On the other hand, Cory Lopez doesn’t appear to need to change too much at all, as far as competitive formulas go. He finally got his first WCT ten point ride today. It would be considered a comical calamity by all that have witnessed his surfing, in small and big stuff, that the nine year long WCT spirit should take such a lengthy time to score his first top shelf ten. He was finally rewarded today.
“You’ve got to fight and hang on in the guts of those waves. I was hoping for the best, I kind of almost wrote myself off at first, because I was paddling so deep and eating it. That’s what I thought when I got to the bottom of that wave (the 10 pointer).”
“I pumped high, and kept hoping for it, and I could feel it breathing on me, and the whitewash started hitting my board a little bit, but the wave was a good wave, and it let me come out!”
There’s greatness in that skinny square-shouldered frame of a man. Whether it’s fishing, or charging any wave, the lad just goes. Last week he jumped out of a boat into the water, and dove 15ft down, wearing a full south-wester, to wrestle a harpooned 50lb+ Mahi Mahi to the surface because the line to the spear broke in the battle between big man and big fish.
Look at the portrait of him in the surfer’s profiles section on the ASP web site www.aspworldtour.com . Look at those eyes, and the determination they categorically state. Why hasn’t Cory Lopez got an ‘official’ ten before?
“I guess it’s because I pulled in too deep, too often,” smiled Lopez back on a boat after his win over Taylor Knox.
The second perfect ten of the day – the official tens (there were many unofficial ones), was from Kalani Robb (HAW) in his heat against Mark Occhilupo (AUS) in heat 12, the elder charging like a grommet, but the 28 year old grommet Hawaiian ruling in the end with majestic runs whilst Occhilupo failed to find the open specimens.
There were three virgin tens out of four in round three this strange but awesome day. The journalists who dared to ask Kalani Robb (HAW) if what we saw today, a ridiculously deep run on a dark evil wave, was his first 10, didn’t do themselves any favours, though Robb humoured them. He was asked the question more than once.
“Of course I’ve had 10’s before!” said K-Robb later, after agreeing with the rest of the journalists that it was his first ten, too nonchalant to detail that it wasn’t. For the record, he’s had multiple tens, including in Hawaii, Reunion and G-land in Java.
Point is, Robb is such a good surfer, regularly a deserving member of the top 16, but if he could surf more consistently to the standards he is capable of, the journalists might remember more readily. It’s been a long time between 10’s.
The virgins, besides Lopez, were Tom Whitaker (AUS) and Brazilian Paulo Moura. It was a day of Brazilian celebration as Moura racked up a 9.4 opener then crowned it with a 10 against a surfer he respects so much in Mick Fanning. The Brazilian is not alone in his appraisal there, but hats off to him.
He become a national hero back at home where surfing is the giant South American country’s second biggest ranking sport, Globo Sports TV’s crew here at the Billabong Pro Tahiti, so excited with his achievement that they went live to 55 million people.
“I was a little bit nervous in the beginning of my heat, because I was against Mick Fanning, such a good and respected surfer, but the waves were really good, and I want so much to do good here” said Moura
“After my first wave got a 9.4 I said to myself ‘just relax, enjoy, and surf well. Get barrels and your time will come’. The next wave came to me and it was a good big one. I looked at it and decided I was going no matter what, because I felt so confident.”
“It was a super late take-off, and I pulled into the barrel and it opened for me good, so big, so long – for sure one of my best moments I ever had in Teahupoo, not to mention the first 10-point wave of my career.”
“Back on the outside I knew Mick Fanning is an excellent surfer and could come back at any time, even though I had 19.4. A wave didn’t come for him until a few minutes from the end, and he got a nine point something, and he was back in the game but I had priority, so I could hold the heat.”
