A busy day at El Salvador’s Punta Roca. Men’s Elimination Round and the Round of 16 ran in running rights at the Surf City El Salvador Pro. It was onshore and wonky at times, but the post-cut matchups continue to entertain. With three of the top five surfers out of the draw, the leaderboard will look a lot different at the end of the event.
All photos by Aaron Hughes/World Surf League
Whatever Yago Dora is doing in El Salvador, keep doing it. The Brazilian continued his aerial wizardry, handily dispatching world No. 7 Jake Marshall.
What a day for local wildcard Byran Perez. In beating Italo Ferreira in the first ER heat of the day, he became the first El Salvadorian to win a CT heat. He briefly held the lead against John Florence in the Rough of 16. No shame in going down when swinging at titans.
Cosby Colapinto, now top 10 in the world and onto his second quarterfinals of the year. Pocket 8s and the highest heat total of the day at 16.67 points.
John John Florence is a patient surfer. Until he’s not. Here he is on the fast track to a heavy-footed 8.93 with blistering turns.
Matthew McGillivray unloaded the arsenal and destroyed many a fantasy team by taking down Ethan Ewing, just his second win over the Australian in six total matchups.
Ethan Ewing will feel like he left some meat on the stones at Punta Roca.
After demolishing the lip multiple times on this wave, Gabriel Medina got out on the rocks with nearly two minutes remaining in his heat against Ryan Callinan. His 7.67 was good enough for the win and yet another come-from-behind W.
Kanoa Igarashi lost by three-hundredths of a point to Matthew McGillivray, but not for lack of hucking it.
The judges gave Griffin Colapinto a paddling interference at the start of his heat against Joao Chianca. Despite launching a massive air reverse for a 9.43, the highest single-wave score of the day, Griffin didn’t advance with his second counting wave halved by the penalty.
Griffin and Tommy Whitaker, commiserating.
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