Rain washes Jeev's hopes, finishes tied 26th, Randhawa tied 47th

Milan, May 7 (UNI) Jeev Milkha Singh failed to cash in on a brilliant second round performance and carded a level-par 72 in the rain-shortened third and final round to nosedive 17 places and finish tied 26th while countrymate Jyoti Randhawa languished at tied 47th in the Telecom Italia Open here.

After torrential rain resulted in a waterlogged course, tournament organisers restricted the event to 54 holes.

Yesterday, Jeev shot right back into contention with a seven-under 65 in the second round which catapulted him to tied seventh, but spurned a top-three finish chance today by dropping three bogeys against an equal number of birides.

The first Indian to debut and make the cut at Masters, Jeev shared the 26th spot with three others with an overall card of ten-under 206.

Meanwhile, the other Indian in the fray, Jyoti Randhawa, could not mount a serious challenge, inspite of carding a decent three-under 69 to aggregate seven-under 209 after three rounds at the European Tour event.

Randhawa reeled off six birdies, including on the first and the 18th holes, but a 15th hole bogey and a double bogey on the eighth hole, left him languishing at the bottom of the chart with eight others.

Spain's Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano ran away with the title with a five-foot birdie putt at the second extra hole ahead of Austrian Markus Brier.

The sudden death play-off was applied on the 18th hole, with both players tying the first play-off hole in par four. Gonzalo won on the second with a birdie three to Brier's par.

The Spaniard's birdie at the second extra hole earned him his third European Tour title after the pair had finished a stroke ahead of the field on 16 under par 200 in the third and final round.

On Friday, the second round was suspended after torrential rain lashed the clubhouse.

UNI