Almost two years ago to the day, Christian Cevaer won his maiden European Tour title in the 2004 Canarias Open de Espana. In the 24 months which followed, French golf enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance with six European Tour titles being won by French golfers and Cevaer gave notice he was keen to join the winners' circle again after moving into the lead after the first round of the Volvo China Open yesterday in Beijing.

The 36-year-old carded a flawless six-under-par 66 around the testing Honghua International Golf Club in Beijing to grab a one shot advantage over six playersthe English trio of Simon Dyson, Ross Fisher and Simon Wakefield, Portugal's Jos-Filipe Lima, Spain's Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano and Peter Hanson of Sweden the magnificent seven at the head of affairs confirming The European Tour's dominance of the opening day in the co-sanctioned event with the Asian Tour.

Cevaer put his prominence down to some solid ball striking allied to some excellent bunker play which saw him get up and down from sand on four occasions to save par, as well as holing out from a greenside bunker for his first birdie of the day at the third hole.

After that, his five birdies were more routine but all featured short putts ranging in distance from two to six feet as his precision iron play peppered the pins on the Nick Faldo designed course.

Cevaer's performance will give the former French amateur champion the bragging rights at dinner with his seven compatriots this evening and he admitted it was such camaraderie and joie de vivre which had helped him and his fellow countrymen become a force in the realms of The European Tour.

"There is a good atmosphere within the group," he said."There was eight of us at dinner the other night and for the past two or three seasons that has been the case. I guess I am proud of having got it going with my Spanish win in 2004 and then in that year we had three more winners.

"Last year, Thomas (Levet) and Raphael (Jacquelin) did very well and obviously Jean Francois' (Remesy) feat of winning the French Open again was superb. We try and emulate one another and we know we can now be a factor on the Tour."

Of the quintet in a tie for second place, the most delighted was the Wentworth Club-attached Ross Fisher for two good reasons. Firstly, another good performance will all but guarantee his card for the 2007 season - a fantastic performance by the rookie before the end of April but also will give him a chance to put right the wrongs of his appearance in the last Volvo China Open, in Shenzhen last November.

Then, the 25-year-old led going into the final round but, although he played well on his European Tour debut, he could not make the putts drop at the right time on the back nine, allowing Paul Casey to come through and beat his good friend Oliver Wilson in a play-off.

But an opening round, which featured six birdies and only one dropped shot, gave notice that he might be able to handle a final round occasion should the opportunity present itself again in three days time.

While seven European Tour players held sway at the top of the leaderboard, two of their colleagues who were fancied to be there with them had indifferent days, defending champion Casey recovering late in his round to post a one under par 71, while the leading World Ranked player in the field No 13 Henrik Stenson had to settle for a disjointed one over par 73.

Casey, who was one over par with five to play before rescuing matters slightly with back to back birdies at the 14th and 15th, said; "I struggled out there today. I thought it was very nice this morning and scoring conditions were perfect but I didn't take advantage of those."

China's Liang Wenchong failed to advance with seven-over 79 yesterday.

(China Daily April 14, 2006)