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40/141.00 Antoine Rozner can thrive from his afternoon start
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66/167.00 Alex Fitzpatrick is enjoying a superb summer
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80/181.00 Masahiro Kawamura is suited to the course
Weather forecast for Thursday
It's a cloudy and very chilly morning with the sun slowly starting to emerge as it goes on. Temperatures max out at around 60 degrees between 1pm and 5pm. Winds are very light throughout the day. Overall, it seems better to have an afternoon start
Back Antoine Rozner @ 40/141.00
Antoine Rozner has played plenty of strong golf in recent times, with only poor finishes stopping him cashing some very healthy cheques.
But a Sunday slide down the leaderboard certainly wasn't the case here on debut in 2021 when the Frenchman fired a superb closing 62 to finished tied 13th.
Last year he showed his liking for this quirky, twisting mountain track to an even greater extent when shooting laps of 64 and 65 on the way to a third-place finish.
A first-round leader at the Korea Championship earlier this year, he was fourth after 18 holes in last month's Open Championship at Hoylake.
From his 2pm tee-start, Rozner can get off to another fast start on a course where the same names crop up on the leaderboard year after year.
Back Alex Fitzpatrick @ 66/167.00
It's been a breakthrough summer for Alex Fitzpatrick, who is now getting recognition for his own exploits rather than just being the brother of 2022 US Open champion Matt.
Alex finished 17th in the Open Championship at Hoylake, won on the Challenge Tour a couple of weeks later and, most recently, was runner-up in the ISPS Handa World Invitational and 14th in last week's Czech Masters.
He's made plenty of fast starts on various Tours and in the last two months was sixth after day one of the Italian Challenge Open and third after 18 holes of the ISPS Handa a fortnight ago thanks to a 66.
This is his first start in the event which could be viewed as a negative.
But the last three winners at Crans were making their debuts and Alex can always pick up some tips from brother Matt, who is a two-time winner here.
He tees off at 2pm from the 10th so avoids the cold morning start.
Back Masahiro Kawamura @ 80/181.00
We haven't seen Masahiro Kawamura for over a month since he played back-to-back events on American soil.
In the first of those, the Japanese golfer was ninth in the Barbasol Championship, his first top 10 since finishing runner-up at the Kenya Open.
That performance in Kenya is significant as it shows an ability to play well at altitude and results from that tournament and this one correlate strongly.
He's helped that link having finished ninth last year and 21st in 2021.
Kawamura shot a pair of 65s in the middle two rounds 12 months ago and in his time here he's started out with a 67 and three 68s.
At a venue that suits, back the 30-year-old to thrive from his 1pm tee time.