SHANE LOWRY AND Seamus Power finished the day empty-handed as Continental Europe took a two-point lead into the final day of the Hero Cup.
Francesco Molinari’s men were a point ahead of Great Britain and Ireland overnight and held on to that slender advantage when the teams took 2.5 points each from the five foursomes matches on Saturday morning.
The afternoon session then finished 3-2 to Continental Europe to give them an 8.5-6.5 cushion ahead of the Sunday singles at Abu Dhabi Golf Club.
Lowry and Power teamed up for the morning’s foursome session but went down 3&2 to Victor Perez and Guido Migliozzi.
The afternoon pairings saw Lowry tee up alongside Tyrrell Hatton, losing 1 up to Sepp Straka and Thomas Detry, while Power and Robert McIntyre were beaten 2&1 by Perez and Migliozzi.
Lowry will hope to lead the GB&I revival in Sunday’s singles when he takes on Molinari in the day’s opening match (6.35am), while Power will face Nicolai Hojgaard (7.05am).
“A couple of matches could have gone either way,” GB&I captain Tommy Fleetwood said.
“We ended the day two points behind, but two points behind is fine and we have a full singles session to go. We can reflect on today and we’ll all sit in the team room and we’ll be talking about our rounds and everything, but overall we go out and get a fast start tomorrow, we’re straight back in the game.”
Molinari is determined not to let that happen. He said: “Well, we need to win tomorrow’s session. We’ve done a great job winning two sessions out of three, and halving the other one. So we need to go out and win the session.
“Two points is nothing. We have been in situations where much bigger margins were eroded. But I’ve got full trust and confidence in all the other nine guys, so I’m looking forward to the challenge of tomorrow.”
Hero Cup – Sunday singles matches
- 6.35am: Shane Lowry v Francesco Molinari
- 6.45am: Tommy Fleetwood v Thomas Pieters
- 6.55am: Tyrrell Hatton v Antoine Rozner
- 7.05am: Seamus Power v Nicolai Hojgaard
- 7.15am: Matt Wallace v Thomas Detry
- 7.25am: Callum Shinkwin v Adrian Meronk
- 7.35am: Jordan Smith v Victor Perez
- 7.45am: Ewen Ferguson v Sepp Straka
- 7.55am: Robert MacIntyre v Alex Noren
- 8.05am: Richard Mansell v Guido Migliozzi
