Svensson takes narrow lead into Sunday in France

Jesper Svensson gave himself a one-shot lead to take into the final round of the 2024 FedEx Open de France.

A 67 on Saturday took the Swede to 13 under par, narrowly ahead of Thorbjørn Olesen and Sam Bairstow who will join him in Sunday's final group at Le Golf National.

Bairstow's fellow Englishmen Dan Bradbury and Joe Dean were a further shot back.

Svensson shared the lead after each of the first two days and was quickly out of the blocks on Saturday with birdies at the first, third, fourth and sixth.

After six pars in a row, he picked up another shot at the 13th as his approach from the rough only just cleared the water and he drained the 10-foot putt.

Bradbury also birdied that hole after hitting his approach inside two feet, a third in succession after going within three inches of a hole-out eagle at the 12th.

The Englishman bogeyed the 15th after finding the water, though, to leave himself two off the lead.

Svensson bogeyed the 17th but after hitting 16 of the 18 greens in regulation, he said: "I hit the ball really well all day, a lot of good looks, hit a lot of good putts - it was a good day.

"A lot of putts slid past, hopefully they'll drop tomorrow."

Gunner Wiebe joined the group at 10 under with a fine 65. He hit three birdies on his way out and, after giving one back at the ninth, picked up four more on the back half.

Sharing sixth place with him were Simon Forsström, Matthew Jordan, Yannik Paul and Francesco Laporta.

Wiebe's fellow American Johannes Veerman raced up the leaderboard with a 63, matching the best round of the week, to climb to nine under for the week and a share of 12th place with Rasmus Højgaard, Fabrizio Zanotti and Gavin Green, whose slam-dunk eagle at the 14th was one of the highlights of the day.

Sixteen-year-old Lev Grinberg, the only amateur to make the cut, had a third round of par or better to sit at six under despite a seven at the 15th, where he hit two balls into the water.