LPGA Tour campaigner Hsu Wei-Ling (徐薇凌) from Taiwan used a low-round 6-under 66 to bounce back from a first-round 76, a share of 19th place, to the top of the leaderboard at the NT$5 million CTBC Ladies Open. She’s now at 2-under-par 142 and will carry a mere one-shot lead into the final-round.

One off Hsu is defending champion and CTBC Bank ambassador Teresa Lu (盧曉晴). Lu turned in a 70 on Friday and improved from 1-over to 1-under at 143. China’s Pan Yanhong (潘艷紅) carded two straight 72s and is now in solo third place.

Taiwan’s Huang Ching (黃靖) and Japan LPGA player Yu Pei-Ling (余珮琳) returned to the clubhouse with Friday 72 and 73 respectively, putting them in a tie for fourth with four shots off the lead.

On another sunny day at the Orient Golf & Country Club but with significantly less wind that had given players nightmares on Day 1, Hsu surged into contention with a brilliant string of seven birdies and made just one bogey in the second round of the China LPGA and TLPGA co-sanctioned event.

Hsu leapt to a bright start with three birdies and a bogey on the front nine and pulled away on the back side with four more birdies. Highlights of her round of 66 include a 24-foot birdie on the sixth and another one on the sixteenth where she hit her 4-hybrid to six feet and successful converted the birdie chance.

“I felt I was too cautious on my swinging motion rather than reading the conditions yesterday. So I kind of changed my mindset and I started to hit better,” said the Taiwanese. ”I’ve actually never won anything in Taiwan, so I hope this will be it.” Hsu missed only one fairway and needed just 27 putts.

Teresa Lu, who is the defending champion and the player with the highest world ranking this week, made five birdies and three bogeys. “It was less gusty today, but there was still some heavy wind that could easily ruin things anytime. A 2-under is pretty good to me,” said Lu. She needed 30 putts.

“I’ll try to keep up my aggressive game. But it really depends on how big the wind will be,” said Lu when asked about her approach in the final round. “I’ll also have to look at how other players do to maybe hold back a little.”

First-round co-leaders Tiffany Chan and 17-year-old amateur Hou Yu-Chiang (侯羽薔) couldn’t work their first-round magic and both fell into a tie for ninth at 148 after 5-over 77s.

Hou’s sister Yu-Sang (侯羽桑) held her ground and produced a 1-under 71 to move up the leaderboard, tying her sister with a share of ninth place.

CLPGA Tour player Pan Yanhong grabbed the outright lead after picking up three strokes through 11, including clinical displays of long putts on the 7th and 11th. However, Pan gave it all back in the closing stretch with three bogeys in a row and dropped to two back. “I felt like I attacked pretty well but I let my concentration slip when I tried to close it out,” said Pan. “But I also made a couple of good saves so it kind of balanced out. Anyway, I hope I can play better tomorrow, take my chances on the par 5s.”

A cut was made leaving 58 players who made it inside the cut line at 10-over 154 still in competition. The winner on Saturday will pocket NT$1,000,000.

The final round will go underway at 9:21 in the morning and the leader group is set off to go at 11:00.