Kelly Slater beats Josh Kerr in second Quarter-Final at Hurley Pro – 2011 ASP World Tour
The iconic point-break of Lower Trestles in California, America, continued to play host to the seventh stop of the 2011 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour, Hurley Pro, as the second Quarter-Final got under-way on Wednesday, September 21.
The man-on-man battle turned out to be extremely one-sided, with America’s Kelly Slater completely stealing the show with his epic performance to clinch a convincing victory over Australia’s Josh Kerr, consequently advancing through to the Semi-Finals.
Continuing smoothly for the fourth consecutive day, Hurley Pro continued to deliver intense battles between the top surfers from all around the globe. The event eventually came down to the second Quarter-Final, which pitted the legendary Slater against an
in-form Kerr.
The 10-time ASP World Champion, Slater, has been in a dangerous form since last month as he had absolutely no trouble in making it into the Finals of events with consistency. He had reached the Finals at Billabong Pro Tahiti and walked away with an outstanding
victory over Australia’s Owen Wright to reclaim the Number One slot on the ASP World Title Rankings.
He followed it up with another exceptional performance at Quiksilver Pro New York, but succumbed to Wright in the Finals. Carrying his momentum from New York to Lower Trestles, Slater drilled through the competition with apparent ease to reach the Quarter-Finals.
On the other hand, Kerr was exhibiting solid form at Hurley Pro as well, and was expected to give his opponent a real tough fight in the crucial Quarter-Final stage. Despite all the optimism, the Australian was well aware of the form that Slater was in and
beating the greatest surfer in the history of the sport while he is at the peak of his form was definitely a daunting task.
As the second Quarter-Final kicked-off, Kerr registered the first solid score on the scoreboard, a 7.00, to take the lead and an upper-hand in the heat. However, the 39-year-old Slater soon responded by locking a wave to unload a flurry of exquisite manoeuvres
and collecting 9.43 points for the effort.
The Floridian-based surfer followed up his first business-wave with an 8.17-point wave to reach an intimidating heat-total of 17.60 points. The chance of clinching victory had pretty much gotten out of Kerr’s reach, but he ended up making the defeat even
more bitter by adding merely another 4.07 points to his account, consequently finishing with a heat-total of 11.07 and losing to his rival by a margin of 6.53 points.
For more updates on the Hurley Pro Quarter-Finals, stay tuned to bettor.com.
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