Brazil’s Peterson Crisanto won the historic 50th edition of the Ballito Pro presented by Billabong on Saturday.
His victory came in front of a beach jam-packed with vocal spectators, defeating powerful Australian Jack Freestone in a final memorable for the pristine waves, picture perfect conditions and huge crowds.
The finalists in the first World Surf League (WSL) Qualifying Series event to carry a QS 10,000 rating this season had to wait for long periods between sets, but when the waves came, they provided the surfers with the opportunity to showcase the full extent of their talents.
After a slow start with no waves for the first eight minutes, Crisanto barely put a foot wrong in the 35-minute final, starting with a mid-range 5.50 out of 10 that got his juices flowing and following that up with an excellent 8.73 that gave him the lead that he never relinquished.
Freestone waited and then delivered a 7.83 before also adding a 5.50 of his own. But it was the Brazilian who stayed busier and he increased his two-wave heat tally with a 6.93 before slamming the door on his opponent with another excellent 8.20 for a ride that seamlessly combined three manoeuvres utilising the entire face of the wave.
The top local performer in the 2018 Ballito Pro presented by Billabong was Matt McGillivray, who was the only South African to reach the third round before being ousted in equal 37th place overall.
The result sees McGillivray slip out of the top 10 on the rankings list to 17th for the first time since winning the first event of the year in Israel.
But the Jeffreys Bay resident is still the top-ranked WSL Africa member, which earns him the wildcard into the Corona Open J-Bay, the sixth stop on the WSL Championship Tour (CT) which runs from 2-12 July at McGillivray’s home break of Supertubes in Jeffreys Bay.
‘I can’t believe I’ve won this event, I’m so happy,’ said Crisanto. ‘This is the biggest win of my career so far and it comes after a lot of hard work and hard times. For the last two years, after I lost my main sponsor, I just competed in Brazil to earn money to travel.
‘But now I’m so happy to be back, competing against the best surfers in the world. And to win the 50th edition of the event is so special.’
Crisanto came into Ballito ranked 42nd on the QS leaderboard and it’s an endorsement of the importance of the South African event that the 10,000 points earned sees him leave ranked No 1.
His path to the final included wins over Hawaiian Seth Moniz in the semi-finals and fellow Brazilian Thiago Camarao in the quarter-finals on the final day. Earlier, he eliminated former CT member Nat Young (USA) in round five.
Freestone was elated to get his 2018 campaign under way with a great result and huge point haul in Ballito after missing out earlier in the year.
‘My start to the year was pretty bad and I could barely make it out of a heat in the QS 3,000 and QS 6,000 events,’ said Freestone. ‘But Ballito is usually where the year starts and I’m so happy to kick off the Prime campaign with a second.
‘It means so much to me, especially here in Ballito where I’ve never done better than fifth before. To now be fifth in the world, I’ll take that and know I’m back on course.’
Freestone narrowly outpointed Ricardo Christie (NZL) in their quarter-final clash on Saturday morning and his win over compatriot Wade Carmichael, currently ranked No 14 on the CT, catapulted him into the final.
The day started with the quarter-finals and Carmichael employed his power surfing repertoire to dispatch young Californian Griffin Colapinto before Freestone got the better of Christie.
Moniz then upset the form book by eliminating red-hot Brazilian Krystian Kymerson, who had been responsible for some of the biggest aerial manoeuvres seen in Ballito and had claimed the only perfect 10-point ride of the event, before Crisanto defeated Camarao in the fourth quarter-final.
Photo: Crisanto in Saturday action, by Cestari/WSL