Tomas Hermes and Matt Banting move into Australian Open of Surfing Quarter-finals – Surfing News
Brazil’s Tomas Hermes and Australia’s Matt Banting won their Round 5 (Round of 16) heats of Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star Australian Open of Surfing that went down at Manly Beach, Australia, on Saturday, February 18.
The surfing fans gathered at the event site got treated to yet another day of thrilling action as the exciting surfers displayed their prowess while competing for a place in the Quarter-finals.
Pitted against the formidable Brazilian force Jordy Smith in the fifth heat, the scales were not exactly tipping in Hermes favour. While he had been putting on sensational performances over the last few days, the skills and experience of Smith could not
be undermined as a decisive factor.
As the man-on-man battle got underway, the South African begin his charge in the early minutes. Paddling towards the first promising wave that appeared, he posted a 6.17 on the score-board. He soon followed it up with a 6.07-point wave to take his heat-total
of 12.24 points.
Hermes became a bit pro-active as the heat progressed and managed to lock his first business-wave to earn a 6.73 and soon followed it up with a 6.40-point wave. The resultant heat-total of 13.13 allowed him to finish 0.89 points ahead of his intimidating
rival, creating one of the biggest upsets of the day.
The action continued at Manly Beach with Banting taking on Ireland’s Glenn Hall in the sixth heat. The 17-year-old Pro Macquarie-based surfer had been nothing short of spectacular in the previous rounds. However, he took the competition to an entirely new
level in his latest heat.
Locking his first business-wave, Banting posted an impressive 9.40 on the score-board and later managed to back it up with a near-perfect 9.93-point wave for a heat-total of 19.33 points, the highest two-wave total of the event so far.
Hall clearly had his work cut out for him and needed to come up with something very special to threaten his rival’s lead. However, the task proved to a wall too high for him to climb and he eventually surrendered victory to Banting after finishing with a
heat-total of 12.57 points, which included a 6.27 and 6.30-point wave.
Banting will find himself pitted against an in-form Hermes in the Australian Open of Surfing Quarter-finals on Sunday.
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