10.9.08

Kelly Slater vs Sunny Garcia round 3 at Trestles


What an awesome heat, there was so much buzz about this heat you would think it was the final! It was awesome to see the man Garcia back in a WCT event, looking super fit and focused. Garcia is currently in a great position on the WQS to re qualify for the world cup tour in 09`.
Kelly opened up the exchange with a great inside wave, the wave was pretty average, but Kelly is Kelly right? He looked super planted on that tiny little board he was riding, which though it looked like a 5`8" was actually a 6` pin tail. Throwing the tail out super committed, super critical, the wave went all the way threw and Kelly pulled down a 7 point ride.


Sunny replied with a short ride, but that signature, Sunny power hack to post a 6 point ride.
There were a few throw away rides then Kelly slammed out a 9.33, taking a sweet set wave all the way through, doing so many turns and riding it so far in that he stood there for a minute thinking about whether to paddle out or do a run around.
Sunny came back with possible the best left of the event, throwing down pure power turns right in the pocket again and again to score an 8.0 and pull himself out of combo land.
Sunny and Kelly looked more like 2 mates having a free surf then a world title contender and a legend trying to re qualify!
Awesome surfing from 2 of the sports most well known and admired ambassadors.

In the end Kelly moved onto round 4 and one step closer to clinching that 9th world title, love him or hate him, that is freaking awesome!

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