Mitch Crews defeats Michael Wright to claim overall win at Quiksilver Open Japan – Surfing news
Australia’s Mitch Crews took out the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 4-Star Quiksilver Open Japan after defeating fellow countryperson Michael Wright in the final that took place at Tsurigasaki Beach in Chiba, Japan, on Sunday, June 2.
“I’m frothing!” said Crews. “I feel like I’ve done a bunch of these events and made a lot of Finals and Semis and Quarters and to finally win one feel so nice. Japan is epic! I went there when I was 18 and had an awesome time, you can fly direct from the
Gold Coast and I thought I’d go over and have some fun and I ended up winning the thing. It’s a big confidence boost, I won a little event at home and now I won the event in Japan.”
The young surfer had indeed arrived at Japan with high expectations, looking to get his hands on the coveted 1000 ASP ranking points and a winner prize of $15,000 that were on offer at the 2013 ASP Japan Men’s ASP 4-Star event.
Surfing with consistency since the very first round, Crews comfortably made his way through the long list of talented surfers from across the globe to reach the final.
His performance against compatriot Cooper Chapman during the semi-final was something that he surely would be remember for a long time.
After all, it is not every day that a surfer earns himself a win by posting a two-wave total of 19.26 points on the score-board, making an impressive heat-total of 15.90 by the other surfer look modest.
Wright was another surfer who had been nothing short of impressive throughout the week. With his 17.80-point performance against fellow compatriot Davey’s Cathel’s 16.33 in the semi-final, he came off as a pretty strong contender for the over-all win.
However, it turned out that Crews was not in a mood to let anything stand between him and the event victory.
He got down to business in the opening minutes of the final, locking a juicy wave to unleash a series of exquisite manoeuvres and consequently collecting a 9.17 for the effort.
Keeping the momentum going, he added another 8.07 points to his account, thus moving to a heat-total of 17.24 points.
Wright adopted a rather conservative strategy and took his time to wait for the right wave to make his wave. Almost half-way through the heat, he collected a 7.33 off a wave and almost immediately backed it up with a 6.83-point ride. The two-wave total of
14.16, however, proved inadequate in front of his rival’s score and therefore forced him to settle for runner-up position.
Despite missing out on the win, Wright was pretty happy with his performance, especially since it was the first time for him to make it this far in an ASP Star event.
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