billabong-pro-tahiti-fpatacchia
Absent in the first three events of the season, Fred Patacchia has improved his performance contest after contest since his return to the Tour with a 13th in Fiji, 9th in Bali and now 5th in Tahiti. In three contests, the Hawaiian already broke the top 22 (ranked 19th). At Teahupoo, Freddy-P proved that he remains one of the most advanced tuberiders on tour. Fanning paid the price in the first round, Medina in round three and then Parko and CJ in round four. That wasn't the case for Slater in the quarterfinals with an obvious psychological upper hand.
Surfagram co-founder Nykola Duma.
Journalist Vincent Martin.
Not included in the Top 34 analysis: Owen Wright (AUS), Tiago Pires (PRT), Dusty Payne (HAW) and Glenn Hall (IRL) who was wounded and missing in Teahupoo, Raoni Monteiro (BRA) who was unable to finance his trip to Tahiti lacking sponsors. Their replacements were Yadin Nicol (AUS), Pat Gudauskas (USA), Jocelyn Poulou (PYF), Nathan Hedge (AUS) and Ian Walsh (HAW) and the two wildcards from the trials: Alain Riou (PYF) and Anthony Walsh (AUS).
Editor’s Note: This article is a collaborative work between Vincent Martin and the Surfagram team (Nykola Duma & Pierre-Arnaud Marcelot). Vincent is a journalist and runs the popular French surf website Planète Surf. Nykola is a graphic designer and art director and Pierre-Arnaud is a software engineer. Together, they created Surfagram–a fun and visual way to look at ASP World Tour results and statistics on contests and surfers.