WENTWORTH (England) Oct 17: Ireland’s Padraig Harrington set up a second-round clash with Sergio Garcia in the World Match Play Championship on Thursday, beating Canada’s Mike Weir 4 & 3 in the second match out.

Moments later, 1999 winner Colin Montgomerie triumphed 3 & 2 over American Fred Funk to earn a clash with three-times champion Ernie Els in Friday’s second stage before Fiji’s Vijay Singh triumphed over English debutant Justin Rose by a hole.

In the remaining first-round match, New Zealand’s Michael Campbell, bidding to become the fourth seeded player to win on day one, was all square with twice champion Nick Faldo after two rounds and had gone into extra holes for a sudden-death finish.

Irish Ryder Cup player Harrington, who lost 2 & 1 to Ian Woosnam in last year’s final, had been all square with Weir after a scrappy first 18 holes but did enough in the afternoon to win his seventh World Match Play game in 10 starts.

First round results (prefix number denotes seeding, Britain unless stated): 8-Michael Campbell (New Zealand) v Nick Faldo - all square after 6 extra holes. To be continued Friday.

5-Padraig Harrington (Ireland) beat Mike Weir (Canada) 4 & 3

6-Vijay Singh (Fiji) beat Justin Rose 1 hole

7-Colin Montgomerie beat Fred Funk (U.S.) 3 & 2—Reuters