J-Bay Goes Off!
The waves are firing at the Corona Open J-Bay, and Jordy Smith absolutely smashed his Elimination Round heat against an in-form Caio Ibelli to cruise into Round 3.
The men's elimination round is done and dusted at the 9th spot on the tour, which was called on in cranking 4-6ft lines (6-8ft sets due to build throughout the day). Sadly, both other South Africans Adin Masencamp and Matt McGillivray could not match their compatriot with berths into the third round. It was another agonisingly close loss for McGillivray, who lost to Barron Mamiya (HAW) by 0.1pt, while Masencamp couldn't stay with an explosive Ethan Ewing. In Heat 3, Jack Robinson (AUS) took down 11-time World Champion Kelly Slater (USA) to keep his chances alive of making the Top 5.
In other news, Jack Robinson (AUS) took down Kelly Slater, Kanoa Igarashi took down Liam O'Brien (AUS), and Ian Gentil (HAW) ended Italo Ferreira's (BRA) hopes for a good result at J-Bay.
“The waves are pumping, it’s an easy call this morning,” said WSL Tours and Competition’s Travis Logie. “We’re going to monitor the consistency in these first few heats to decide if we will do overlapping heats. Today and tomorrow looks like the best days in the window, so we’ll do our best to capitilise on it.”
In the women's rounds, Sarah Baum booked a berth straight through into Round 3 yesterday for a stellar heat in very inconsistent, small Supers that saw just two heats run before the inconsistency shut off the event. After losing to Baum yesterday Carissa Moore came charging back to eliminate Johanne Defay (FRA), and the other loser in Round 1 yesterday Lakey Petersen put paid to Caitlin Simmers' (USA) hopes.
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