Rory McIlroy birdied the last two holes to keep his hopes alive in the Volvo World Match Play Championship in Spain.
The 20 year old Northern Irishman, heavily defeated by Masters Tournament champion Angel Cabrera in the first of the group matches, won against Simon Dyson by two holes.
And with Cabrera going down to Henrik Stenson by the same margin, all four of them still had the chance to reach the semi-finals at Finca Cortesin near Marbella.
Lee Westwood was alive and kicking too after he hit back from a defeat by Jeev Milkha Singh to beat fellow Englishman Ross Fisher.
That group also saw all four players with one win and one loss as Singh lost to Colombian Camilo Villegas.
Half the field sat out the morning after playing two games on Thursday, but three of the eight - top seed Paul Casey, Sergio Garcia and Martin Kaymer - were already out of the title race.
American Anthony Kim was a strong favourite to progress from Group A, while Oliver Wilson's two wins in Group B meant he needed to halve with Australian Robert Allenby to go through.
McIlroy trailed by one with four to play but Dyson bogeyed the difficult 15th and McIlroy then made a 20 footer on the short 17th and two-putted the par five last.
He then gave a thumbs-up sign to Stenson for his part in keeping all things possible.
McIlroy remained bottom of the table because of his holes deficit but said: "If I beat Henrik this afternoon and the other game (between Dyson and Cabrera) is halved I'm through.
"I've got to try to beat Henrik by a good margin and he has to do the same.
"I gave myself a lot of chances and one had to go in, but it was nice to see the one on 17 go in."
Westwood did not win a single hole against Singh but after losing the first to Fisher The Race to Dubai leader took three of the next four in sparkling fashion.
Fisher got back to level by the turn but took six at the long 11th and missed from under six feet at the 14th after Westwood had holed from twice the distance.
Singh was worried about how his feet would be with 36 holes to play - he pulled out of last week's US PGA Tour event - and was never ahead against Villegas.
