Coimbatore: Branden Grace (South Africa) and Tariq Mehmood (Pakistan) struck form at the right moment to enter the matchplay second round in the 106th Royal Challenge all India amateur golf championship at the par-72 Coimbatore Golf Club on Wednesday.

Branden, who had found the going tough on the first two days, came good to defeat Delhi's Rudresh Sharma 6&5, while Tariq had a relatively easy outing against the less fancied Mohd. Sathar.

Tariq clinched the tie 4&3 to join Sri Lanka's Mithun Perera, who halted Samresh Sardar 3&1.

Branden's advantage was that he used a driver-lob wedge combination on the par-four first and second holes to nail the ball to within a metre from the pin for birdies. The par-three fourth saw the South African win with a par to go 3-up.

After both the golfers halved the next five holes, Branden birdied the par-5 10th to go 4-up and after levelling the next hole clinched the 12th and 13th with birdies for a place in the second round.

Even as Branden and Tariq worked the whole day through, the top 15 seeds, thanks to a first round bye, sailed into the next round without a sweat.

In one of the upsets of the day, Bangalore's M.R. Raja ousted Pakistan's Adil Jahangir 2&1.

The scores (after round one):

Ajay Sirohi bt Ranana Reddy (10&8); H.S. Kang bt Deepankar Kaushal (6&5); Akshay Butta bt Navtez Singh (5&4); Brandon Grace bt Rudresh Sharma (6&5); Raj Randhwa bt Rustum Yadu (5&3); D. Raja bt Adil Jahangir (2&1); Mithun Perera bt Samresh Sardar (3&1); Tariq Mehmood bt Mohd. Sathar (4&3); Balwinder Mattu bt Arjun Lall (1-up); Saurabh Bahaduri bt Keshav Kapur (3&1).

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