Cape Town’s Michael February and Hawaiian Zoe McDougall produced sparkling performances on day two of the Corona Durban Surf Pro presented by Quiksilver and Roxy, held in idyllic half-to-one metre waves at Dairy Beach, Durban.
February effortlessly dropped excellent range scores in both his Round of 24 and Round of 16 heats, using his trademark combination of rail carves and aerial manoeuvres on both his forehand and his backhand.
The Skullcandy rankings leader recorded the highest heat total of the men’s event, 17.90 out of 20, which included a near perfect 9.23 that matched the day’s highest single ride by Beyrick de Vries (uMhlanga).
‘There’s a fun A-Frame peak at Dairy, with really good lefts and I enjoy surfing on my backhand,’ said February. ‘That 9.23 was a right that stood up and after my first off-the-top it let me do three or four more turns without losing any speed.
‘I’m not too worried about the leader’s vest, as once I got through my first heat on Friday I couldn’t be overtaken, even if my closest rivals win this event. It’s great having these back-to-back QS1,000’s here at home, and get a decent seeding for the big events later in the year here and overseas.’
Matt McGillivray (Jeffreys Bay), who won the last heat of the day to advance to the Men’s Round of 8, is another of South Africa’s campaigners of the World Surf League (WSL) Qualifying Series (QS) who is happy about the increase in QS-rated events at home.
‘Super fun waves at Dairy today, mostly lefts, and I’ve been getting some good scores, which has built some confidence in my backhand surfing,’ said McGillivray. ‘Good to have so many QS events here, it gives everyone more contest experience and points, and they‘re great as a warm-up for the bigger events.’
McDougall, who flew in after her last event in Barbados to compete in both the Women’s and Junior Women’s Corona Durban Surf Pro presented by Roxy, was the standout performer of the day, racking up a near-perfect 9.77 and a heat total of 18.27.
‘We were lucky that the girls were in the water earlier today before the wind got on it,’ said McDougall. ‘It was really fun, the lefts were lined up, but I found a couple of rights also.’
Ranked No 13 on the QS, the 17-year-old is keen to climb into the top six and qualify for the elite WSL Championship Tour (CT), but is not putting any pressure on herself to do so this year.
‘It would be awesome to make the top six, but I’m not going to make any calls this early in the year, I’m just going to do my best in every event. I’ll be going to QS6,000 rated events in Mexico and El Salvador after this, and then hope to come back and defend my title at the Ballito Pro.’
The competitors in the QS1,000 Men’s and Women’s and the JQS1,000 Junior Men’s and Women’s events were reduced to the last eight. The men were scheduled to be first up on Sunday morning, with the top two in each of the Round of Eight heats qualifying for the man-on-man semi-finals, while the other events will run four-person heats to the final.
Picture of McDougall in action courtesy of WSL/Thurtell