MEDIA RELEASE : 12 April 2008

The sun poured down on surfers and spectators alike at the New Pier in Durban as the Quiksilver Pro Junior went down in small but perfect conditions today. Two-foot waves came through consistently all morning, with the odd bigger set, and the top junior surfers in the country showed their best form in the perfect-shaped right-handers.

Early stand-outs included Matthew Bromley from Kommetjie in Cape Town who surfed a level-headed heat to beat Casey Grant from Scottburgh into second, with one of the event favourites, Beyrick De Vries from Uhmlanga bowing out in third position.

Durban surfer Kyle Beach also surfed a brilliant heat on his backhand, scoring a heat total of 15.07 (out of a possible 20) to comfortably win his heat against Chad Du Toit, also from Durban. Dale Staples (St Francis) and Devin Lane (Uhmlanga) were eliminated from the event in this heat.

In the quarter-finals Chad Du Toit surfed fast and pulled of some big turns against good friend Shaun Joubert from Mossel Bay, to advance to the semi-finals. "It was good to beat him," said Chad on his victory. "He's a good friend of mine but I owed him one so I'm stoked. Now I'm just going to put the headphones back on and get into the zone for the semis."

The first semi-final was a nail-biter between Nick Godfrey (Cape St Francis) and on form Matt Bromley, with Bromley waiting patiently for a wave that never arrived, giving Godfrey the heat win on a plate. In the second semi-final Chad Du Toit came up against a rampant Klee Strachan and despite his earlier optimism, was solidly comboed by the powerful Warner Beach surfer who went to town on the peeling right-handers. The final of the Quiksilver Pro Junior, between Godfrey and Strachan, will be run off on the final day of the main event, Sunday 20th April, just before the main event final.

Then it was straight into the Virgin Mobile Trials, with the first four heats run off to completion in deteriorating conditions. Heat winners included Haydn MacNicol, Donovan Zoetmulder, Shane Thorne and Beyrick De Vries. The Virgin Mobile Trials will continue first thing in the morning, when the waves are predicted to be fairly small again, with fine weather.

For more information contact
Greg Swart
Tel: 031 3131479
Fax: 031 3131489
Mobile: 27 82 579 2929
Quiksilver,
4th Floor San Angelo,
218 Stamford Hill Road,
Durban,
400

Craig Jarvis
Media Liaison
Quiksilver South Africa
082 376 4443
media@quiksilver.co.za