Nat Young and Adriano de Souza advance to Round 4 at Oakley Pro Bali – Surfing news
America’s Nat Young and Brazil’s Adriano de Souza walked away with top honours from their respective Round 3 heats at the Oakley Pro Bali, stop no. 5 on the 2013 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour, which continued at the main
event site of Keramas in Bali, Indonesia, on Tuesday, June 25, 2013.
Young defeated Australia’s Kai Otton in the ninth heat of Round 3 to secure a place for himself in the fourth round and bring the competition to a premature end for his rival.
The 10th heat saw De Souza claim a convincing win over Australia’s Matt Wilkinson to make the Round 4 cut, while removing the latter from the contention for the event title in the process.
The barrelling six-to-eight foot waves on offer at Keramas on the latest day of competition served as an ideal canvas for the world’s best surfers to paint with their spectacular performances as they competed against each other for a place in the next round.
Young, an exceptional talent from California, took on Otton in the ninth heat of Round 3. Both the surfers had their sight set on the Round 4 spot and therefore held nothing back during their man-on-man battle.
The American surfer got off to a solid start, locking a juicy barrel in the opening minutes of the heat and unleashing a series of exquisite manoeuvres to post an 8.27 on the scoreboard. He kept the momentum going by backing it up with a 7.83-point ride,
thus moving to a heat-total of 16.10 points.
Otton had no intention of awarding his rival an easy win and therefore put up a determined fight. Scoring an 8.20 off his first business-wave, the Australian kept himself alive in the contest. However, he was only able to add an inadequate wave score of
6.83 to his account and ended up finishing with a heat-total of 15.03 points. As a result, he was forced to surrender victory and thus the Round 4 spot to his rival.
The 10th heat saw De Souza surf aggressively to finish on top of Wilkinson, who could prove to be a formidable opponent on his day.
“Has been a tough day for Brazil and now I’m the only one left,” De Souza said. “Keramas is a wave that has many faces – it can be a barrel, it can be for turns, it can be for airs. Matt (Wilkinson) had priority for most of our heat so I used my time catching
a lot of waves and building a house. It worked out for me in the end. Very happy.”
The Brazilian surfer caught wave after wave during his hunt for a couple of big scores and eventually managed to put a 7.10 and 6.63 on the score-board for a heat-total of 13.73 points.
Wilkinson, who was on priority for most part of the heat, only managed to register a heat-total of 10.67 points, which comprised of a 6.67 and 4.00-point ride. As a result, he found himself eliminated from the competition.
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