Intense Billabong Pro Tahiti quarter-final concludes with Mick Fanning downing Ricardo Dos Santos
Australia’s Mick Fanning put on a superb performance to get the better of Brazil’s Ricardo Dos Santos in the first Quarter-final at Billabong Pro Tahiti, the fifth of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour,
which went down at Teahupo’o in Taiarapu, Tahiti, on Monday, August 27.
The latest day of the competition saw four-to-six foot waves breaking at the main event site, setting up a perfect stage for the elite ASP surfers to treat the huge crowd in attendance as well as the global audience catching the action live through webcast
to a thrilling battle for the semi-final slot.
Fanning, former two-time ASP World Champion and current No.1 on the 2012 World Championship Tour rankings, had not gotten off to the best of starts at the latest elite tour event. He succumbed to America’s Taylor Knox in the opening round of the competition,
consequently getting relegated to the second round, from where he rebounded with an excellent performance. He continued to deliver solid performances during the third and fourth round to confidently step into the quarter-final stage.
Dos Santos, on the other hand, had achieved what every young surfer dreams of achieving, surfing against reigning 11-time ASP World Champion Kelly Slater. He took the dream one step further by defeating the legendary surfer to eliminate him from the competition.
The event wild-card entry gained immense confidence through the surprising win, which eventually helped him in reaching the quarter-finals.
The quarter-final between Fanning and Santos turned out to be a nail-biting affair with the contest going down to the wire. Both the surfers held nothing back during the 30-minute heat, navigating to the juiciest of waves and unloading a series of technical
tricks.
Fanning scored a 9.07 off his first business-wave early in the heat, but Dos Santos soon stripped him of the lead by posting a 9.27 on the score-board soon after.
As the heat progressed, the Brazilian surfer added an additional 9.37 points to his account, thus moving to a heat-total of 18.64 points.
Fanning needed to score big off his next business-wave in order to grab the win. Stepping up to meet the challenge head on, the Australian powerhouse stunned the crowd with a perfect-10 ride, thus finishing with a winning heat-total of 19.07 points.
Despite losing the quarter-final heat, the outstanding and inspirational performance of Dos Santos resulted in his walking away with the prestigious Andy Irons Forever Award.
Tags: