Round 4 kicked off three-man heats with Filipe Toledo, Joel Parkinson and Conner Coffin. Toledo kicked off heat 1 with a 9.17 followed by a 9.20 then a 10 - the first of the season. Parko and Coffin were faced with combination situations with only a couple of minutes left on the clock. Toledo goes straight through to the quarterfinals with Parko and Coffin to battle it out in round 5.
Ibelli take to the water at sunset. Wilko continued to show his fire with the strongest score of 14.10 for the heat to de Souza’s 11.80 and Ibelli’s 10.50.
Heat 3 kicked off with the swell has dropped but the wind has swung to smooth out the waves with lines stacked out to sea. Sebastian Zietz, Kolohe Andino and Adrian Buchan hit the line-up and Seabass dropped a 9.00 early in the heat to kick things off. Andino was lagging behind but an air in the last few minutes of the competition brought him back into the heat with the final minutes a tight heat waiting for scores to drop after the horn. Andino goes through to quarterfinals with 16.10 against Buchan’s 15.74 and Zietz’s 15.33.
Kanoa Igarashi , John John Florence and Stuart Kennedy took to the water for heat 4. Kennedy dominated the heat with Florence getting busy as the horn went so waiting for scores to drop with Florence going straight through to the quarterfinals with 11.90 to Kennedy’s 11.43 and Igarashi’s 4.74.
In the afternoon, round 5 kicked off with Joel Parkinson and Caoli Ibelli having a slow start. There was a restart after 10 minutes then being called into the beach for the siren to blow with a beach start so the surfers had to run back through the keyhole into the line-up. After a few minutes Parko took the first wave with Ibelli to answer back immediately. Parko found the waves he needed after the slow start with a 16.07 to Ibelli’s 12.66.
Rookie Conner Coffin and world champ Adriano de Souza hit the line-up for heat 2. Coffin had an impressive start with an 8.00 but didn’t find the waves he needed to match de Souza’s power and 13.76 score to Coffin’s 12.77.
Heat 3 Kanoa Igarashi and Adrian Buchan were matched up. Igarashi was pushed into a combo situation with less than five minutes to go when Buchan’s only two waves of the heat were a 16.04 to Igarashi’s 9.87.
As the sun set the final heat of round 5 kicked off with Stuart Kennedy and Sebastian Zietz. Kennedy set the tone for his heat score with a 7.00 for his first wave and pushing Seabass into a combo situation in the final five minutes. Kennedy then dropped a 9.00 in the final minutes going through to the quarterfinals with a 17.67 to Zietz’s 10.77.
