IS MOLAS (Sardinia), Nov 2: French rookie Gregory Havret underlined his exciting potential by leading a European Tour event for the first time when he moved a stroke ahead of the Italian Open second round field on Friday.

The 24-year-old had to return to the course to finish off a first round seven-under-par 65 following Thursday’s early finish because of bad light, and turned straight round to add a 66.

Both scores bettered his career-best 68 as a pro and took the former French Amateur Champion to 13-under-par 131, a stroke better than early front-runner Mark Roe of Britain, and three shots ahead of Germany’s Sven Struver.

Havret has run up 14 birdies and dropped only one shot for his best start on tour and he put his flourish down to an early-morning save.

Leading second round scores

131 Gregory Havret (France) 65 66

132 Mark Roe 63 69, Jan Van de Velde (France) 67 65

134 Sven Struver (Sweden) 66 68

135 Bradley Dredge 69 66, Steve Webster 68 67, Christian Cevaer (France) 69 66, Silvio Grappasonni (Italy) 70 65

136 Johan Rystrom (Sweden) 66 70, Roger Chapman 67 69, Markus Brier (Austria) 70 66, Diego Borrego (Spain) 70 66, Michele Reale (Italy) 63 73, Ian Poulter 67 69, Eduardo Romero (Argentina) 66 70, Raymond Russell 66 70

137 Trevor Immelman (South Africa) 70 67, Ronan Rafferty 68 69, Henrik Stenson (Sweden) 67 70, David Howell 71 66, Anthony Wall 66 71, Fredrik Andersson (Sweden) 65 72, Gianluca Pietrobono (Italy) 67 70, Shaun P Webster 70 67, Peter Hanson (Sweden) 71 66.—Reuters