Mick Fanning and Owen Wright continue to earn success at Breaka Burleigh Surf Pro
Australia’s Mick Fanning and Owen Wright made it through into the sixth round (Round of 16) at the Breaka Burleigh Surf Pro, an Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 4-Star event, after claiming top honours in their respective Round 5 (Round of 32)
heats that went down at Burleigh Heads in Australia on Friday, February 7, 2013.
Australia’s Adam Melling and his compatriot Davey Cathels also made it through into the next round of the competition as well after securing second place.
The surfing conditions on offer at the primary event site set up an ideal stage for a series of enthralling battles between some of the most exciting talent from around the globe, though it was the Australian surfers who made up majority of the field.
Pitted against Melling, another fellow Australian Matt Banting and Brazil’s Caio Ibelli in the fourth heat of Round of 32, two-time ASP World Champion Fanning fought his way to victory, though not in the most convincing of fashions.
Both he and Melling fought tooth-and-nail for top honours throughout the course of the battle with neither of them willing to settle for anything less than a victory.
This determination resulted in both surfers finishing with an identical heat-total of 14.43 points. However, Fanning’s single-wave score of 8.60 in the final minutes of the heat allowed him to finish on top of Melling, who had claimed an 8.00 and a 6.43
off his best-two waves.
“That was a tough way to get through” said a relieved Mick Fanning after the heat. “I just could not find the right wave for the entire first part of the heat and then finally in the last minute I found one – it’s a pressure situation but that’s good for
me mentally – I’m here to sharpen up and enjoy the waves so it’s all good.”
Banting finished in third place with a heat-total of 13.73 points, while Ibelli had to settle for fourth place after registering a heat-total of 12.63 points. Both the surfers were consequently eliminated from the competition.
The fifth heat saw Wright complete dominate the four-man battle through a superb performance, collecting an 8.83 and 8.17 off his best-two waves to finish with a heat-total of 17.00 points.
Cathels successfully extended his life in the event as well after registering a couple of scores in the seven-point range for a two-wave total of 14.70 points.
New Zealand’s Stairmand and France’s Joan Duru finished with a heat-total of 11.47 and 6.20 points respectively, which put them in third and fourth place and therefore marked the end of the competition for them.
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