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Abu Dhabi Championship third-round leaderboard
-20 A Rai (Eng); -19 T Fleetwood (Eng), N Hojgaard (Den); -18 N Elvira (Spa); -17 A Sullivan (Eng), D Hillier (NZ); -16 R Sterne (SA); -15 S Lowry (Ire), K Nakajima (Jpn), A Del Rey (Spa), J Smith (Eng)
Selected others: -14 R McIlroy (NI), T Hatton (Eng); -13 R MacIntyre (Sco); -11 M Penge (Eng), M Fitzpatrick (Eng), P Reed (US); -10 L Aberg (Swe)
Tommy Fleetwood fired two birdies in the final three holes to move one shot behind fellow Englishman Aaron Rai, who leads the Abu Dhabi Championship going into Sunday's final round.
Rai, a winner of the PGA Tour's Wyndham Championship last year, had seven birdies in a six-under-par round of 66 at the Yas Links, his only dropped shot coming on the penultimate hole as he reached 20 under par for the tournament.
Fleetwood missed a number of birdie putts during his third round but picked up shots at 16 and 18 to go with a birdie and eagle on the front nine as he signed for a bogey-free 67.
The in-form world number five finished the day level with Ryder Cup team-mate Nicolai Hojgaard in second place after the Dane shot his second 65 of the week.
Fleetwood has been highly impressive over the past few months, winning his maiden PGA title at the Tour Championship in August before helping Europe beat the United States in the Ryder Cup in September.
Last month. the world number five claimed a first DP World Tour title of the season in India.
"I am playing very good golf at the moment and I have found myself in this position a lot throughout the summer, but I never take it for granted," Fleetwood told the DP World Tour website.
"This is what you practise for, these are the times of our lives and I am enjoying it very much."
Spain's Nacho Elvira, who posted a 65, is two shots off the lead, while Englishman Andy Sullivan and New Zealander Daniel Hillier are tied for fourth on 17 under.
Rory McIlroy finished the day six shots off the pace following his round of 66, which kept him in pole position to win a seventh Race to Dubai title as the season's best golfer on the DP World Tour.
The Abu Dhabi Championship is the first of two DP World Tour end-of-season play-off events, with the top 70 players competing this week and the leading 50 advancing to next week's finale in Dubai.
With a total of 9,000 points to be shared among the field this week (1,500 to the winner) and 12,000 more next week (2,000 to the winner), the Harry Vardon Trophy for the season title is up for grabs.
Northern Irishman McIlroy, who is two behind Colin Montgomerie's record of eight years as the tour's number one, leads the Race to Dubai standings by just under 500 points from Marco Penge, the Englishman who has won three times on tour this year.
Penge sits on 11 under for this week's tournament after his 70 on Saturday, finishing with a damaging double bogey after finding water on the par-five 18th.
Fleetwood is almost 2,800 points adrift of McIlroy in the Race to Dubai standings so to have any chance of a highly unlikely overall victory would need to win both play-off events and hope his Ryder Cup team-mate falters.
