Adriano de Souza and Jordy Smith reach the final of Billabong Rio Pro – Surfing news
Brazil’s Adriano de Souza and South Africa’s Jordy Smith successfully earned themselves at a shot at the Billabong Rio Pro title after claiming success in their respective semi-final heats.
De Souza got the better of his fellow countryperson Gabriel Medina in the first semi-final, whereas Smith downed Australia’s Mick Fanning in the second semi-final to advance to the final at the third of ten stops on the 2013 Association of Surfing Professionals
(ASP) World Championship Tour.
With two-to-three foot waves on offer at the main event site of Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sunday, May 19, 2013, the stage was set for a thrilling finish to what had been a week full of exhilarating performances, exciting finishes and
surprising results.
Pitted against an in-form Medina in the first semi-final, De Souza had a tough battle at hand and as the heat commenced, it only took a few seconds for the reason for this to become clear.
The 19-year-old Medina got off to an excellent start and soon converted it into an impressive two-wave total of 17.50 points.
De Souza had already gotten his formidable form acknowledged during the quarter-finals, when he had defeated America’s 11-time ASP World Champion Kelly Slater, thus it hardly surprised the huge crowned in attendance when he rose to the occasion and managed
to beat the heat-total of 17.64 points by 0.14 points.
The second semi-final saw Smith and Fanning battling it out for a shot at the title.
The contest was expected to be intense and possibly go down to the wire, but that is not exactly how the heat turned out.
Fanning seemed to have lost his rhythm from the onset of the heat and struggled to regain it throughout the course of the battle. He eventually had to settle for a heat-total of 8.26 points.
Smith, on the other hand, displayed the same solid form that had helped him get through the quarter-final stage. Collecting a couple of scores in the seven-point range off his best-two waves, the South African surfer finished with a winning heat-total of
14.83 points, thus advancing through into the final to face De Souza in a battle for the overall win.
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