Individual sports can be tricky, because sometimes it’s just the other person’s day. Surf competitions have lots of strategy, but often times one can do everything right and still come up short. At the moment, nobody knows this better than
Individual sports can be tricky, because sometimes it’s just the other person’s day. Surf competitions have lots of strategy, but often times one can do everything right and still come up short.
At the moment, nobody knows this better than Sebastian Zietz. I’m sure if someone had told Seabass that he’d head to the Oakley Bali Pro and impress the judges to the tune of a 19.37 out of 20 in the opening round, he’d assume he had advanced rather comfortably.
That turned out not to be the case as he and John John Florence put on one of the most memorable opening round heats in some time, with the Oahu boy just edging the Kauai boy. Florence snapped off the first perfect 10 of the event with an aerial maneuver some have already called the largest in competition history.
“I was in the air and saw the bottom and everything happened so fast that I was just reacting,” Florence told the Association of Surfing Professionals after hitting the beach. “I claimed it pretty hard, but I was so stoked. The ankle is strapped but the brace gives me a lot of confidence and it feels good out there. Just psyched to be at Keramas, this wave is amazing and the boys are ripping so hard.”
He wasn’t lying. The waves got better as the day progressed and in the final heat of the round, Zietz put up a score that would have easily won every other heat. But his second place still got him into the second round, where he was able to knock off Australia’s Kieren Perrow.
His prize for that accomplishment? A head-to-head rematch with John John in round three.
It seems fitting that they should meet again, though it would have been more appropriate later in the competition.
Seabass is having a successful rookie season on the World Championship Tour, with a pair of quarterfinal appearances in his past two events. Yet he seems to have been running into these huge performances with more regularity. Not winning with a 19.37 comes just a couple weeks after Kelly Slater welcomed the newbie with a perfect 20 in the quarters at the Volcom Fiji Pro.
It’s why individual sports are so difficult to dominate, and that much more impressive when dominated. Someone like Tiger Woods, when at his most overpowering, didn’t have to just play great golf, he had to sit back and hope nobody else played even greater.
Surf events are similar, because while one competitor can do everything right and take full advantage of priority, they can become powerless to the whims of the water and an opponent’s ubiquity.
We’ll see in round three if Seabass has better luck this time against Hawaii’s other next big thing. He may need a perfect 20, just to be safe.
Keep tabs on the event at www.oakleyprobali.com.
• ‘My Thoughts Exactly’ appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays in The Garden Island. Email David Simon your comments or questions to dsimon@thegardenisland.com. Follow David on Twitter @SimonTGI
