Faldo confident ahead of singles

Europe trailed by three points after the opening day but won Saturday's foursomes by 2 1/2 to 1 1/2 and shared the fourballs 2-2 to trail 9-7 going into Sunday's 12 singles matches.

"It was an unbelievable day," said the six-time major winner and record Ryder Cup points scorer. "It was America's day on Friday, this was ours."

"We hung in there and that was the goal, to chip at that lead," Faldo added. "There were moments it could have gone either way but the team is really upbeat. We know and believe we have a great opportunity."

Ian Poulter was the star of the show with a foursomes victory with Justin Rose and fourballs success with Graeme McDowell taking his personal points tally to three, fully vindicating Faldo's controversial decision to choose him as a wild card.

"I just told him 'I'm so proud of you'," he added.

Poulter will be out in the 10th singles match against Steve Stricker with Lee Westwood out 11th and Padraig Harrington in the final match.

US captain Paul Azinger put three of his best performers out first with Anthony Kim first followed by Hunter Mahan and Justin Leonard, and said: "There was a little bit of discussion about it, I had this in my mind of how I wanted to do it and got a little bit of confirmation.

"I think it's three guys who are very aggressive, the kind I want to go first. Everything is so far so good but there's a lot up for grabs. We are not there yet.

"I'm just really happy we are in this position but if you look at their team they are probably favourites on Sunday. But if someone said we were going to be two points ahead I would have said that would be great. We know we have our work cut out."

Well the US needs 5.5 points. Where do you see the best opportunities?

Here are the pairings for Sunday:

1. Perry v. Stenson
2. Weekley v. Wilson
3. Holmes v. Hansen
4. Furyk v. Jimenez
5. Leonard v. Karlsson
6. Stricker v. Poulter
7. Curtis v. Westwood
8. Campbell v. Harrington
9. Mahan v. Casey
10. Kim v. Garcia
11. Mickelson v. Rose
12. Cink v. McDowell

I’d say that we really have our hands full with those pairings, but I like your selections. I was disappointed with Kim yesterday — as soon as I turned on the tournament, he and Mick started to fall apart and never recovered. But he’s rested so let’s hope he gets us off to a good start. I would have liked to see Weekly paired with Westwood — that could have gotten into fistfights. But hopefully the newcomers will bring some juice. I also like Curtis to come through big-time.

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