Kaua‘i natives Keala Kennelly and Layne Beachley advanced into the third Round yesterday at the Roxy Pro France, held in Anglet at La Madrague. While the women ripped the small, clean, two-to-three-foot waves at the famous beachbreak, six-time world champion
Kaua‘i natives Keala Kennelly and Layne Beachley advanced into the third Round yesterday at the Roxy Pro France, held in Anglet at La Madrague.
While the women ripped the small, clean, two-to-three-foot waves at the famous beachbreak, six-time world champion Layne Beachley was dominating.
In her round one heat in the fourth event on the 2004 women’s world tour, Beachley posted two eight-plus scores.
Beachley’s opening ride in her 30-minute heat earned her one of the highest scores of the day, an 8.5 out of a possible 10.
She backed this up shortly after with another excellent score of 8.0 and virtually sealed the heat with more than 20 minutes still remaining.
Her competitors, world #14 Megan Abubo and world # 5 Samantha Cornish, were forced to battle it out for the second spot, which guarantees a trip to the third round. Third-place finishers must duke it out in the second round.
Current ratings leader Ballard was another to advance convincingly after finishing ahead of local wildcard European Junior Champion Caroline Sarran and world #3 Heather Clark (SAfr). Ballard has been on an awesome roll in 2004, reaching the final of the first three events (Gold Coast-Australia, Fiji and Tahiti) and finishing second in each of them.
“I love France and I’m excited we’ve got our own stand-alone women’s event here,” said Ballard. “I love surfing the sandbars too. We don’t get to experience them that much at home and when you get waves that have a little bit of punch on them, it’s so much more rippable. It makes it one of my favorite stops on tour and I always seem to get good results here.”
Defending Roxy Pro champion Chelsea Georgeson commenced her 2004 campaign in fine style with the 21 year-old easily advancing ahead of world #2 Keala Kennelly and Lynette MacKenzie.
The beaches of southern France have a special significance for Georgeson having clinched her maiden WCT victory over Beachley here last year. Despite a minor hiccup during preparation she’s in good spirits heading into round three.
Kennelly also advanced to round three by virtue of her second-place heat finish.
