Rip Curl Search SF: Saluting the King

Despite all the banter harking awful paddle-outs and fickle waves, the first two days of the Rip Curl Pro Search "Somewhere in San Francisco" have been a frenzy of excitement.  Tubes have been plundered, lips hacked, floaters dropped and history has been made.

 Yesterday, on a day that dished out set after set of majestically peeling bombs, the beach was packed in anticipation of Kelly Slater's third round heat. Needing to simply advance through this round to claim an unprecedented 11th World Title, Slater was patient as always.  


Paddling out to a northern peak that the field otherwise shunned, he dropped into a few fizzling closeouts and found himself significantly behind Aussie Daniel Ross about midway through the heat.  With about ten minutes remaining the King took a chance on a frothing shack, momentarily stealing the crowds breath, but got swallowed up in the belly of the beast.  

As the clock churned down to under five minutes, it started to look like it might not be Slaters day, when suddenly a promising set appeared on the horizon. The feathering right opened up teasing him to do his worst. With knifelike precision he accelerated smoothly down the line, systematically linking hack after hack all the way through the inside.  The crowd erupted in a frenzy.  The King had come to be crowned at Ocean Beach.

While the tour championship may be wrapped up, the contest here in SF is still anyone's to win, and with many competitors on top of their game-- including Owen Wright who blew up a wave following Kelly's heat, in what he thought was free-surf time-- you can be sure that there is more action to come.  


Today the competitors are off, and the current projection looks like we won't have anything solid/surfable for at least a few days. When they do return to the water we finish off the third round with Josh Kerr (AUS) taking on Tiago Pires (PRT) and Jordy Smith (ZAF) looking to best American phenom Patrick Gudauskas. 


The winners from the final two heats from the third round will face off with Joel Parkinson (AUS). Round four heats are detailed below. 

Heat # 1 Men Round 4	singlet	plc	name	from
	Orange		Matt Wilkinson	AUS
	White		Taylor Knox	USA
	Yellow		Kieren Perrow	AUS

Heat # 2 Men Round 4	singlet	plc	name	from
	Orange		Gabriel Medina	BRA
	White		Miguel Pupo	BRA
	Yellow		Kelly Slater	USA

Heat # 3 Men Round 4	singlet	plc	name	from
	Orange		Owen Wright	AUS
	White		Alejo Muniz	BRA
	Yellow		Brett Simpson	USA

Heat # 4 Men Round 4	singlet	plc	name	from
	Orange		Joel Parkinson	AUS
	White		1.11	-
	Yellow		1.12	-