Matt Banting and Shane Holmes prevail in Round 1 of ASP 1-Star Championship Moves Open
Australia’s Matt Banting and Shane Holmes won their respective heats in the opening round of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 1-Star Championship Moves Open at Jan Juc in Victoria, Australia, on Thursday, January 5.
The first surfing event of the 2012 ASP calendar was scheduled to go down at Bells Beach, but with the three-foot waves on offer at Jan Juc, the event organisers decided to shift the competition to the latter in order to take advantage of the favourable
conditions.
In the first heat of Championship Moves Open’s Round 1 (Round of 48), Banting took on his compatriots Roy Jenkins, Ryan Hunt and Keelan Veitch in a four-man battle.
Getting off to a slow start, Banting gradually built momentum to eventually score a 5.50 off his first business wave in the late minutes of the heat. He soon added another 6.50 points to his account, taking his heat-total to 12.00 points. The score proved
sufficient to carry him off to victory, consequently sending him off into Round 2 (Round of 32).
Jenkins finished in runner-up place after finishing with a heat-total of 9.45 points, which comprised of a 5.50 and 3.95-point wave. The result added him to the Round 2 line-up as well.
Hunt and Veitch failed to make the Round 2 cut after finishing in third and fourth place respectively. Hunt scored 3.40 points off his first business wave and later added 5.65 points to his account to finish with a heat-total of 9.05 points, whereas Veitch
scored a 3.00 and 4.60 off his best-two waves.
The second heat turned out to be yet another all-Australian affair as Holmes squared off with Jack Scollard, Brock Jeffery-Warren and Tom Hatcher. All four surfers were determined to finish in top-two to remain alive in the competition.
Holmes wasted no time in taking an advantage in the battle with a 7.75-point wave off his very first wave, pushing his competitors on the back-foot early on. He kept catching wave after wave while searching for another good score. His effort paid off as
he got hold of a wave to pull off a combination of tricks to score 8.00 points of it and thus move to a heat-total of 15.75 points.
Scollard extended his life in the event by scoring a 3.75 and 4.35 off his top-two waves.
Jeffery-Warren and Hatcher put on a pretty lack-lustre performance during the course of the battle and consequently got evicted from the competition after rounding out the third and fourth position respectively. Jeffery-Warren scored 6.30 points in total
off his top-two waves, while Hatcher finished with a heat-total of 5.00 points.
The first and second heat featured a heavy dose of thrilling contest, but it was just the beginning of the day with many more exciting surfing battles to come.
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