The stroke play qualifying rounds are complete across the continent at this year's European Team Championships. It is now known which teams have qualified for Flight A and will compete for medals over the next three days.
The format now switches to match play: all teams finishing inside the top-eight are seeded and will go head to head. Two foursomes matches in the morning and five singles matches in the afternoon on Thursday will decide who progresses to the semi-finals. Teams in medal-contention matches will need four points to secure victory for their nations.
Teams finishing outside the top-eight will compete under the same format for final position, although with just one foursomes and four singles matches deciding a winner for each encounter.
European Amateur Team Championship
After finishing runner-up in both The Amateur and European Amateur Championships in the last three weeks, Euan Walker secured a first-placed finish at Ljunghusens Golf Club on Wednesday. The Scottish player added a 65 (-7) to his first round score of 67 (-5) to finish as the top individual scorer from the stroke play rounds on -12.
"I was really exceptional tee to green today which was critical" said Walker. "It was so windy the strike needed to be really good to minimise the effect of the wind." Walker's scoring helped the Scottish team to third place in the team ranking on -10 and set up a quarter-final match with 2017 champions, Spain.
Ireland were the top qualifiers with a score of -19. Conor Purcell led the team with rounds of 67 (-5) and 68 (-4) to finish second in the individual ranking on -9.
England finished in second place on -16 and will play neighbours, Wales (+12), in their first match.
Hosts, Sweden (-6), qualified for Flight A in fourth position and will face Germany (par), who were the biggest movers on day two, climbing six places to earn the fifth seed.
Spain (+2) and Denmark (+14) are the other two teams that will make up Flight A.
Quarter-final matchups:
Ireland (1) vs Denmark (8)
Sweden (4) vs Germany (5)
Scotland (3) vs Spain (6)
England (2) vs Wales (7)
The final scores and the full lineup of thursday's matches can be found on the event page here
European Ladies' Team Championship
After taking the lead on day one, no one could catch hosts, Italy, in the stroke play qualifying at Is Molas Resort. The Italian team will take the number-one seed into the Flight A match play bracket after finishing with a score of -19.
Defending champions, Sweden, made a charge in the morning, but would ultimately have to settle for second place, four shots behind the leaders on -15. The Swedish team finished second in the stroke play qualifying on their way to the trophy last year.
Germany and Scotland also comfortably qualified for Flight A, finishing with aggregate scores of -4 and -3 respectively.
World number-one amateur, Frida Kinhult, who is attempting to win the event with Sweden for a second conseuctive year, looked like she was going to top the individual leaderboard for a second time. After shooting five-under on her opening nine holes, she could only manage level-par in windy conditions on the back-nine to finish in second place on -8.
Recent Junior Vagliano Trophy winner with the Continent of Europe, Pia Babnik, held on to her lead from day one. The Slovenian player carded a bogey-free round of 70 to be the only player to reach a two-round total of nine-under-par. When asked if winning the Vagliano Trophy gave her confidence for this week she replied: "Yes it did, winning is always fun!. I just played normal today, tried to play hole by hole and it was just going perfect" said Babnik. Despite her low scoring, Slovenia narrowly missed out on a spot in Flight A, qualifying one spot short in ninth position.
Spain (+1), Denmark (+5), England (+6), and Ireland (+9) were the other four teams to make it into Flight A. France were just one shot behind Ireland with only a few holes left to play, but ultimately missed out on the top-eight after finishing on +11.
The quarter-final matchups for Thursday are:
Italy (1) vs Ireland (8)
Scotland (4) vs Spain (5)
Germany (3) vs Denmark (6)
Sweden (2) vs England (7)
The final scores and the full lineup of thursday's matches can be found on the event page here
European Boys' Team Championship, Jean-Louis Dupont Trophy
David Puig topped the individual scoring at the Jean-Louis Dupont Trophy for a second consecutive year. The Spanish player carded a 69 (-2) on day two to reach six-under-par. The Spanish team also featured the second best scorer from the first two rounds: Jose Luis Ballester finished with a total of five-under-par to help earn the defending champions the number-one seed for the match play rounds with an aggregate of -3.
Germany, who led after day one, finished just one shot behind Spain on -2. However, the third placed team, England, finished 14 shots behind Germany on +12. Sweden earned the fourth seed with a total of +15 and will face last year's runners-up, Switzerland (+19) in the quarter-finals.
Ireland (+20), Italy (+21), and hosts, France (+23) were the three last teams to make it into Flight A.
Thursday's quarter final matchups:
Spain (1) vs France (8)
Sweden (4) vs Switzerland (5)
England (3) vs Ireland (6)
Germany (2) vs Italy (7)
The final scores and the full lineup of thursday's matches can be found on the event page here
European Girls' Team Championship
Caterina Don made nine birdies in the space of 12 holes on day two at Parador El Saler to card the lowest score of all 840 rounds completed in the 2019 division one team championship events. The Italian player returned an eight-under-par 64 to help her team top the stroke play qualifying for the second year in a row. Despite Don's 64, scoring was generally high on the Spanish coast with strong winds: A total of +20 was enough for Italy to earn the first seed for the match play rounds.
Germany will be seeded second after finishing with a total of +23. Paula Schulz-Hanssen was the team's best player, and the only player to get close to Don's two-round total of 12-under-par. The round one leader added a two-under-par 70 to her day one 66 (-6) to finish on -9.
Denmark, and hosts, Spain, earned the third and fourth seeds respectively after both returning totals of +28, while England (+30) and the Czech Republic (+37) finished fifth and sixth.
Sweden and the Netherlands were the last two teams to qualify for Thursday's quarter-final matches, finishing with totals of +37 and +40 respectively.
Thursday's quarter final matchups:
Italy (1) vs Netherlands (8)
Spain (4) vs England (5)
Denmark (3) vs Czech Republic (6)
Germany (2) vs Sweden (7)
The final scores and the full lineup of thursday's matches can be found on the event page here
