Miguel Pupo and Jay Quinn advance to Billabong Azores Islands Pro quarter-final – ASP Prime Event
The ninth Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime event of the year, Billabong Azores Islands Pro, continued with Round 5 at Praia de Santa Barbara in Sao Miguel, Portugal, on Saturday, October 1 with Miguel Pupo and Jay Quinn claiming spots in
the Quarter-finals of the event.
Brazil’s Miguel Pupo was supposed to face his compatriot, Heitor Alves, in the first heat but the latter was unable to compete due to a knee injury that he had sustained during his Round 3 heat. This resulted in Pupo getting a walk-over into the quarter-finals,
while Alves was removed from contention for the event title.
The second heat saw New Zealand’s Jay Quinn clinch a comfortable win over Tahiti’s Alain Riou to secure his place in the quarter-finals. The loss will send Rio packing now that he is eliminated from the competition.
The three-to-four foot waves on offer at the event site were proving to be quite bothersome for the surfers. With the fear of elimination hanging over their heads, they needed to come up with strong performances, something that was surely a daunting task
in the tricky waves. To further add to their misery, there were also strong on-shore winds present at the site, making it even more difficult to control the waves.
The opening heat of Round 5 turned out to be a no-contest as the 29-year-old Alves was unable to compete for the quarter-final spot due to injury. He had been hopeful that missing the Round 4 heat would give his knee enough time to heal, which would then
allow him to take to the swells in the next round. However, things did not exactly turn out the way he had hoped. This allowed the 19-year-old Pupo to advance through to the quarter-finals without as much as breaking a sweat in Round 5.
The second heat pitted Quinn against Riou in a battle for survival. Both the surfers had been equally impressive over the last few days of the event and it was rather difficult to say with conviction just which of the two surfers had a better chance of extending
his life in the event and clinching the quarter-final spot.
The head-to-head battle remained quite uneventful during the early stages as both the surfers collected mediocre scores. Almost half-way through the heat, Quinn moved into the lead after scoring 5.00 points off a wave. Riou responded with a 4.50-point wave
to keep the battle very much alive.
With a few minutes left in the 30-minute heat, Riou added another 6.23 points to his account, stealing the lead with a heat-total of 10.73 points. The joy turned out to be short-lived as Quinn immediately caught a juicy wave to unload a string of exquisite
manoeuvres, earning 8.67 points for the effort and finishing with a decisive heat-total of 13.67 points.
For more updates on Round 5 of Billabong Azores Islands Pro, stay tuned to bettor.com.
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