Adriano de Souza and Jordy Smith advance to Mr Price Pro Ballito quarter-finals
Brazil’s Adriano de Souza and South Africa’s Jordy Smith advanced through into the quarter-finals at the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime Mr Price Pro Ballito after getting top honours from their respective Round 5 (Round of 16) heats that
went down at Willard Beach in KwaDukuza, South Africa, on Saturday, July 7.
De Souza got the better of America’s Patrick Gudauskas in the fourth heat, while Smith prevailed over America’s Nathan Yeomans in the fifth heat to remove their respective rivals from the contention for the event title.
With powerful waves breaking at the primary event site, the stage seemed ideal for a day full of enthralling performances as the local and international surfers took each other on in a battle for the quarter-finals’ spot.
The fourth heat featured a nail-biting contest as the defending event champion Gudauskas gave De Souza, current ASP World No.4, a real tough time. Deploying an aggressive strategy, the American surfer posted a couple of decent scores to get to a heat-total
of 12.67 points.
De Souza patiently waited for the moment to make his move, which eventually paid off as he got to a decisive heat-total of 13.60 points.
“It was a tough heat against the defending champion, I knew he was going to go for everything and my strategy was just to choose two waves and put everything into them,” De Souza said. “The last result I had at this event was a quarterfinal finish so I’m
proud of myself and will be pushing to do better.”
The next heat saw Smith use his local knowledge of the waves effectively to get the better of Yeomans. He posted the highest individual wave-score after pulling off a full air rotation on his first business-wave for a near-perfect 9.00. Backing it up with
a 5.33-point ride, the South African finished with a heat-total of 14.33 points.
Yeomans struggled to find his rhythm throughout the course of the battle and consequently failed to come up with a decent response, eventually ended up finishing with a two-wave total of 6.40 points. The lacklustre performance forced him to concede victory
and thus the quarter-final spot to Smith.
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