Stark leads by one going into US Women's Open final round

US Open third-round leaderboard

-7 Stark (Swe); -6 J Lopez (Spa); -5 M Saigo (Jpn), H Shibuno (Jpn), R Takeda (Jpn); -4 N Korda (US); -3 S Schmelzel (US), L Grant (Swe), M Lee (Aus)

Selected others: -2 Y Noh (US), R Yin (Chi), G Lopez (Mex); Evens C Hull (Eng), A Yin (US); +1 L Ko (NZ); +2 A Nordqvist (Swe), L Woad (Eng)

Full leaderboard

Sweden's Maja Stark opened up a one-shot lead at the US Women's Open after carding an impressive two-under-par 70 in the third round at Erin Hills.

Stark birdied three holes on her penultimate round before finishing on seven under after a single bogey.

The 25-year-old is chasing her second victory on the LPGA Tour, having won the 2022 ISPS Handa World Invitational.

"[I am] probably going to go work out in the morning to try to get some nerves out, but I think just keep having fun with it because when I play scared, that's when I mess up, and you can't really play scared at a course like this," Stark said.

The Swede leads Spain's Julia Lopez Ramirez, who climbed to second in the leaderboard after producing a round-of-the-day 68.

The pair will be last out to start their final round, at 19:10 BST on Sunday.

Japanese trio Mao Saigo, Hinako Shibuno and Rio Takeda are all tied on five under in third place.

Successive bogeys hampered overnight leader Saigo's pursuit of a second consecutive major title to finish with a three-over 75, while world number one Nelly Korda remains in contention and trails Stark by three after making three birdies in her final five holes.

"The first thing is that I would like to rest well and then tomorrow refreshed," Saigo, who won this season's Chevron Championship, said.

"I would like to start from zero. That result was not that good, but I don't think that I have to change anything. I just want to focus on my play."