Ruda Carvalhoc and Stu Kennedy prevail in Round 1 of Quiksilver Pro Portugal 2011
The 16th and 17th heat of Quiksilver Pro Portugal’s first round, the round of 96, went down at the Ribeira D’Ilhas at Ereceira, Portugal, on June 14th and 15th.
During the 16th heat on Tuesday, Brazil’s Ruda Carvalho clinched the win to qualify for the next round. Brazil’s Miguel Pupo survived the first round as well by securing second position. Australia’s Adam Robertson and Brazil’s Yuri Sodre finished
in third and fourth positions respectively, consequently getting eliminated from the competition.
The 17th heat saw Australia’s Stu Kennedy emerging triumphant, while New Zealand’s Jay Quinn finished in second position to stay alive in the title race. Brazil’s Raoni Monteiro and Northern Spain’s Indar Perez rounded out the bottom-two positions
and were ejected from the contention for the event title as a result.
As the 16th heat kicked off, Carvalho got off to a rather unimpressive start, earning only 4.23 points off his first wave. However, he followed it up with a much better wave, throwing down a combination of impressive tricks and ended up earning
6.93 points for the effort from the judges. While his final score of 11.16 did not seem like a fighting total at all, it actually carried him off to victory by a margin of 0.49 points.
Apparently, Carvalho was not the only one struggling to cope with the demanding surfing conditions. Pupo, who has bagged an Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime event win already this season, had a difficult time in the sea as well. However,
he still managed to catch a couple of decent waves to score 5.00 and 5.67 to stay in the safe zone and advance to the next round.
Robertson scored 9.37 points from his two waves to secure third position, while Sodre finished last with 8.27 points. Both the surfers found their event coming to a premature finish.
The first day wrapped up with the 16th heat, the remaining heats getting rescheduled to the second day of the event.
The next day of the competition kicked off with the 17th heat in the morning. Kennedy gave a really impressive performance during the heat, scoring 6.50 and 8.33 points off his two waves, to finish with a two-way total of 14.83 points. The points
carried him off to victory and hence the next round.
Quinn was unable to read the conditions completely and struggled to lock waves. He did, however, catch a couple to earn 5.40 and 5.47 points off them in order to finish the heat as runner-up, consequently qualifying for the next round.
Monteiro’s weak performance took everyone by surprise. He was among the top seeds that were competing for the event title, but unfortunately for him and his fans, his event came to a premature end in the very first round. He only scored 9.83 points off his
two waves. Perez remained the weakest surfer performer during the contest, earning a disappointing two-wave score of 6.94 from his two waves.
For more updates on Round 1 of Quiksilver Pro Portugal 2011, stay tuned to bettor.com.
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