Deyen Lawson’s rookie season on the China Tour has already been a fruitful one, the second year Professional looking to improve on his current fifth place on the Order of Merit with a fifth top 10 of the year this week.

The solid play sees him behind only tournament winners Bryden Macpherson and Josh Geary in terms of Australasians on the money list but with both those players sitting out this week he could well take the mantle.

Lawson only needs to make the cut to overtake Geary whose lead over the Victorian is less than AU$200 but would need a win to overtake Macpherson.

Of the 14 Australasians playing this week Lawson is comfortably ahead of nearest challenger Maverick Antcliff who is ninth on the earnings table almost AU$20,000 behind.

Antcliff and Lawson are joined this week by Austin Batista, Corey Hale, Jichel Jung, Mitchell Brown, Peter Martin, Max McCardle, Chirs Wood, Kevin Yuan, Jack Munro, Daniel Nisbet and New Zealanders Fraser Wilkin and Daniel Pearce.

McCardle brings the best recent form of the group to this week’s event after a T4 finish last week courtesy of an impressive final round 68.