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Portugal Masters: Alexander Levy declared winner after Sunday play abandoned

Image: Alexander Levy: Victorious in Portugal

Alexander Levy captured the Portugal Masters trophy after more rain on Sunday meant the tournament was declared over after 36 holes.

Leader Levy was able to complete just a single hole before the weather intervened again during the final round at Oceånico Victoria Golf Club.

Final leaderboard

(GB & Ire unless stated)

-18 A Levy (Fra)
-15 N Colsaerts (Bel)
-13 F Aguilar (Chi)
-11 R Bland
-11 M O Madsen (Den)
-11 R Wattel (Fra)

Click here for collated scores

In a tournament already reduced to 54 holes by lightning and heavy rain earlier in the week, another deluge left parts of the course unplayable shortly after the final group had teed off at 1pm.

And just after 3pm on Sunday, the European Tour announced the tournament was over, meaning Levy, who had opened with stunning rounds of 63 and 61, was declared the three-shot winner over Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts.

It is the Frenchman's second European Tour win following his victory at the Volvo China Open in April.

"It feels very special," he told Sky Sports 4. "If at the start of the year you say to me, 'You are going to win two tournaments', I (would) say 'never' to you.

"It's a very nice feeling to me, I'm very happy. I work hard on this game and I think I played a good game this week and the week in China."

More from Portugal Masters 2014

Levy was one of the lucky ones who managed to get his second round completed on Friday meaning he did not play at all on Saturday and he admitted it was a strange feeling to have won after playing only two rounds.

"It's special," he added. "Because you are only on 36 holes but after Friday night I knew I would only play 54. But it's a special feeling at this time.

"I don't realise a lot because I was focused to play this last round and try my best to win this tournament."

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Alexander Levy won the Portugal Masters trophy after rain on Sunday meant the tournament was abandoned and the Frenchman said it was a special win.

Levy will now head to Kent to play in the World Matchplay next week before he approaches the Final Series as the Race to Dubai reaches its conclusion and he is hopeful of maintaining his good form.

Impressed myself

"I'm going to try to play like I played the first two rounds," he said. I've impressed myself with the way I've played golf and I think I need to continue like that."

Colsaerts parred the first alongside Levy and finished three shots behind him on on 15 under with Chile's Felipe Aguilar, Dane Morten Orum Madsen and France's Romain Wattel three further shots back.

Only four players managed to complete their final rounds, including victorious Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley, but none of the field were looking like mounting a serious charge on the leaders when play was stopped.

Tournament Director Jose Maria Zamora explained that an errant weather forecast had not helped organisers in their contingency plans but stressed that he felt the right decision had been made.

 "It's very tough, we were confident that we would be able to play this third round today," he said. "The forecast today wasn't that bad so we thought it would be really nice to give a clean third round to the sponsors here in Portugal and have a nice end of the tournament.

"Unfortunately we've been hit by a very heavy downpour, followed by another heavy downpour an hour later which made the golf course go completely underwater."

He added: "There are important facts here which is mainly the sponsors and obviously we have to take into consideration that we have got tournaments far away in Hong Kong - if we delay the guys will not be able to play practice rounds. We have two tournaments next week.

"But the main thing is the tournament here - to try to deliver a result.

"With the forecast we had, we were not expecting these heavy downpours and we had to cut it to 36 holes."

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