Flores, Zietz and Slater make the Round 4 cut at Volcom Fiji Pro – Surfing news
France’s Jeremy Flores, Hawaii’s Sebastian Zietz and America’s Kelly Slater remained unbeaten in their respective Round 3 heats at the Volcom Fiji Pro, stop no. 4 on the 2013 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour, which resumed
at the main event venue of Cloudbreak in Tavarua, Fiji, on Tuesday, June 11, 2013.
A successful result in their latest heats sent the three surfers through into the fourth round, while marking a premature end to the competition for their rivals.
After staying on hold for the last few days, the exciting elite tour action recommenced in perfect six-to-eight foot surf, courtesy of the arrival of the much-awaited swell.
With the first three heats of Round 3 already completed on the last active day of the competition, the latest day proceedings began with the fourth heat, which had Flores up against Brazil’s Miguel Pupo in a head-to-head battle for survival.
The French surfer looked in great form from the get-go and wasted very little time to take control of the heat by posting an impressive 8.00 on the scoreboard. He soon backed it up with a 6.00-point ride to finish with a heat-total of 14.00 points.
Pupo struggled to find his rhythm during the course of the heat and only managed to get to a heat-total of 10.50 points, which included a 5.33 and 5.17-point ride. The inadequate score resulted in his elimination from the competition.
The next heat saw Zietz take on Australia’s Kai Otton in a bout for the Round 4 spot.
Neither of the two surfers looked very comfortable in the high-performance waves that were on offer at Cloudbreak.
Otton, however, eventually managed to walk away with the win after collecting a 6.93 and 4.67 off his top-two waves to register a heat-total of 11.60 points against his rival’s heat-total of 10.73 points.
Slater, 11-time ASP World Champion, locked horns with Australia’s Mitchel Coleborn in the sixth heat of Round 3.
The American surfer got off to a solid start, scoring a 7.17 off his first business-wave and went on to add an additional 6.70 points to his account, thus finishing with a heat-total of 13.87 points.
Coleborn started off pretty good himself, earning a 7.43 off his first business-wave, but he only managed to back it up with a 3.60-point ride, thus having to settle with a heat-total of 11.03 points. The score just was not good enough under the circumstances
and consequently resulted in his removal from the contention for the event title.
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