Adriano de Souza kicks-off Rip Curl Pro Portugal with Round 1 success
Brazilian powerhouse Adriano de Souza got off to a desirable start at the Rip Curl Pro Portugal, the eighth of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals, advancing straight to the third round after claiming top honours in the opening heat
of Round 1 that kicked-off at Supertubos in Peniche, Portugal, on Saturday, October 13, 2012.
De Souza got the win over America’s Brett Simpson and Brazil’s Raoni Monteiro, forcing both his to take a trip to the relegation Round 2.
The day opened up with clean two-to-three foot waves at the main event site. With potential scoring opportunities arriving quite frequently, plenty of enthralling performances were expected off the elite ASP surfers as the round unfolded.
After failing to make much of an impact in France due to a pretty ordinary performance, De Souza had ended up dropping one place on the 2012 ASP World Championship Tour rankings, which removed him from the Top 5.
However, he was expected to give it his all to get his place back during the latest elite tour event.
Pitted against him in a three-man battle for the Round 3 spot during the first heat of Round 1 were Simpson and Monteiro, both of whom were quite short of good results in the current season and therefore were expected to try and push harder in the promising
waves of Supertubos.
As the heat got underway, all three surfers got off to a pretty slow start, apparently struggling to read the conditions on hand.
As the heat got close to the half-way stage, De Souza locked his first business-wave to post a 2.63 on the score-board.
Keeping the momentum going, he added an additional 3.67 points to his account, thus reaching a heat-total of 6.30 points.
Simpson scored a 1.83 and 3.23 off his best-two waves to reach a heat-total of 5.06 points, whereas Monteiro finished third after finishing with a two-wave total of 3.67 points, which included a 1.90 and 1.77-point ride.
Despite registering a pretty ordinary heat-total, De Souza eventually clinched the win to jump straight into the third round.
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