By Alistair Bruce-Ball, BBC 5 Live Radio
In fact it was a slightly more relaxing day for the top five seeds than they may have expected – Lee Westwood, Luke Donald, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlory had all qualified before they’d even hit a ball, but it was left to Miguel Ángel Jiménez, Charl Schwartzel and Johan Edfors to go through the drama of the shootout.
Edfors beat Jiménez 2 & 1 in the morning, Schwartzel then beat Edfors 5 & 4 so that brought them all to the 10th tee…Jiménez unable to get up-and-down from the bunker to go out, much to the disappointment of his loyal home support.
So with Jiménez gone, Spain is now pinning its hopes on the big-hitting, big-grinning Álvaro Quirós and he made it two wins out of two with a thumping 5 & 4 victory over Søren Kjeldsen, chipping in for an eagle 2 at the 14th to complete the job in style.
That meant Kjeldsen’s match against Paul Casey in the afternoon became winner-takes-all and it went to the very last green, the Dane holding his nerve to halve it with a birdie 4 and win by 1 hole.
Defending champion Ross Fisher booked his place in the last 16 in dramatic style, winning the last four holes of his morning match against Ryan Moore to come back from three down with four to play to win by 1 hole. Fisher then ran into the match play maestro Luke Donald in the afternoon, the world number two winning 3 & 1 to top the group.
World number one Lee Westwood looks in ominously good form, he rattled in eight birdies to beat Aaron Baddeley 4 & 3 which sets up a tasty last 16 tie against fellow Englishman Ian Poulter – Poulter having halved both his matches so far against Francesco Molinari and Paul Lawrie. Molinari went on to beat Lawrie in the afternoon to win the group.
We’ve got another great battle to look forward to in the last 16 as great pals Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy go head-to-head. McDowell recorded his second win of the week beating Jhonattan Vegas by 1 hole, McIlroy lost 3 & 2 to Nicolas Colsaerts, the Belgian enjoying a stellar World Match Play debut after beating Retief Goosen in the
morning.
And world number three Martin Kaymer also made it 2 wins out of 2 – he beat Noh Seung-yul 2 &1 in the afternoon, but Noh is through after his morning victory against fellow Korean Y.E. Yang.
