Santiago Muniz takes out the ASP 3-Star Rip Curl Pro Piedras Negras – Surfing news
Argentina’s Santiago Muniz held Brazil’s David do Carmo at bay in the final of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 3-Star Rip Curl Pro Piedras Negras to walk away a winner.
The three-to-four foot waves on offer at the left-hand break of Piedras Negras in Ilo, Moquegua, Peru, on Saturday, June 8, 2013, tested the endurance and presence of mind of both the finalists.
The Argentinean surfer, however, made some excellent wave selections to get to a decisive heat-total and consequently walk away with a winner’s prize cheque of U$ 8,000, as well as 750 coveted ASP ranking points.
“I’m so emotional for winning my first ASP event,” said Muniz. “It feels great to win in such an incredible place, with such nice people and with perfect waves all week long here at Piedras Negras. Everybody surfed at such a high level and pushed each other
throughout the competition. Next up is Arica and I’m looking forward to doing well there too.”
Muniz, who also happens to be the younger brother of ASP World Championship Tour (ASP) campaigner, had been in fine form over the last few days and, much to the relief of his supporters, he continued to display that formidable form on the final day of the
competition as well.
He took down Brazil’s Yago Dora in the quarter-final and went on to remove another Brazilian, Ricardo dos Santos, from the contention for the event title by claiming a comprehensive win over him in the semi-finals.
Upon reaching the final, he found himself pitted against yet another Brazilian, Do Carmo, who had taken down Uruguay’s Marco Giorgi and Brazil’s Thiago Guimaraes to get himself a shot at the title.
With both the surfers seemingly high on confidence, their encounter was expected to feature plenty of fireworks.
As the final got underway, Muniz got down to business right away and started navigating his way through the irregular and inconsistent waves to find himself a potential scoring opportunity.
His persistence awarded him with a couple of good scores that added up together to give him a heat-total of 14.90 points.
Do Carmo, on the other hand, adopted a rather conservative approach, apparently waiting for a good wave to show up before making his move. However, things did not exactly go as he had planned, with the sea not sending a juicy and potentially high-scoring
wave in his direction.
The Brazilian surfer still managed to get to a two-wave total of 13.00 points, but it was clearly inadequate and therefore allowed his rival to walk away with the win.
The battle for the overall win did not fail to live up to the expectations of the crowd after all.
The next event on the ASP South America Surf Series schedule, ASP 3-Star Monster Energy presents Maui and Sons Arica Pro by Sony, will run at El-Gringo in Arica, Chile, from June 10-15.
Tags: