Miyagi TV Cup Dunlop Ladies Open Saturday: Arimura Tells Ueda, "Not So Fast!"

On a day when only 10 players got into red digits and the vast majority of the field failed even to break 75 at the Miyagi TV Cup Dunlop Ladies Open, Chie Arimura must have been playing a different course than everyone else. She opened with a bogey-free 32 and was well on her way to matching that feat on the back 9 until she bogeyed the par-5 18th to finish with a 65 and settle for a 1-shot lead on 1st-round co-leader Momoko Ueda, whose 69 would otherwise have been the best round of the day. Sakura Yokomine's walkoff bogey dropped her back to -4 for the tournament, 5 off the pace heading into the final round. Young gun Yuki Ichinose is the only other player within shouting distance of Arimura, but she'll need to do a lot better than her 17 pars and 1 birdie today that also put her 5 back as she heads into the final round.

Here's how the top 10 and notables stand at the conclusion of round 2:

1st/-9 Chie Arimura (70-65)
2nd/-8 Momoko Ueda (67-69)
T3/-4 Sakura Yokomine (70-70), Yuki Ichinose (69-71)
5th/-3 Yuko Mitsuka (71-70)
T6/-2 Yayoi Arasaki (70-72), Mayumi Nakajima (70-72), Hiromi Mogi (69-73)
T9/-1 Maria Iida (73-70), Miho Koga (72-71), Bo-Bae Song (72-71), Eun-Hye Lee (72-71), Ji-Hee Lee (71-72)

16th/+1 Midori Yoneyama (72-73)
T17/+2 Ji-Woo Lee (74-72), Maiko Wakabayashi (73-73), Shinobu Moromizato (72-74), Miki Saiki (71-75), Na-Ri Lee (71-75), Mayu Hattoru (71-75), Yun-Jye Wei (67-79)
T26/+3 Esther Lee (75-72), Woo-Soon Ko (74-73), Hyun-Ju Shin (73-74), Ayako Uehara (72-75), Bo-Kyung Kim (72-75)
T35/+4 Rikako Morita (74-74), Tamie Durdin (72-76)
T43/+5 Yukari Baba (74-75), So-Hee Kim (73-76)

T52/+6 Sakurako Mori (76-74), Kumiko Kaneda (75-75), Da-Ye Na (75-75), Erina Hara (72-78)
T69/+8 Akane Iijima (74-78)
T93/+12 Mai Arai (78-78)
WD Rui Kitada (77-WD)

If Mitsuka or Yokomine can make a charge, we might have something other than a shootout between the 2 hottest players in the field tomorrow, but if not it'll be Arimura going for her 4th JLPGA win of the season and Ueda trying to defend her title and going for her 2nd win of '09.