Four months spent inside the Challenge Tour’s top 15 in the Road to Ras Al Khaimah will count for nothing unless Dimitrios Papadatos can finish the season in style at the Ras Al Khamiah Challenge Tour Grand Final in the UAE.

Papadatos is the only Australian in the 45-man field where the top 15 in the rankings at the end of the week will each earn a European Tour card for 2019.

The New South Welshman entered the top 15 following his win in the Portugal Open in May and six further top-20 finishes put him in good position to make the step up to the main tour next year.

But as the countdown to the Grand Final intensified Papadatos struggled, failing to finish inside the top 35 in each of his past four starts to fall to 19th heading into the season finale.

By concentrating on the Challenge Tour in 2018 Papadatos has turned down a number of starts on the European Tour but must now finish inside the top five this week to make up the almost 10,000 points he currently trails the 15th-placed player, England’s Tom Murray.

As the Challenge Tour reaches its conclusion the European Tour embarks on its finals series leading up to the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, starting this week at the Turkish Airlines Open.

Australians Lucas Herbert, Wade Ormsby, Scott Hend and Jason Scrivener have all qualified for the first of the finals events while Kiwi Ryan Fox will be hoping to continue his outstanding record in Rolex Series events.

The Turkish Airlines Open is the 14th Rolex Series tournament to be played since the inception of the premium category of events on the Race to Dubai in 2017 and no player has recorded more top-10 finishes than Fox.

Playing against the strongest fields that the European Tour can assemble has brought the best out in Fox in the past, finishing inside the top 10 on six separate occasions including three in 2018.

Starting the finals series 17th in the Race to Dubai rankings, the 31-year-old is coming off a tie for 30th at last week’s HSBC Champions World Golf Championships event in China and was tied for 48th at the Regnum Carya Golf and Spa Resort in Turkey 12 months ago.

With the top 72 players only on the Race to Dubai standings advancing to the second event of the finals series, the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa, both Scrivener and Hend must make a major move at the Turkish Airlines Open.

Scrivener starts the week 86th in the Race to Dubai and Hend 91st so both have some work to do if they are to advance to the penultimate event of the year.