FUBINE (Italy), Jun 1: Tvesa Malik, who is still seeking her first top-10 finish of the year on the Ladies European Tour, will lead the Indian contingent at the 26th edition of the Ladies Italian Open at the Margara Golf Club here.
The field of 126 players, include five Indians and has players from 28 countries.
Tvesa recorded a best finish of T-26 at the Aramco Series-Bangkok individual event and last week she was T-45 at Jabra Ladies Open.
In 2021, Tvesa had a series of top-10 and top-15 finishes and also came close to winning her maiden title by finishing second in Belgium.
She finished 19th in the Order of Merit.
The other Indians in the field, include Vani Kapoor, who has played in South Africa, Australia, Thailand and Europe this week, Amandeep Drall, Ridhima Dilawari and Neha Tripathi.
Last year’s tournament was played behind closed doors due to COVID-19 pandemic and the winner was the French golfer Lucie Malchirand.
Malchirand will be joined by strong names, including Lee-Anne Pace and Caroline Hedwall.
Malchirand will try to become the first player since Laura Davies (1987-1988) to win back-to-back titles here.
Six of the current 10 best players on the Race to Costa del Sol will also be in the field — Johanna Gustavsson from Sweden (ranked second), Tiia Koivisto from Finland (ranked fifth, who won last week’s Jabra Ladies Open), South Africa’s Lee-Anne Pace (sixth), England’s Meghan MacLaren (eighth), Spain’s Ana Pelaez (ninth and who recently won the Comunidad de Madrid Ladies Open) and Scotland’s Michele Thomson (10th).
They will be joined by Spain’s Carmen Alonso and Nuria Iturrioz, England’s Alice Hewson, Gabriella Cowley, Annabel Dimmock and Lily May Humphreys and Finland’s Ursula Wikstrom (runner up in 2021), as well as Sweden’s Caroline Hedwall and Linnea Strom. (PTI)
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