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After a spectacular performance at the Quiksilver In Memory
Of Eddie Aikau last week, Kelly Slater entered the Billabong Pipeline Masters
with plenty of momentum. The nine-time ASP World Champ has won Pipe six times
— his first victory coming at the age of 20, in 1992, and his most recent
last year, at the age of 36. In addition to those six wins, Slater has also
placed 2nd seven times, making for a ridiculous 13 Pipe Masters finals
appearances.
2009 seemed different, though. Having no stake in the
tight world title race or competitive Triple Crown ratings, Kelly was in prime
“letting go” fashion, riding funky moontail quads and posting a near-flawless
19.33 heat score in a dominating matchup with local wildcard Hank Gaskell in
Round Three. In Round Four, Slater defeated Hawaiian hero Fred Pattachia, 17.10-14.5,
before busting out his double-stringered 5’6” concave-deck thing-a-ma-jig for
the quarterfinals, held early yesterday morning in pristine four to six-foot
Backdoor rights. Slater again easily handled the last remaining wildcard, Flynn
Novak, 17.24-13.87, before drawing Dean Morrison in the semifinals.
Which leads us to the other two East Coast surfers in
the Billabong Pipeline Masters quarterfinals. Damien Hobgood cruised through
his first two heats, easily downing four-time Pipe Master Andy Irons in Round
Three before defeating on-fire grom John John Florence in Round Four. Here’s
where things get interesting: Damo surfed against Morrison in the first heat of
the Quarterfinals, and Dean was holding onto a miniscule lead with less than a
minute remaining. Damien only needed a 3-something to overtake Dingo, and
paddled for a last-ditch left underneath Morrison’s priority. Dean scrambled
too from behind the bubble, and as Damo caught the wave and started to stand up,
Morrison “accidentally” pulled Damo’s leash, leading to a barrage of bad North Shore jokes and one visibly pissed
off Hobgood. “What’s up, Burkhart?” Damien said to Dean upon exiting the water.
And then, upon protesting his case to the powers that be, “Tell Perry
[Hatchett, head ASP judge] that Rick Kane’s here to see him!” In the end, the
leg pull was ruled accidental, but Kelly showcased his sneaky sense of humor by
responding to a question about surfing against Dean in the semifinals with a
barbed “I hope he doesn’t pull my leash” quip.
As for CJ? Well, he beat Big Island legend Shane
Dorian in Round Three and manhandled retiring ASP surfer Phil MacDonald in
Round Four, but couldn’t get past a rampaging Dane Reynolds in the
quarterfinals. Many were hoping for a Kelly-Dane Quiksilver death duel in the
Pipe Masters final, but after Kelly waxed Dingo 16.17-7.00 to make his record
90th heat at Pipe, unexpected finalist Taj Burrow defeated Dane and set up a thirty-something
showdown. Unfortunately, in the hour between the semifinals and the final, when
several Hawaiian Expression Sessions went down — including a classic one
with Rory Russell, Gerry Lopez, and Michael and Derek Ho — the onshore
winds picked up and the flawless Pipe lineup of the morning turned into a
crumbly, windy, closed out, four-foot mess.
Those conditions obviously favored the electric Taj
— several times throughout the day the webcast commentators repeated the
belief that Kelly would almost certainly win in any barrels of consequence. While
Burrow opened with an alley-oop for a 7.0 and surfed every wave like it was a
crappy Australian beachie, Kelly prowled the lineup looking for the 8.9 he
needed throughout the heat to overtake Taj. “Part of me wanted to get over
there and make sure no right barrels came in, so that if they did, I was on
‘em,” Kelly said in a post-heat interview with Marcus Sanders of Surfline.com.
“But the other half of me said, ‘I should sneak over there and get a couple
lefts.’ I didn’t commit either way, so I was stuck in the middle the whole
time. Unfortunately the final had the absolute worst conditions of the
contest.”
But remember that in last year’s Pipeline Masters
semifinal against Timmy Reyes, Slater was comboed and came back to win in three
short minutes. This year, he did sneak into the only barrel of the final, a
late Backdoor drop that led to a quick cover-up and a decidedly low score of a
3.93. “I thought the wave would be more than a three,” Slater said. “I thought
the judges put me in a weird situation there.”
“He certainly wasn’t very deep,” ASP judge and proud
East Coaster Jeff Klugel told ESM Assignment
Writer/ ESPN.com contributor Jon Coen. “If you’re judging barrels all day, that
little thing wouldn’t even register. You have to adapt to what the waves give
you.” Kelly tried a little adaptation at the end of the heat, when he nearly landed
a full-rotation no-grab frontside 360 air, but Taj knew he had snuck away with
a win under Slater’s shadow, and got chaired up the beach to repeated cheers of
“Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi!”
Slater was magnanimous after the heat and congratulated
Taj on his first Pipe Masters title, but seemed taken aback by the Aussie
domination of the 2009 tour when discussing his plans for 2010. “I don’t know
if I’m going to do the tour full-time next year. I’m sort of feeling it out. I
had a pretty lackluster year in a lot of ways, both personally and
competitively, and it probably showed in my surfing.”
For more on
the Billabong Pipeline Masters and Vans Triple Crown Of Surfing, visit www.triplecrownofsurfing.com
For final
ASP World Tour ratings and 2010 information, visit www.aspworldtour.com
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