Kelly Slater bows out to Josh Kerr in Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast Quarter-finals – Surfing News
Australia’s Josh Kerr managed to survive his encounter with America’s Kelly Slater in the second Quarter-final of Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast at Snapper Rocks in Queensland, Australia, on Sunday, March 4, to advance through into the Semi-finals.
Slater, an 11-time Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Champion, is hardly the person anyone wants to find himself against in a crucial stage of a competition and especially if the iconic surfer from Florida is having his routine excellent run
of form.
The 27-year-old Kerr could not have found himself in a more challenging situation as he became aware of who he was up against in the battle for the Quarter-final. The Australian surfer had not been in the best of forms since the start of the first stop of
2012 ASP World Tour, finding it hard to adjust to the low waves at the primary event site despite being quite familiar with them.
Kerr had been quite inconsistent since the very first round and found himself pushed against the edge on a couple of occasions, though he successfully managed to bounce them and thus remain alive in contention for the event title.
Slater, on the other hand, had been looking as good as ever and was, as always, one of the strongest contenders for the over-all victory in the event.
As the second Quarter-final got underway in two-to-three foot waves, Kerr decided to step up and take his rival head-on despite the scales tipping heavily in the favour of the latter. In the opening minutes of the heat, the Australian surfer locked his first
business-wave to post a 7.00 on the score-board.
Slater did not look too comfortable with the conditions since the beginning of the heat and only managed to score a 5.17 off his first business-wave. He soon followed it up with a much better effort, adding an additional 7.87-point wave to get to a heat-total
of 13.04 points.
Kerr, however, managed to edge past his Floridian surfer by scoring a 7.43 off his second business-wave in the dying minutes of the heat, consequently finishing with a heat-total of 14.43 points and walking away with the win.
Talking to a reporter after the heat, Slater said, “I got Josh a few times last year, we had four Quarterfinal battles last year where I got him, so he owed me a couple. It never feels good to lose, but I’m happy for Josh. I’m not sure if I’m going to Bells.
I’m just going to go find some good waves in the next few weeks. Then I’ll figure out what I’m going to do for the year.”
The surfing action continued at Snapper Rocks with the remaining Quarter-finals of Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast presented by Land Rover.
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