Day 1.2 (ie. The rest of round one)
By Tim Fisher

Surfers can be an uncharitable bunch. Today, the world’s top 45 surfers were presented with the best waves they’d seen since Jeffreys Bay. Jeffreys Bay was a long time ago. Four whole events, in fact. But even though it was offshore and solid, the surfers were not stoked. To be fair, the backup wave, Lagido, is not exactly A+. You wouldn’t even give it a B. It’s a “must try harder”, a fat left wall, and the early free-surf session was full of three stage cutbacks. If the best surfers in the world are doing three stage cutbacks, you know you are not looking at a good wave. But if it’s offshore at Lagido that means it is onshore at Supertubes, so for the fourth day in a row, we didn’t see a barrel ridden. Actually that’s not true. Man of the hour – hell, man of the month – Drew Courtney rode one. And it wasn’t just a head dip either. In the last heat of the day at a fat, B-grade backup wave, Drew Courtney dropped the hammer, posting the highest heat score of the day so far. The ONLY person this was a bummer for was Dustin Barca, who posted the second-highest heat score of the even so far. It was just one of those early round things that will be forgotten by tomorrow. Any other heat today, Barca would have smashed it. But Drew – hell, Drew might just be getting himself on a roll. This is a guy, don’t forget, who is a rookie at 30 years old, a rookie after ten years of chipping away on the WQS. In Spain he beat Parko and he beat Kai Otton and he came fifth. He is well below the requalification bubble at 32 on the ratings, but in a day where his fellow Aussies faltered and small-wave specialists went to pieces, Drew went to town. Sometimes, just surfing on a rail and putting everything you can into your turns will get you the scores.

You know who else knew this? Greg Emslie. Greg is one spot above Drew on the world tour rankings, three years old than him, and surfed the second last heat of the day, against Aritz Aranburu. And Greg ripped. He completely shut Aritz down. He scored an 8.5. Everyone else was getting through heats with fives and sixes. We like Greg. He’s a stylish surfer, but it’s not fashionable to say so. We’re going to say it, because sometimes, surfers like Greg and Drew deserve some credit because rail to rail surfing is what it’s all about. Don’t get me wrong, I love the new school. I love the wibbly-wobblies, the whirly-birds, the slob-grab 360s, but there’s something about seeing a mid-30s surfer going upside-down under the lip of a two foot wave that you can’t fail to be impressed by.

So round one was completed today.

Drew and Greg were the stories. Josh Kerr lost, and he cared. Wardo lost, and he didn’t. Others who lost and didn’t care who they showed their disappointment to included Mick Campbell, way down the rankings, and local wildcard Justin Mujica, who wanted to fly the flag for his country.

I don’t know about the New Format, I really don’t. It’s all academic when you’re watching the webcast, but when you’re here at an event, seeing these guys waiting it out day after day only to put it all on the line for 30 minutes at a wave they’ve never even seen before today, let alone surfed, well, I don’t know. It just ain’t right.

RIP CURL PRO SEARCH ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Heat 1: Jihad Khodr (BRA) 13.10 def. Tim Boal (FRA) 10.84
Heat 2: Heitor Alves (BRA) 8.50 def. David Weare (ZAF) 4.10
Heat 3: Nathaniel Curran (USA) 11.00 def. Tiago Pires (PRT) 9.67
Heat 4: Ben Dunn (AUS) 12.33 def. Phillip MacDonald (AUS) 11.67
Heat 5: Marlon Lipke (DEU) 14.66 def. Michel Bourez (PYF) 10.77
Heat 6: Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 11.84 def. Chris Davidson (AUS) 10.17
Heat 7: Owen Wright (AUS) 12.03 def. Kekoa Bacalso (HAW) 8.76
Heat 8: Kai Otton (AUS) 9.90 def. David Luis (PRT) 5.90
Heat 9: Dean Morrison (AUS) 12.50 def. Justin Mujica (PRT) 10.34
Heat 10: Bruno Santos (BRA) 14.67 def. Mick Campbell (AUS) 12.76
Heat 11: Michael Picon (FRA) 13.16 def. Chris Ward (USA) 8.73
Heat 12: Roy Powers (HAW) 14.17 def. Dayyan Neve (AUS) 11.00
Heat 13: Tim Reyes (USA) 12.00 def. Jay Thompson (AUS) 10.87
Heat 14: Nic Muscroft (AUS) 13.66 def. Josh Kerr (AUS) 6.00
Heat 15: Greg Emslie (ZAF) 15.67 def. Aritz Aranburu (EUK) 11.40
Heat 16: Drew Courtney (AUS) 17.17 def. Dustin Barca (HAW) 16.70

RIP CURL PRO SEARCH ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. Nathaniel Curran (USA)
Heat 2: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Roy Powers (HAW)
Heat 3: Tom Whitaker (AUS) vs. Heitor Alves (BRA)
Heat 4: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. Marlon Lipke (DEU)
Heat 5: Bobby Martinez (USA) vs. Nic Muscroft (AUS)
Heat 6: Taylor Knox (USA) vs. Drew Courtney (AUS)
Heat 7: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Kai Otton (AUS)
Heat 8: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Bruno Santos (BRA)
Heat 9: Kelly Slater (USA) vs. Owen Wright (AUS)
Heat 10: Dane Reynolds (USA) vs. Dean Morrison (AUS)
Heat 11: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. Michael Picon (FRA)
Heat 12: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. Greg Emslie (ZAF)
Heat 13: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Heat 14: Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) vs. Ben Dunn (AUS)
Heat 15: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Jihad Khodr (BRA)
Heat 16: Kieren Perrow (AUS) vs. Tim Reyes (USA)