Francesco Laporta leads Jon Rahm after opening-day masterclass in Abu Dhabi

The Italian carded an eagle and eight birdies in a bogey-free 62 to get to ten under at Yas Links, three shots clear of former World Number One Jon Rahm, Englishman Sam Bairstow and Austria's Bernd Wiesberger.

In the battle to win the Race to Dubai, leader Eugenio Chacarra and third-placed Rory McIlroy carded rounds of 70, with second-placed Patrick Reed recording a 74.

The top 70 available players from the Race to Dubai Rankings are teeing it up in this week's first Play-Off event, with the top 50 then moving on to next week's season-ending DP World Tour Championship.

Laporta entered the week ranked 57th but will be assured of a place in Dubai if he can maintain anything like the form he showed on day one over the weekend.

"Everything was just going like a video game, like just hitting shots straight and making some putts and just giving myself opportunities," he said. "I'm very happy about that.

"Actually, I was struggling a bit in the last few days. So I had a lot of time on the range yesterday and I spent a lot of time on the greens, just understanding how to work around the lines and the spin because the greens, like they're pure, but they're also quick. So now it works."

Spaniard Rahm was playing the event for the first time and was also bogey-free as he looks to make it to Dubai next week.

"I made a couple of beautiful swings early on, great second shot on two and that kind of got things going. That second shot on three as well, making basically three iron swings: the four iron on one, the five iron on two and then eight iron on three gave me some good confidence.

"Very good with the irons. Gave myself plenty of chances and obviously holed a few."

Wiesberger is currently on track for dual membership with the PGA TOUR and he carded eight birdies and a single bogey to sit a shot ahead of England's Matthew Jordan and Pole Adrian Meronk.

Defending champion Aaron Rai, fellow Englishman Tyrrell Hatton, in-form Japanese Yuto Katsuragawa, China's Wenyi Ding, South African Shaun Norris and Norwegian Kristoffer Reitan were then a further shot back.