Kelly Slater powers into the quarter-finals following Round 4 win at Volcom Fiji Pro
America’s Kelly Slater put on a phenomenal performance to claim top honours in the third heat of Volcom Fiji Pro’s Round 4 that went down at the secondary event site of Restaurants in Tavarua, Fiji, on Saturday, June 9.
Australia’s Owen Wright had to settle for a second-place finish after putting on a tough fight, while Brazil’s Heitor Alves rounded out the bottom position.
The victory in Round 4 served to carry Slater directly into the quarter-finals, whereas his two rivals got relegated to the fifth round to surf again in order to earn their place in the next stage of the competition.
Even though the main venue of Cloudbreak had mammoth-sized barrels on offer, the event organisers decided to move the contest to Restaurants for the third and fourth round on Saturday, looking to get the competition underway in draining four-to-six foot
waves instead of disorganised 12-to-15 foot waves breaking at the primary event site.
Slater, the 11-time Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Champion, had made his return at Fiji after recovering from an ankle injury that had forced him to miss the Brazilian stop of the elite tour. While he did not get off to the best of starts,
suffering defeat in the first round, he had managed to bounce back strongly and continued to build momentum in Round 3.
Pitted against Wright and Alves in the third heat of Round 4, the 40-year-old Florida-based surfer was all pumped up to try and go straight into the quarter-finals without having to surf in Round 5.
As the battle got underway, Slater completely went on a rampage, collecting a perfect 10 ride in the opening minutes of the heat and later backing it up with an 8.33-point wave to finish with a heat-total of 18.33 points.
Wright put up a commendable fight, making his big-wave riding prowess known as well. The 22-year-old Australian opened his account with an 8.50-point wave and immediately added an additional 9.40 points to his account, thus moving to a heat-total of 17.90
points. In the end, he was forced to concede victory to Slater due to a mere 0.43-point deficit.
“Those were the first times I’ve ever surfed Restaurants and I can’t believe it,” Wright said during his post-heat interview. “It’s wave after wave out there. Every wave you take off on, you make it all the way down to the end of the point and get three
barrels in between. It’s just perfect. You can’t do anything wrong out there if you’re in the barrels and just site tight. It’s the best wave I’ve ever surfed.”
Alves got completely overshadowed by his rivals’ performance, though he did little to try and make his presence felt. The Brazilian talent scored a 3.83 and 7.03 off his best-two waves to finish with a heat-total of 10.86 points, consequently getting accompanying
Wright into the fifth round.
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