Adam Melling makes no mistake in opening heat of Rip Curl Pro Search – 2011 ASP World Tour
Australia’s Adam Melling kicked off the latest stop of the 2011 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour, Rip Curl Pro Search San Francisco, with a comfortable victory in the first heat of Round 1 that went down at Ocean Beach in San Francisco,
America, on Tuesday, November 1. The successful result in the Round 1 heat moved him straight into the third round.
America’s Taylor Knox missed out on the win and had to settle for runner-up place, whereas the in-form Australian, Julian Parkinson, seemed to have rolled off the wrong side of the bed and failed to make much of an impact during the heat, which resulted
in him rounding out the third place. Knox and Parkinson got relegated to Round 2 to try out for the Round 3 spot once again.
The 10th of the 11 stops on the 2011 ASP World Tour, Rip Curl Pro Search San Francisco, kicked off in high-performance three-to-five foot waves. The opportunity was there for the surfers to showcase some of the most stylish tricks in their arsenal,
which in turn raised expectations among the fans for nothing short of a series of thrilling battles.
As the opening heat of the competition got underway, the 26-year-old Melling decided to prove his mettle, something that he had not been able to do throughout the season so far. The New South Wales-based surfer wasted no time in going into offense mode and
locked a wave in the opening minutes of the heat to post a 6.83 on the score-board. A few minutes later, he was able to add another 5.67 points to his account that took his two-wave total to 12.50 points. Despite two extremely vicious competitors, the heat-total
proved to be enough to carry Melling off to victory.
The vast experience and local knowledge of the waves failed to give Knox any edge and he ended up delivering a lacklustre performance. Scoring a 3.83 off his first business wave, the American needed to get a really big score to move past Melling’s heat-total.
The task proved too much for him and he eventually finished with a heat-total of 10.80 points, rounding out second place as a result.
Parkinson, current No.4 on the 2011 ASP World Title rankings, seemed to be a completely different person on the opening day of the latest elite event. He struggled to come out of his waves cleanly and only managed to collect a 6.00 and 4.50 off his two best
waves. The disappointing effort moved him into the second round, granting him one more chance to prove if he really did deserve to stay in the event.
The latest event of the 2011 ASP World Tour is expected to deliver a heavy dose of surfing action to the fans and also play a pivotal role in deciding the fate of the latest season.
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