Smith, Zietz, Kerr and Fanning move into the quarter-finals at Volcom Fiji Pro – Surfing news
South Africa’s Jordy Smith, Hawaii’s Sebastian Zietz, Australia’s Josh Kerr and his compatriot Mick Fanning successfully made it into the quarter-finals of Volcom Fiji Pro, the fourth stop on the 2013 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship
Tour, after walking away victorious from their respective Round 5 heats, which went down at Cloudbreak in Tavarua, Fiji, on Tuesday, June 11, 2013.
With the proceedings of the latest day taking place in pumping six-to-eight foot waves at the main event venue, the crowd were getting treated to a heavy dose of enthralling action.
With four of the eight spots in the quarter-finals already taken by the surfers who claimed success in their Round 4 heats, the battle was on for the remaining four spots between the surfers who had failed to hold their own in their previous heat.
The first heat of Round 5 saw Smith locking horns with France’s Jeremy Flores in a one-on-one battle for survival.
As the battle got underway, both the surfers became busy in their hunt for a couple of two big scores to strengthen their chances of clinching the win.
The heat went down to the wire, with both Smith and Flores clearly not willing to settle for anything less than a win. However, when the dust settled, it was the South African surfer who stood victorious after finishing with a heat-total of 14.50 points
against his rival’s two-wave total of 14.43 points.
The second heat featured a battle between Zietz and Australia’s Taj Burrow. The latter was clearly the more experienced of the two and therefore the favourite to win the heat, but that is not exactly how the heat ended.
Despite putting on an impressive performance and getting to a challenging heat-total of 15.23 points, Burrow was unable to keep Zietz from walking away with the win after the latter collected a couple of really good scores to register a heat-total of 15.97
points.
Kerr found himself pitted against America’s Nat Young in the third heat.
Despite putting on an impressive show in nearly all his previous heats since the start of the competition, the young American surfer found himself answerless to Kerr’s superb performance, which ended up getting him to a heat-total of 18.76 points.
Young responded with a less-than-ordinary heat-total of 7.83 points to his rival’s intimidating score, thus getting forced to surrender victory.
The latest remaining spot in the quarter-finals was clinched by Fanning, after he stamped his authority over America’s Kolohe Andino in the fourth heat with a marvellous performance.
The Australian surfer collected a couple of scores in the nine-point range to register a heat-total of 19.53 points, whereas Andino finished with a two-wave total of 14.34 points.
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