Sally Fitzgibbons downs Rebecca Woods to enter Quarter-finals at TSB Bank NZ Surf Festival
Australia’s Sally Fitzgibbons got the better of her compatriot Rebecca Woods during their Round 4 of the TSB Bank NZ Surf Festival featuring the Dow AgroSciences Pro that resumed at Fitzroy Beach in Taranaki, New Zealand, on Saturday, April 14.
The crucial victory over Woods served to carry Fitzgibbons in the Quarter-finals where she was to face America’s Lakey Peterson in a battle for the Semi-final spot.
After remaining on hold due to unsuitable strong winds at the primary event site on Friday, the third of seven stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women’s World Tour stop resumed in clean three foot waves on Saturday morning.
Fitzgibbons, the 2011 ASP Women’s World Runner-Up, had arrived in New Zealand straight from a successful skirmish at Bells Beach in Australia and was keen on keeping the momentum going. The confidence gained by prevailing over the world’s best female surfers
in the previous event gave her a slight psychological edge, one that she was making full use of. However, she had stumbled during her Round 3 heat of the latest ASP Women’s World Title Series event and thus found herself taking the longer and harder road to
reach the Quarter-finals.
Pitted against Fitzgibbons in the third heat of Round 4 was Woods. The latter had been nothing short of impressive during the last few days either and hardly seemed like someone who would easily handover victory to her rival.
As the showdown between the two Australians began, Fitzgibbons wasted little time in getting an advantage over her rival by locking her first business-wave to post a 6.17 on the score-board. Keeping the momentum going, she immediately got in a position to
charge another relatively juicy wave, adding an additional 5.47 points to her account to take her heat-total to 11.64 points.
Woods, on the other hand, was not having the best of luck with the waves. After a patient wait, she managed to find a 6.17-point ride to get back in the battle. However, she failed to back it up with another good score. Collecting a 2.67 off her second business-wave,
she finished with a heat-total of 8.84 points, consequently conceding victory and thus the Quarter-final spot to her rival.
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