Tiago Pires and Masatoshi Ohno claim victory in Round 1 heats at ASP Prime Mr Price Pro Ballito
Portugal’s Tiago Pires and Japan’s Masatoshi Ohno kicked-off the Mr Price Pro Ballito, an Association of surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime event, with an ideal result in their respective Round 1 (Round of 96) heats that went down at Willards Beach in KwaDukuza,
South Africa, on Tuesday, July 3.
Pires got top honours in the opening heat of Round 1 to advance through into the second round (Round of 48), while South Africa’s Chad Du Toit successfully extended his life in the event as well through second-place finish. Brazil’s Yuri Sodre and Spain’s
Gony Zubizarreta were forced to make an early exit from the competition field after failing to finish higher than third and fourth place respectively.
The second heat saw Ohno walk away with top honours, while Brazil’s Wiggolly Dantas secured runner-up place. Both the surfers consequently moved into the next round of the competition. America’s Tanner Gudauskas and Tim Reyes got eliminated from the event
after rounding out the bottom-two positions.
The fifth ASP Prime event of the season saw both inexperienced and seasoned surfers converging to the primary event site to engage in a battle for top honours and earn a hefty amount of coveted ASP ranking points in the process. The clean one-metre waves
on offer at Willards Beach were expected to lead to an intense competition between the highly skilled surfers.
The competition began with Pires taking on Du Toit, Sodre and Zubizarreta in the opening heat of Round 1. Currently ranked 15 on the ASP World Championship Tour rankings, the Portuguese surfer struggled to adjust to the conditions on hand. After putting
in a lot of effort, he managed to reach a heat-total of 11.60 points, which proved sufficient to seal the deal and take him through into the next round.
Despite being familiar with the conditions, Du Toit failed to put on a very impressive performance. The combined wave-score of 10.40, however, saved him from elimination and sent him through into Round 2 as well.
Sodre and Zubizarreta failed to make much of an impact during the course of the battle and finishing with a two-wave total of 10.16 and 9.20 points respectively, consequently having to make a premature exit from the competition.
The second heat saw Oho steal the show with his impressive back-hand manoeuvres. He collected a 5.83 and a decisive 8.10 off his best-two waves to finish with a heat-total of 13.93. The score put him 0.37 ahead of Dantas’ score, consequently earning him
first position while causing the latter to settle for a runner-up finish.
Gudauskas finished in third place with a heat-total of 12.77 points, while Reyes rounded out the bottom position with a two-wave total of 8.30 points. Both the surfers ended up getting eliminated in the opening hour of the competition.
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