Matt Banting and Granger Larsen successful in Australian Open of Surfing Quarter-finals
Australia’s Matt Banting and Hawaii’s Granger Larsen advanced through to the Semi-finals of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star Australian Open of Surfing that continued at Manly Beach in New South Wales, Australia, on Sunday, February
19.
Pitted against Brazil’s Tomas Hermes in the third Quarter-final, Banting had his work cut out for him. Despite displaying an intimidating form and collecting the inaugural Australian Open of Surfing Junior Pro title a day earlier, the 17-year-old Australian
was never going to have an easy battle against an in-form Hermes.
As the two came across each other in the third Quarter-final, Hermes wasted no time in making his intentions clear with a solid 7.00-point wave. However, he soon lost his advantage as Banting detected a juicy wave approaching and padded towards it to eventually
unload a string of impressive manoeuvres, earning a 7.67 for the effort.
Continuing the momentum, the Australian added an additional 8.27 points to his account, taking his heat-total to 15.94 points. Hermes needed to come up with something special on his second business-wave. Despite an impressive effort for an 8.10, the Brazilian
surfer finished 0.84-points short of the required score, consequently conceding victory to Banting and sending the latter into the Semi-finals.
Larsen and Brazil’s Jesse Mendes went against each other for the last remaining spot in the Semi-finals.
As the fourth Quarter-final kicked off, both the surfers got off to a patient start as they awaited the arrival of relatively juicy waves.
Half-way through the heat, Mendes locked his first business-wave to post a 3.83 on the score-board and soon backed it up with a 5.00-point wave, taking his heat-total to 8.83 points.
After looking quite unthreatening for major part of the man-on-man battle, Larsen eventually began his charge with a 6.50-point wave and immediately followed it up with 4.33 off his second business-wave in the dying minutes of the heat. The resultant heat-total
of 10.83 points proved enough to earn him top honours and carry him through to the next stage of the competition.
Banting and Larsen will face each other in the second Semi-final of Australian Open of Surfing.
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