Stephanie Kyriacou is two shots off the pace amid a congested leaderboard at the Evian Championship in Evians-les-Bains, France.
Boosted by an eagle two the 23-year-old Sydneysider shot a five-under 66 to be in a six-way tie for ninth.
Patty Tavatanakit (Thailand), Gemma Dryburgh (Scotland) and Ingrid Lindblad (Sweden) each carded bogey-free rounds of 64 on Thursday to share the lead while there are five players on six-under.
They include New Zealand’s Lydia Ko, the 2015 winner.
American world No.1 Nelly Korda shot two-under and is tied for 21st with 16 others, including defending champion Celine Boutier of France and 2022 winner Brooke Henderson of Canada.
Australians Minjee Lee and Grace Kim are one-under and Gabriela Ruffels evens. But Hannah Green is two-over while Sarah Kemp and Hira Naveed need a good second round to survive the cut, being tied for 117th at four-over.
“Today was good,” said Kyriacou. “It was nice to get out early in no wind, the weather was a lot cooler.
“The round was quite boring. I would just hit it and hole a putt – boring is good sometimes.”
That is except for the eagle on the par-four 12th.
“I had a wedge in, it was one bounce and went in,” she said. “I didn’t watch it, which is annoying but everyone cheered, and I was, ‘that helps’.”
Kyriacou finished birdie-bogey-birdie, suggesting like so many rounds, it could have been better, but could have been worse.
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