Patacchia, Logie, Alves and Coleborn off to an ideal start at Volcom Fiji Pro – Surfing news
Hawaii’s Fredrick Patacchia, South Africa’s Travis Logie, Brazil’s Heitor Alves and Australia’s Mitchel Coleborn emerged triumphant in their respective Round 1 heats of the Volcom Fiji Pro, which kicked-off at Cloudbreak in Tavarua, Fiji, on Tuesday, June
4, 2013.
With their win in the opening round, all four surfers advanced straight to the third round instead of having to compete in Round 2 first.
The surfing conditions at the host site for the fourth stop on the 2013 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour had not been too great on the first-two days, but a considerable improvement in the swell on Tuesday allowed the event
organisers to give the first round a go-ahead.
The proceedings of the day kicked-off with Patacchia taking on fellow countryperson Sebastian Zietz and South Africa’s Jordy Smith in the first heat.
While Smith was the favourite, it turned out to be Patacchia who emerged as the top performer of the heat.
The Hawaiian surfer collected an 8.50 and 6.70 off his top-two waves to register a decisive heat-total of 15.20 points.
Zietz finished in second place with a heat-total of 14.50 points, while Smith had to settle for third place after finishing with a two-wave total of 11.00 points. Both the surfers were consequently relegated to Round 2.
The second heat saw Logie finish on top of Australia’s Yadin Nicol and, much to everyone’s surprise, Taj Burrow.
The South African surfer collected an 8.83 off his first business-wave and added an additional 1.23 points to his account, thus finishing with a winning heat-total of 10.06 points.
Nicol and Burrow registered a two-wave total of 6.67 and 4.90 points respectively, thus getting forced to take a trip to the relegation round.
Alves got the better of Australia’s Matt Wilkinson in the third heat, which was missing its third competitor, reigning ASP World Champion Joel Parkinson, also an Australian.
The Brazilian surfer put on an outstanding performance to get the better of his Australian rival. Asserting his dominance over his rival with a 9.80-point ride, Alves went on to add an additional 8.83 points to his account, thus finishing with a heat-total
of 18.63 points.
Wilkinson responded with an 8.00 and 7.33-point ride, thus finishing with a heat-total of 15.33 points. The effort did not quite cut it and therefore reserved him a place in the second round. Parkinson is to join him in the Round 2 field as well.
The fourth heat saw Coleborn put on the performance of the day to down Brazil’s Alejo Muniz and Adriano de Souza.
The Australian surfer left the spectators awestruck with a perfect-10 ride and asserted his dominance over his competitors even further with a 9.33-point ride. A heat-total of 19.33 points turned out to be more than sufficient to seal the fate of the battle
in his favour.
Muniz and De Souza finished with a heat-total of 6.60 and 5.77 points, which sent them into the relegation round.
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