Kelly Slater continues to build momentum with Round 3 win at Volcom Fiji Pro

Kelly Slater continues to build momentum with Round 3 win at Volcom Fiji Pro

American phenom Kelly Slater comfortably made it through into the fourth round at Volcom Fiji Pro, the fourth of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour, after dominating Hawaii’s Fredrick Patacchia in the seventh heat of Round 3 that went down at the alternate venue of Restaurants in Tavarua, Fiji, on Saturday, June 9.

Making his return from an ankle injury that had caused him to miss the Brazilian stop of the ASP World Tour, the 11-time ASP World Champion had suffered an early disappointment in the first round of Volcom Fiji Pro. However, he had bounced back strongly with a convincing Round 2 win to step into the third round.

“That was a lot of fun,” Slater said. “It’s a little anticlimactic after what went down yesterday, but it’s really fun Restaurants and there are some nice barrels. It’s a little tricky, you’ve got to watch the waves because there are some big sets coming in and the medium ones are better. Freddy [Patacchia] beat me out here once and I got him once but it doesn’t matter who it is, whoever gets the good waves is probably going to win the heat.”

The conditions on offer during the latest day of the competition were pretty different from the one that Slater had surfed in during his previous heat, though that was expected to have little to no affect on his performance at all.

The four-to-six foot waves on offer at Restaurants promised to deliver plenty of memorable action, with the juicy waves serving as an ideal stage for the elite surfers to put their big-wave riding prowess on display.

Pitted against Patacchia in a man-on-man battle during the seventh heat of Round 3, Slater was being tipped as the heavy favourite, naturally. As the heat kicked-off, the Florida-based surfer did not waste any time in justifying the odds being in his favour.

Getting hold of an excellent barrel in the opening minutes of the heat, Slater posted an impressive 9.27 on the score-board to grab an early lead. Keeping the momentum going, he immediately backed it up with an 8.87-point ride to get to a heat-total of 18.14 points.

Patacchia seemed at a loss of ideas in front of his rival’s onslaught. Scoring a 5.00 and 7.50 off his best-two waves, the Hawaiian surfer finished with a heat-total of 12.50 points, consequently succumbing to his rival.

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Posted by Muhammad Qasim Hassan on Jun 10 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.