June (ANA) - History was made when Brisa Hennessy from Hawaii ripped her way to the top of the podium of the first-ever World Surf League (WSL) Qualifying Series (QS) event to take centre stage over the men’s division of the same contest in Port Elizabeth on Sunday.
Hennessy surfed exceptionally well throughout the SA Open of Surfing with not only three of the top five women’s wave scores for the week coming from her but also the highest wave score of the entire contest for both men and women; a near perfect 9.83 surfed in the first round of the competition.
In the final between Hennessy and Dominic Barona of Equador held at Pollock Beach, Hennessy drew first blood with a strong two-turn combo ride that earned her an opening score of 6.67.
She quickly backed this up with a committed three-turn ride, adding 7.17 to her tally and extending her lead over Barona, who was yet to find a wave, to 13.84 and putting the Ecuadorian into an early combination situation.
Barona’s first wave came 12 minutes into the heat. On her backhand, Barona landed a top turn, followed by a bottom turn and a strong vertical snap that saw her go vertical and earning 5.83 points that pulled her out of the combination situation.
Halfway through the 30-minute final heat, Hennessy was firmly in the driver’s seat with Barona requiring 8.01 to take the lead. This requirement was soon stretched to 9.51 when Hennessy dropped an 8.17 on her third wave.
With only eight minutes on the clock, Hennessy’s fourth scoring wave came in at 7.20, escalating her heat total up to 15.37.
Hunting for a massive 9.54 to overtake her Hawaiian opponent, Barona finally found her second scoring wave with only two minutes on the clock. However, unable to find any sort of rhythm, Barona only managed to add 0.67 to her heat score and the writing was on the wall as time quickly ran out.
“It has been a really challenging year and the QS is hard and I am just over the moon to get a win here. I have not been in a final in a while and it was just amazing to surf against Dominic (Barona). She is an incredible surfer and human being and I feel very honoured,” said Hennessy.
Hennessy’s win catapulted her into the top ten of the women’s WSL QS ranking and opened a door for her to possibly realising her dream of making it onto the 2019 Championship Tour.
- African News Agency (ANA)
