Nishna Patel was fine for the first seven holes before she ran into a disastrous stretch of bogeys and ended the third day at 5-over in the Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific championship on the Waterside course at the Siam Country Club.

The 16-year-old Nishna, who is the only Indian to make the cut from the six who came here, shot 72-71 on the first two days. With 77 on the third, she is 4-over and tied 44^th.

Earlier in the week, Avani Prashanth, Kriti Chowhan, Sifat Sagoo, Mannat Brar and Ceerat Kang missed the cut.

There was a four-way lead at the top as the defending champion and halfway leader, Mizuki Hashimoto (77), dropped six strokes in the last six holes with four bogeys and a double. Hashimoto crashed from overnight 9-under to 4-under is now tied ninth.

There were four players sharing the lead at 8-under.  The four included two locals, the highly acclaimed 38^th world ranked Natthakritta Vongtaveelap, who won the Thailand Amateurs two weeks ago, and a little-known 16-year-old, Suvichaya Vinijchaitham. Of the other two, there was Ting-Hsuan Huang, another 16-year-old from Chinese Taipei and a debutant at WAAP, while the fourth was Korea’s Lim Jiyoo, once ranked as high as fifth in the world, but now 13^th.

Filipino Rianne Mikhaela Malixi (70), coached by Rick Gibson a former Philippine Open winner and an Indian Open runner-up, was lying sole fifth at 7-under.

Nishna, with brother Ronav as the caddie, began well with five pars before her first birdie. After a par on seventh, her problems began. Nishna bogeyed eighth, ninth and 10^th and parred the 11^th. Again, in the last seven holes she had four more bogeys and just one birdie on the Par-4 15^th.

Natthakritta was the joint runner-up last year, and she closed strongly with birdies on 17 and 18 for a 68 that put her at 8-under for 54 holes.

Fellow Thai player, Suvichaya Vinijchaitham, ranked 487^th in the world, was two-under for front nine. She also birdied the 10^th and parred the last eight for a 69 and 8-under total.

Huang, two-under for the front nine, was even for the back nine, while Lim Jiyoo two-over after bogeys on eighth and ninth, birdied 13^th and 17^th for 72 for a share of the lead.