Dylan Frittelli started the day in a three-way tie for the lead and signed for a 69, matching the lowest round of the day, to take the outright lead at 12-under at the Bahrain Championship presented by Bapco Energies.
"I'm happy, it was another tough day in the wind and I seemed to handle it pretty well," said Frittelli. "It's a pity about the two bogeys I made out there but I fought really hard today.
"I was struggling the first seven or eight holes to make a putt but then finally got one to go on eight, then nine was an easy birdie and ten was a pretty easy putt as well.
"It was not easy, it probably looked easy on TV but there was a lot of shots crosswind and downwind and I had to trust my numbers and my shot shape and I seemed to execute pretty well today.
"One shot clear I'll try and make it two and if I'm two shots clear I'll try and make it three, that's the goal and my mindset tomorrow."
"The main thing is just to be aggressive, it's easy to get conservative when the wind is blowing and lay up and hit some soft shots but I'm just going to try and make as many birdies as I can tomorrow.
Fellow South African Ockie Strydom also shot a 69 to move into second place at 10-under.
Sweden's Jesper Svensson who held a share of the overnight lead made two birdies and two bogeys for a 72 and lies in third place at 9-under.
Joel Girrbach of Switzerland carded a 74 and slipped down from the shared lead into a share of fourth place at 7-under alongside England's Sam Bairstow (70), Scotland's Scott Jamieson (71), France's Frederic Lacroix (69), Spain's Sebastian Garcia (70), Denmark's Niklas Nørgaard (71) and South Africa's Zander Lombard (71).
