Gary Murphy took advantage of a second chance to surge up the leaderboard in the weather disrupted Italian Open in Milan.

The Kilkenny man had an early bogey in his second round but got to start all over again when a lengthy rain delay forced officials to scrap all the early second round scores.

Murphy came back out and reeled off three birdies in 12 holes to get to four under par when bad light forced a finish to the day's proceedings.

Almost nine hours play were lost to the weather as Austrian Markus Brier, Alvaro Quiros of Spain and Swede Joakim Backstrom finished in a share of the lead on 10 under par.

The early scores were scrapped so that officials could switch to the lift-and-place rule on the soaked Tolcinasco fairways.

Peter Lawrie (-4), David Higgins (-1) and Paul McGinley (level) did not get a shot.

Last week's Spanish Open was also disrupted by bad weather and the third round in Milan will not begin before 5.00pm today.