Fredrick Patacchia and Kai Otton enjoy success on day 2 of Billabong Pro Tahiti
Hawaii’s Fredrick Patacchia and Australia’s Kai Otton emerged triumphant in their respective Round 2 heats at the fifth of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour, which went down at the primary event site
of Teahupo’o in Taiarapu, Tahiti, on Friday, August 17.
Patacchia got the better of Australia’s Bede Durbidge in the 11th heat to advance to the third round while removing his rival from the competition.
South Africa’s Travis Logie was forced to make a premature exit from the contention for the event title after failing to prevent Otton from walking away with top honours into the next round.
The crowd and global audience catching the action live through web broadcast expected the second day of the competition to be nothing short of spectacular as the world’s best surfers continued to take each other on in man-on-man battles for survival.
The 11th heat pitted Patacchia and Durbidge against each other in a battle for the Round 3 spot. After failing to make much of an impact during their respective Round 1 heats, both the surfers found themselves in a must-win situation, with very
little room for error.
As the heat kicked-off, Patacchia wasted absolutely no time to get down to work and locked his first business-wave in the opening minutes of the heat to post a 6.50 on the score-board. He went on to lock a juicy wave in the dying minutes of the heat, earning
a 9.00 off it to move to a heat-total of 15.50 points.
Durbidge responded with a 2.17 off his first business-wave and added an additional 7.50 points to his account in the dying minutes of the heat to finish with a heat-total of 9.67 points. As a result, he was forced to surrender victory and thus the Round
3 spot to his rival.
The final heat of Round 2 saw Otton and Logie square-off for a place in the next round.
Logie drew first blood with a 4.17-point ride and later added an additional 1.50 points to his account, thus registering a heat-total of 5.67 points.
Otton took the win over his rival comfortably after scoring a spectacular 9.43 off his first business-wave and backing it up with a 4.30-point ride to finish with a heat-total of 13.73 points.
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