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Flores knocks out World Champ in Tahiti
by George Mojo
14/05/2007:// French rookie Jeremy Flores eliminated reigning and eight-time ASP World Champion Kelly Slater in round four of the Billabong Pro Tahiti.
Flores, who earned his Foster's ASP World Tour berth after finishing first on the 2006 ASP World Qualifying Series (WQS), took the lead halfway through their 35-minute heat and held it until the horn blew.
"I'm happy, it's definitely a dream come true to beat the best surfer in the world," Flores said. "I feel really confident in these waves, where I'm from the waves are exactly the same so I know these waves perfect. If there was one place I could beat Kelly it was today, in these waves."
Slater failed to put a heat together, catching five waves to Flores' three and earning a heat total of just 10.87 - uncharacteristic given his ability to post perfect 10.00 rides on a regular basis.
"I've always surfed pretty well against Slater," Flores said. "He's always surfed better and beaten me, but I've always surfed well and felt good against him. I guess today I might have been a little smarter on my wave selection. I was patient and waited for the good ones and that might have been the difference."
Former event champion Cory Lopez's encounter with current equal Foster's ASP World Tour number one Taj Burrow was just as explosive in the clean, three-foot waves at Teahupoo.
Lopez and Burrow's Round four clash was the highest scoring heat of the Billabong Pro Tahiti thus far, with Lopez barely edging out the current world No. 1 17.66 to 17.50.
"Taj started off with a really good wave and I knew I had to do something special," Lopez said.
"I didn't have priority, but I saw this wave swinging wide of him and I just paddled as hard as I could for position. I got a really nice little barrel, kind of over the foam ball for a little bit and just came out to make the tube and I got my score. I was so stoked because I knew I had made the heat."
Also eliminated in a close heat was current world number three Bede Durbidge, from Australia. Durbidge lost to rookie Kai Otton in somewhat inconsistent surf the last heat of the day.
"It's really funny that me and Bede had a heat like that because on the Goldy, we had the same round and this big storm came through and we wanted to call it off - we couldn't even see each other," Otton said.
"It's kind of ironic that we had another heat that went well over halfway through without either one of us taking off. We both got a couple - same scores on one wave and it was just up to the other wave that I got a little barrel on."
Aussie Mick Fanning, who came into the event sharing Burrow's World number one rating, is also through to the quarter-finals.
With Burrow, Durbidge and Slater out, Fanning stands to increase his ratings lead.
The surfer still competing in the Billabong Pro Tahiti nearest to Fanning on the ratings is current world number five Joel Parkinson.
Parkinson will meet former event and world champion Hawaiian Andy Irons in the next round.
"I live to fight another day and now I meet Parko in the Quarterfinals," Irons said.
"We are staying together so it should be pretty interesting. If the waves stay small it could be pretty heavy because we're actually using the same board and I don't who is going to get it but I may have to hide it. It's actually JS's board, our shaper's, who made it for himself from a copy of one of my boards that Parko got here. I don't know what the rules are on that, we may have to check the rule book on that one. Hopefully it gets bigger and then we won't have to deal with that and we can deal with real 12-foot Teahupoo instead."
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