Raoni Monteiro and Fredrick Patacchia off to a successful start at Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast
Brazil’s Raoni Monteiro and Hawaii’s Fredrick Patacchia prevailed in their respective Round 1 heats of the non-elimination opening round of the first stop of 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour, Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast, at Snapper
Rocks in Queensland, Australia, on Saturday, February 25.
Monteiro’s victory in the third heat carried him directly into the third round, while Australia’s Yadin Nicol and Brazil’s Gabriel Medina moved into the relegation round after rounding out the second and third positions respectively.
With his win in the fourth heat, Patacchia also jumped straight into Round 3. Australia’s Taj Burrow took runner-up place while America’s Brett Simpson finished third. Both the surfers moved to the second round to battle it out for a place in the third round.
The shifty three-to-four foot waves breaking at Snapper Rocks were ideal for some high-performance surfing. With the top-34 surfers from around the world gathered at the primary event site, the fans expected the day to be full of adrenaline-pumping action
and spectacular performances.
The 29-year-old Monteiro did not have the best of luck with waves during the third heat. However, he still managed to find a couple of relatively better good right-handers to post a 6.50 and 5.13 on the score-board and consequently walk away with the win.
“It’s looking good out there on the low tide,” Monteiro said after the heat. “I’m very happy to go straight to the 3rd Round, relax a bit, surf some different boards. I’m happy to be here again, I’ve got no sponsor so I’m going to try and get a good result.
Gabriel [Medina] is the guy to beat, I don’t think he’s too happy right now, but he will get used to it, someone loses and someones wins. He’s been doing great, winning contests and he’s going to well again this year, for sure.”
Nicol got off to a shaky start, finding a modest 2.60 off his first business wave. Even though he added a 7.77 to his account off his final wave of the heat, he only managed to secure second place with a heat-total of 10.37 points.
Medina failed to justify all the hype that had been surrounding him for the last few months. After a series of stand-out performances during the previous season of ASP World Tour, a lot was expected from him. However, he finished in last place in his opening
heat of the 2012 ASP World Tour, scoring a 6.00 and 3.60 off his best-two waves. There is still an opportunity for him to retain his place in the event’s field by bouncing back strongly in Round 2.
The next heat saw Patacchia completely teal the show with his spectacular performance. The Hawaiian surfer posted an 8.40 on the score-board off his first business-wave and later backed it up with a 7.03-point wave to finish with a heat-total of 15.43 points.
None of his rivals even came close to beating his score and thus enabled him to walk away with a comfortable win.
Burrow got off to a solid start, scoring a 7.50 off his first business-wave, but failed to back it up with another good score and eventually finished with a heat-total of 11.43 points, well behind the heat winner.
Simpson collected a couple of average-wave scores to finish with a two-wave total of 11.27 points.
The surfing action continued at Snapper Rocks on Saturday with the remaining heats of Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast’s Round 1.
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