Vani and Diksha are third in the Ladies European Tour in the Netherlands

Indian duo Diksha Dagar and Vaani Kapoor finished tied-third midway through the Big Green Egg Open golf tournament.

Deeksha, who finished third after a first-round 70, added 71 runs, while Vani, who opened with 71 runs, scored 70 runs in the second round. They are now five-under and three shots behind leader Whitney Hillier.

Hillier shot his second consecutive round of four-under 68 and is now eight under at the halfway mark. The 31-year-old Hillier is chased atop the leader board by Sarah Schober (67-70).

Among other Indians, Amandeep Dral (73-72) at T-30, Ridhima Dilawari (74-76) at T-45 also made the cut. Neha Tripathi (79-76) missed the cut.

In the second round, Kapoor recorded 15 consecutive pars after starting on the tenth tee, before finding two birdies in her final three holes to move up the leader board.

“I played really hard, I hit the fairways and the greens, but I didn’t give myself enough chances — I wasn’t hitting it that close — but sometimes I expected the putt to drop, and they did on the 7th and 8th. That was good,” she said.

“It’s a very tough course and you have to put your ball and be very careful, so my plan is – fairway, green, fairway, green – and the putts go down.

“I’m a very accurate player and don’t miss a lot of fairways, so I guess that helps me here. It’s one of the tougher courses we’ve played that suits me. For the second day’s run, Dagger was flying off the blocks with early birdies on the eleventh and twelfth and a shot on the par-five 15th. It kept its name at the top before dropping out.

A birdie on the 17th immediately got her back on track, only for a dropped shot on the ninth – her final hole of the day – to see her sit three shots off the lead with the weekend still to come.

“The difference today was that my putts didn’t go in, and I had problems with my club selection and some of my shots were short,” Dagger said.

“I started really well and made some long putts, but later in my round I made some silly mistakes. I had some trouble on the first par-five on the back nine and had some bad breaks on my last two holes.

“I hit a nice bunker shot on the ninth that lipped, then the putt was breaking the opposite way. Some of the greens were tricky today.

“It’s great for me and Vani to be close to the top, I’m always happy to see Indians doing well, her being five under, that’s good golf.” Enthusiasts Alexandra Forsterling and Meka Hoogboom share fifth place with Nuria Iturioz as Saturday approaches, with the trio eyeing a tough day to score in the Netherlands.