On his win in India, he said: 'Winning last week was very good. It was my fifth in a row in India. The field was strong and playing against Jyoti was good as he hasn't lost for

the last three years in India. It was good for me.'

Jyoti, who plans to skip the Indian Open to try and secure his European card said: 'It's not a bad round considering the way I started with a bogey, par and double bogey. I came back nicely and salvaged the round. It's a tough course and it's hard to hit the fairways as they are so narrow. You can easily drop a bogey on the course here. This is the first time I'm back to Japan since 2005. It's good to be back as I'm the only Indian to win here but the courses seem to be narrower these days, or maybe my driving is not straight anymore ! I'll try to have a better day tomorrow.'

Lam said he was glad to be on course. 'I'm just very happy that I got to tee off today and it's an even bigger bonus that I played good,' said a delighted Lam, whose score was matched by Japan's unheralded Tetsuya Haraguchi.

All eyes were on teen phenom Ryo Ishikawa of Japan but he struggled home with a 73. It took another 18-year-old to hog some of the limelight as Korea's Noh Seung-yul, last year's Asian Tour rookie of the year, fired a solid 67 for tied third place with Tomohiro Kondo, Yuji Igarashi and Katsumasa Miyamoto at the $1.5 million event sanctioned by the Asian Tour and Japan Golf Tour.