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| Veronica at the site of her maiden victory |
Playing in her sixth season with the LET and also in her rookie year on the LPGA Tour in America with conditional playing privileges, Zorzi returns to France this week to retain her crown and fight off the challenge of some of Europe’s finest players including Laura Davies and Gwladys Nocera.
England’s Davies took second place at last week’s Deutsche Bank Ladies’ Swiss Open where she showed signs of a return to top form and will be among the favourites to go one better this week in her quest to earn Solheim Cup points.
Nocera, the Deutsche Bank Ladies’ Swiss Open Champion, is a real threat to the field following her maiden victory last week, where she beat Davies by three shots to the title.
Currently first in both the LET’s Official New Star Money List and 2007 Solheim Cup rankings, Nocera has had an exceptional start to her 2006 campaign with three top ten finishes in her four starts so far this season.
Given that she is playing on home soil this week, the 2005 Solheim Cup player is full of confidence and she has jumped up eight places in the Rolex World Rankings to 71st position following her victory. Previously the 31-year-old from Biarritz had been a runner-up on the LET on four occasions with seven top ten finishes last season and was considered one of the best players not to have won a tournament.
This week in her home country and having finally broken her title duck, she is joined by a strong French contingent with the 2004 French Open champion and two-time LET winner Stephanie Arricau making an appearance along with two of last year’s winners: Virginie Lagoutte and Solheim Cup player Ludivine Kreutz.
Kreutz has won three times on the LET, with two wins in Europe last year. Added to that, there is the challenge of New Zealander Lynnette Brooky, who won back-to-back French Open titles in 2002 and 2003 at Le Golf d’Arras and collected her fourth LET victory just two weeks ago in the Ladies Spanish Open. With her love of the course and her track record, like Zorzi, Brooky declared that she has come with the aim to win.
