Kelly Slater proves too good for Mick Fanning in the first semi-final at Hurley Pro
America’s Kelly Slater put on an outstanding performance to get the better of Australia’s Mick Fanning the first semi-final at the 2012 Hurley Pro, the sixth of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour, which
went down at the high-performance Lower Trestles in California, America, on Thursday, September 20.
The battle of the titans was expected to be a thrilling affair, since both the surfers were among the best in the business.
However, the reigning 11-time ASP World Champion proved to be too much for Fanning to handle, who was eventually forced to concede a shot at the title to his rival.
Despite being 40 years of age, Slater had been exhibiting a prime form at the latest edition of Hurley Pro. Pitted against the best surfing today of today, the Floridian did not show any signs of aging and asserted his dominance over them.
Fanning, a former two-time ASP World Champion and current No.1 on the 2012 ASP World Tour rankings, was another surfer who was having an excellent run of form, one that had been going on for the past 6 months. He continued to put on an exciting show at Lower
Trestles, downing one competitor after another to gradually make his way through into the finals.
Squaring off to secure a title shot, both Slater and Fanning were expected to cut loose during their semi-final encounter.
The battle, however, turned out to be pretty one-sided with Slater completely stealing the show through an excellent performance. The surfing icon opened his account with an 8.10-point ride and went on to back it up with an even better 9.17-point effort,
thus finishing with a heat-total of 17.27 points.
Fanning put on a rather uncharacteristic lacklustre performance, scoring a mere 2.67 and 6.67 off his best-two waves to finish with an ordinary heat-total of 9.34 points, consequently suffering a comprehensive defeat.
“Even when he had those first two waves, I was confident that I could come back if the waves came,” Fanning said. “It just stopped. That’s the nature of our game. You can’t really fight back if there is nothing there and I sort of thought after I didn’t
break the combo with that one wave, I was thinking there had to be a flurry or it was pretty much done.”
The Australian surfer was, however, satisfied with an equal-third finish, a result that allowed him to hold on to his place on top of the ranking table.
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