Kelly Slater and Dusty Payne claim success in opening round of 2012 Hurley Pro

American surfing legend Kelly Slater and Hawaiian powerhouse Dusty Payne emerged triumphant in their respective Round 1 heats at the 2012 Hurley Pro, sixth of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour, which went down at Lower Trestles in San Clemente, California, on Sunday, September 16.

With Slater walking away with the win in the third heat to qualify straight into the third round, Portugal’s Tiago Pires finished in second place while America’s Taylor Knox had to settle for third place. Both the surfers were consequently relegated to the second round.

The fourth heat saw Payne advance straight into the third round, whereas Australia’s Kai Otton and Hawaii’s John John Florence were forced to take a trip to the relegation Round 2 after rounding out the second and third place respectively.

With two-to-four foot waves on offer at the iconic beach-break of Lower Trestles, the huge crowd in attendance along with the global audience catching the action live through webcast anticipated a series of exciting performances by the elite ASP surfers.

Squaring-off with Pires and Knox in the third heat, the 11-time reigning ASP Champion Slater wasted no time in display his class. The Florida-based surfer went to work early in the heat and managed to find himself an 8.33-point ride and later added an additional 7.33 points to his account, thus reaching a heat-total of 15.66 points, which held up until the end to see him through to victory.

“I’ve got to be honest, I’m not surprised it was a slow one because I had Taylor Knox in my heat,” Slater said. “He’s had the most restarts ever at Trestles before for some reason. I wanted to win that first one because I haven’t been surfing that much lately. I surfed all day yesterday and I’m kind of tired today. The last few weeks I haven’t surfed a whole lot and I’m trying to figure out new boards.”

Pires collected a couple of scores in the five-point range, thus finishing in second place with a heat-total of 10.90 points.

Knox struggled to adjust to the conditions on hand and only managed to register a heat-total of 8.10 points, which included a 4.33 and 3.77-point ride.

The next heat saw Payne take down Otton and Florence after scoring a 6.00 and 6.47 off his best-two waves to end the heat with a two-wave total of 12.47 points.

Otton finished just behind him with a heat-total of 12.00 points, which comprised of a 5.60 and 6.40-point ride.

Florence, who had been in excellent form throughout the season, struggled to make a solid impact in his first heat of the event, scoring a 5.00 and 4.00 off his best-two waves to finish with a heat-total of 9.00 points.

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Posted by Muhammad Qasim Hassan on Sep 17 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.