Robert Rock ended his nine-year wait for a first European Tour title with a bold display to capture the BMW Italian Open presented by CartaSi.

The 34 year old Englishman completed a wire-to-wire victory with a closing 67 that left him 21 under for the week, one ahead of Thorbjorn Olesen and Gary Boyd.

“I’m very surprised to finally win, but once I got started today I felt quite comfortable and I figured that this was as good a chance as I was ever going to have,” said Rock, after winning on The European Tour at the 209th attempt.

“I was surprised to see Thorbjorn Olesen shoot ten under so that got me thinking that I needed to make a few birdies to win but right now it feels great.

“I thought I would eventually do it. It’s taken longer than planned but it’s incredibly hard to win on this Tour. There are great players already out here and new ones arriving all the time like we saw today with Thorbjorn, so my best weeks have just not quite been good enough before. I’ve had good results but I’ve come up short. Finally, it’s all gone my way.”

But it was far from straightforward on a day when the Royal Park I Roveri course offered up plenty of birdie opportunities.