Gabriel Medina and Dylan Graves advance to next round: Fifth round of Super Surf International – Part 2
With six quarter-finalists confirmed, the battle for the last two spots in the quarter-final stage came down to four surfers.
In the third heat of round of 12, the crowd witnessed Brazil’s Gabriel Medina going head-to-head with his own countryman, Miguel Pupo. There was absolutely no doubt regarding the excellent form that both the surfers were in.
Both had mercilessly trampled over their competition in all of their previous heats, with the exception of one, which had brought them to the edge of the cliff. One of them had to fall in order to let the other advance in the competition and from the looks
of it, it was going to be a real intense battle as neither seemed to be a push-over.
As the heat kicked off, Pupo instantly took the lead by locking the very first way to score 5.23 off it. Medina responded with a fairly close 5.17-point wave and reduced the lead. Pupo snatched the lead once again in the mid-stage of the heat, scoring 6.27
points this time to move to a total of 11.50 points.
Medina kept catching waves to search for a good score and get past his rival, eventually catching an amazing wave to throw down a set of tricks. The sensational moves compelled the judges to award him a mammoth-score of 9.50, bringing him to a heat-total
of 14.67 points and allowing him to prevail over his compatriot by a difference of 3.17 points.
The excellent effort by Medina qualified him for the quarter-finals, while bringing Pupo’s Super Surf International to a premature end.
The fight for the last remaining spot in the quarter-final took place between Puerto Rico’s Dylan Graves and South Africa’s Royden Bryson.
As the heat kicked off, Bryson wasted no time in catching a wave, scoring 4.83 off it, to open his account and move into the lead. Graves refused to let the South African stay in the front and surfed a wave for 6.33 points to move ahead of him. He later
posted an impressive 7.50 score to move to a two-wave score of 13.83.
Bryson required a score of 7.86 from his final wave to stay alive in the competition. However, he was unable to pull off the feat and only managed to get 5.97, falling 3.03 points short of victory. As a result, he was eliminated from the Prime event, while
his Puerto Rican rival completed the quarter-final field.
For updates on the Super Surf International quarter-finals, stay tuned to Bettor.com.
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