Ben Eccles was within touching distance of the quarter finals at the Challenge Tour’s innovative MatchPlay 9 in Spain but fell at the third extra hole of his second round match against Oliver Lindell.

The tournament featured 36 holes of strokeplay to cut the field to the top-32 before moving to a series of nine hole matches.

Eccles was one of three Australians to survive the qualifying, Jordan Zunic and Ryan McCarthy also advancing to the round of 32.

But only Eccles progressed to the second round of head to head competition, Zunic falling to Oliver Lindell 2&1 while McCarthy lost to England’s Tom Murray 1 down.

Eccles beat Chile’s Mark Tullo 1up in the opening round before an enthralling tussle with Lindell in his second match of the day.

One down standing on the ninth tee, Eccles made a brilliant birdie to square the match and it took another three holes before Lindell finally prevailed.

Scott Arnold and Daniel Gaunt also teed off in the event but failed to advance to matchplay.