Bianca Buitendag and Pauline Ado reach the final at SATA Airlines Azores Pro
South Africa’s Bianca Buitendag and France’s Pauline Ado guaranteed a title shot for themselves at the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star SATA Airlines Azores Pro after walking away with top honours from their respective semi-finals that went
down at the Praia de Santa Barbara in Sao Miguel, Azores Islands, on Saturday, September 29.
Buitendag defeated Australia’s Philippa Anderson in the first semi-final to secure her place in the final, pushing her rival out of the competition in the process.
The second semi-final saw Ado get the better of Hawaii’s Alana Blanchard to successfully make it through into the final while removing the latter from the contention for the event title.
With the most in-form surfers remaining in the contention for the SATA Airlines Azores Pro Title, the crowd were anticipating a handful of thrilling battles. There was plenty of reason for the surfers to give their 100 percent as a victory was going to take
them into the final.
The first semi-final saw Buitendag and Anderson take each other on in a battle for the coveted finals’ spot.
As the heat got underway, Anderson opened her account with a 3.77-point ride and immediately backed it up with a 6.00-poing wave to get to a heat-total of 9.77 points.
However, it did not prove enough to keep Buitendag from walking away with the win as the South African managed to register a heat-total of 10.83 points, which included a 6.33 and 4.50-point ride.
The second semi-final turned out to be a pretty one-sided contest, with Ado putting on an impressive performance to extinguish Blanchard’s hope of getting into the final.
The French surfer scored a 7.67 off her first business-wave and later added an additional 5.77 points to her account, thus getting to a heat-total of 13.44 points.
Blanchard responded with a rather dismal performance, scoring a 5.10 and 2.43 off her best-two waves to eventually finish with a heat-total of 7.53 points.
Despite getting eliminated in the semi-finals, the Hawaiian surfer was pretty happy with her performance at Praia de Santa Barbara.
“I’m pretty tired but really happy!” Blanchard reflected. “I had a lot of fun in the Azores and am excited to come back next year! It was definitely tricky today, the conditions kept changing but there was waves the whole day so I think we all got lucky
and we’re all really happy! I’m really stoked about making the CT, I wasn’t really thinking about it so I’m really happy to hear it!”
The final of ASP 6-Star SATA Airlines Azores Pro was all set to put Buitendag and Ado against each other for the coveted title.
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