian Yuan (Chn), Emiliano Grillo (Arg), Tommy Fleetwood, Niclas Fasth (Swe), Eddie Pepperell, Dae-Sub Kim (Kor), Rafael Cabrera Bello (Spa), Gregory Havret (Fra), Craig Lee, Hennie Otto (Rsa), Stuart Manley, Wen-Chong Liang (Chn), David Drysdale, Romain Wattel (Fra), Richard Green (Aus)
71 Marco Crespi (Ita), Tian lang Guan (Chn), Jorge Campillo (Spa), Ricardo Santos (Por), Scott Strange (Aus), Ji-Man Kang (Kor), Scott Jamieson, Pablo Larrazabal (Spa), Graeme Storm, Felipe Aguilar (Chi), Andrew Sullivan, Gaganjeet Bhullar (Ind), Gregory Bourdy (Fra), Henrik Stenson (Swe), Christopher Doak, Edoardo Molinari (Ita), Matthew Griffin (Aus)
72 Soren Kjeldsen (Den), Soren Hansen (Den), Tom Lewis, Lee Slattery, Masanori Kobayashi (Jpn), Ding-gen Chen (Chn), Anthony Wall, Jose-Filipe Lima (Por), Prom Meesawat (Tha), Zheng Ou-yang (Chn), Shane Lowry , Victor Riu (Fra)
73 Damien McGrane , Anders Hansen (Den), Maximilian Kieffer (Ger), Danny Willett, Morten Orum Madsen (Den), Oliver Fisher, Joachim B Hansen (Den), Eduardo De La Riva (Spa), Masahiro Kawamura (Jpn), Kang-Chun Wu (Chn), Chris Wood, Peter Whiteford, Jason Dufner (USA), Shiv Kapur (Ind), Terry Pilkadaris (Aus), Jin Jeong (Kor), Hao-tong null Li (Chn)
74 Aaron Townsend (Aus), Ross Fisher, Garth Mulroy (Rsa), Kristoffer Broberg (Swe), Nick Cullen (Aus), Johan Edfors (Swe), Seve Benson, Daxing Jin (Chn), David McKenzie (Aus), Marc Warren, Jbe Kruger (Rsa), Zihan She (Chn), Bio Kim (Kor)
75 Matthew Nixon, David Howell, Cheng Jin (Chn), Mark Brown (Nzl), Chung-ho Mou (Chn), Xinyang Li (Chn), Ming Jie Huang (Chn), Dan Woltman (USA), Zhi-peng Fan (Chn)
76 Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind), Yi Cao (Chn), Xu Wang (Chn), Jin Zhang (Chn), Yan-wei Liu (Chn), Matthew Baldwin, Do-hoon Kim (Kor), Mu Hu (Chn), Sung-hoon Kang (Kor), Stephen Dodd, Jun seok Lee (Kor). Alejandro Canizares (Spa), Justin Walters (Rsa), Dong Su (Chn), Wen-yi Huang (Chn)
77 Sihwan Kim (Nor), Xin-jun Zhang (Chn), Zhi Xie (Chn), Gareth Maybin, Nicolas Colsaerts (Bel), Lian-Wei Zhang (Chn), Johan Carlsson (Swe), Ricardo Gonzalez (Arg), Ze cheng Dou (Chn), Andrea Pavan (Ita), James Stewart
78 John Parry, Zi-hao Chen (Afg), Peter Lawrie , Jason Norris (Aus), Jamie McLeary, Robert Rock, Ming-hao Wang (Chn), Mark Foster
79 Gareth Paddison (Nzl), Guang-ming Yang (Chn), Ze-yu He (Chn), Magnus A Carlsson (Swe), Rhein Gibson (Aus), Ren Han (Chn)
80 Roope Kakko (Fin), Shao-cai He (Chn), Guo-wu Zhou (Chn), Daan Huizing (Ned), Peter Hedblom (Swe), Thomas Levet (Fra)
81 Chuan-bing Feng (Chn)
82 Daniel Popovic (Aus)
90 Sam Yi (USA)
