Willian Cardoso and Hizunome Bettero move into the Semi-finals at Burton Toyota Pro – Surfing News
Brazil’s Willian Cardoso and his fellow countryman Hizunome Bettero prevailed in their respective Quarter-finals of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star Burton Toyota Pro at Newcastle’s Surfest that continued at Merewether Beach in New South
Wales, Australia, on Sunday, March 18.
Cardoso forced Australia’s Chris Friend to bow out to him in the third Quarter-final, while Bettero got the better of Australia’s Mitch Crews in the fourth Quarter-final to confirm their spot in the Semi-finals.
A large number of top surfers from around the globe had converged to Newcastle to battle it out for the coveted winner’s prize and ASP rating points that were on offer at the latest ASP 6-Star event. The opportunity to test their skills against each other
in decent surfing conditions was another factor that had attracted the surfers to the ASP World Qualifying Series (WQS) event. Since the start of the event, the surfers received waves in the two-to-three foot range. However, the size had increased to four
feet on Sunday, which was expected to be the final day of the event.
After holding their own against world class surfers over the last few days, Cardoso and Friend came face-to-face in the third Quarter-final. Both the surfers were expected give it their all to get their hands on the win to advance further in the competition.
As the man-on-man battle got underway, Cardoso drew first blood with a 6.27-point wave and went through a series of average-scores before locking his second business-wave to post an 8.63 points on the score-board, moving to a heat-total of 14.90 points.
Friend got off to a slow start, but picked up momentum as the heat entered the final stages to eventually post a 7.27 on the scoreboard off his first business-wave. Catching another juicy wave, he had an opportunity to take the win, but he only managed to
score a 7.13 off it to finish with a heat-total of 14.40 points, consequently conceding victory and thus the Semi-final slot to Cardoso due to a 0.50-point deficit.
The last Quarter-final featured yet another intense battle between a Brazilian and an Australian, this time Bettero and Crews pushing each other to the limit in a battle for the coveted Semi-final slot.
The Brazilian surfer only caught three waves during the course of the heat, but managed to make two of them really count. He scored a 7.33 off his first business-wave and followed it up with an 8.83-point wave to finish with a heat-total of 16.16 points.
Crews put on a strong fight to challenge Bettero’s heat-total, but eventually ended up falling short by 0.40 points after scoring a 6.33 and 9.43 off his best-two waves, consequently conceding the Semi-final spot to his Brazilian rival.
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