Owen Wright and Josh Kerr advance to Round 4 of Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast – Surfing News
Australia’s Owen Wright and Josh Kerr opened day 3 of Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast, first stop on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour, with an exciting win in their respective Round 3 heats that went down at Snapper Rocks in Queensland,
Australia, on Monday, February 27.
Wright took the win over fellow countryman Matt Wilkinson in the first heat to advance through into Round 4, removing the latter from the contention for the event title in the process.
Kerr also moved into the next round after getting the better of his compatriot Kieren Perrow to bring the competition to a premature end for his rival.
With two-to-three foot waves arriving at Snapper Rocks on Monday, the winners of Round 1 and survivors of Round 2 met once again to continue their skirmish for the event title.
Taking on the 23-year-old Wilkinson in the opening heat of the day, last year’s stand-out performer Wright had to really step up to keep himself from getting eliminated.
Wilkinson took an early advantage with an 8.17 off his first business-wave and soon added an additional 6.33 points to his account to take his heat-total to 14.50.
Wright responded with an 8.50-point wave, but struggled to find another decent score to back it up. However, he eventually found a juicy right-hander and rode it for a 6.40 to finish with a winning heat-total of 14.90 points, beating his rival by a margin
of mere 0.40 points.
“That was our first man-on-man heat on the world tour,” Wright said. “I was really nervous before the heat, but once I got out there I felt comfortable. I knew he was going to get an 8-point-ride, and I knew I could answer straight back. We went wave for
wave, score for score, there was nothing much in that heat. We were paddling in and none of us knew who won and I was just happy that one of us was going through to the next round.”
The second heat featured yet another nail-biting contest between two Australians. Both Kerr and Perrow kept breathing down each other’s necks throughout the course of the battle, keeping the crowd in suspense.
The 27-year-old Kerr scored an 8.27 off his first wave and soon backed it up with a 7.23-point wave to finish with a heat-total of 15.50 points.
Perrow responded strongly with a 6.50 and an 8.40-point wave to get to a heat-total of 14.90 points. He only needed to improve by a few points to take the win, but the task proved too much for him and eventually forced him to concede victory to his rival.
The third round of Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast Presented by Land Rover continued with the remaining heats at Snapper Rocks on Monday.
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