CASARES, Spain, May 20 (UPI) -- Lee Westwood defeated Aaron Baddeley and Luke Donald fought off Ross Fisher Friday to reach the knockout phase of the Volvo World Match Play Championship.
Westwood and Donald, ranked first and second in the world, were two of the 16 players who survived round-robin group matches over the first two days of the event. The original 24 players were divided into eight three-man groups and the top two in each group survived to compete on Saturday.
Westwood breezed past Aaron Baddeley 4-and-3 to win his group and Donald captured his group with a 3-and-1 decision over Fisher. Both Baddeley and Fisher, however, stayed alive by finishing second in their groups.
The highest-ranked player to be eliminated Friday was Paul Casey, No. 9 in the world. He lost to Soren Kjeldsen Friday after falling Thursday to Alvaro Quiros.
Westwood will meet Ian Poulter and Donald will take on Johan Edfors in the round of 16 Saturday.
The day's feature match will send Graeme McDowell against Rory McIlroy. McDowell recently let a fourth-round lead get away at the Players Championship and McIlroy did the same thing a month earlier at the Masters.
The other matches Saturday will include Quiros vs. Seung-yul Noh, Kjeldsen vs. Martin Kaymer, Fisher vs. Masters champion Charl Schwartzel, Jhonattan Vegas vs. Nicolas Colsaerts and Baddeley vs. Francesco Molinari.
