Tomas Hermes and Travis Logie prevail in Round 1 heats at ASP Prime Mr Price Pro Ballito
Brazil’s Tomas Hermes and South Africa’s Travis Logie emerged triumphant in their respective Round 1 (Round of 96) heats at Mr Price Pro Ballito, an Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime event, which continued at Willards Beach in KwaDukuza, South
Africa, on Tuesday, July 3.
Australia’s Stu Kennedy finished right behind Hermes in runner-up place during the third heat to accompany the winner into the next round (Round of 48). America’s Conner Coffin and Brazil’s Jean Da Silva left the competition field early after rounding out
the third and fourth positions respectively.
The fourth heat saw South Africa’s Beyrick De Vries accompany his compatriot Logie into Round 2 after securing runner-up place. Hawaii’s Ho finished third, while Brazil’s Flavio Nakagima rounded out the bottom position to find themselves ejected from the
competition field.
The opening day of the latest Prime event of the season saw clean yet inconsistent one-metre waves on offer at the primary event site. The competition field comprising of local and international talent had to work hard to post decent scores on the score-board
and keep themselves alive in the contention for the event title.
The third heat saw Hermes put on an impressive performance to get the better of Kennedy, Coffin and Da Silva in the four-man bout. The Brazilian surfer secured a 5.50 off one of his first business-wave and backed it up with an exquisite 8.17-point ride to
finish with a heat-total of 13.67 points.
“I’m so happy to start this event with a good performance,” Hermes said. “This is my third year in Ballito, I love this place, it has beautiful waves with a lot of power and I’m happy with my result.”
Kennedy successfully extended his life in the event as well after finishing with a heat-total of 12.60 points.
Coffin finished third with a two-wave total of 11.33 points, while Da Silva rounded out the bottom-position after scoring a combined total of 5.37 points.
The next heat saw Logie get off to a slow start, but gradually build momentum to eventually unleash is fast lightening fast back-hand snaps to eventually finish with a winning heat-total of 13.70 points.
“It was a really tough heat, I think everyone had a pretty good score before I even took off on a wave,” Logie said. “I was getting a bit stressed out towards the end but I managed to get a set wave followed by another good one on the inside and pretty much
held the lead to the end.”
The wild-card entry De Vries made the most of his local knowledge of the waves to secure his place in the next round through a two-wave total of 12.17 points.
Ho finished in third place with a heat-total of 11.33 points, while Nakagima had to settle for a bottom-finish after scoring a 10.74 in total off his best-two waves.
Tags: