Adam Melling : photo courtesy O'Neill

Al Hunt's Situation Room

Joan Duru and Luke Munro climb major steps on the WQS ladder

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 11 May, 2009 : - - Coolangatta -- Congratulations to Adam Melling who was able to go one better than last year, where he came second to Adam Robertson in the O’Neill Coldwater Classic in Scotland, by defeating fellow Aussie Luke Munro in the Final of this year’s event in Thurso and moving into the No. 1 spot on the ASP WQS ratings.

The Aussies seem to like the cold water and conditions at this event, dominating the last two years with eight of the final 16 from Australia in both years. This year’s Semifinalists were France’s Joan Duru and Blake Thornton also from Australia.

On the ratings, major movers upwards are Joan Duru from 18th to 4th, Luke Munro 50th to 11th and Blake Thornton from 39th to 12th. Downward very little and nothing of note, however at this stage of the year, it is worth doing a comparision to 2008 at the same time.

After 12 events last year, the points ranged from Pat Gudauskas in 1st with 7,544 points and eight events competed in down to Michel Bourez in 15th on 5,163 points having competed in four events. Most of the top 15 at this stage had only competed in 4-5 events.

This year, however, Adam Melling in 1st after only four events has already amassed 9,076 points and sitting in 15th is South Africa’s Brandon Jackson with 6,025 points after five events. It’s worth noting that all of the top 15 have done 4-5 events only, obviously concentrating on the major ASP WQS events.

With a further 15 major 6 Star - 6 Star Prime events left compared to last year’s 16 at the same time, it appears that the points required will definitely be higher than last year’s 11,450 with an average of 1,632 points.

The current Top 15 on the ASP WQS ratings are:

Melling,Adam AUS 1 9076
Ross,Daniel AUS 2 8325
Wright,Owen AUS 3 7838
Duru,Joan FRA 4 7663
Andre,Jadson BRA 5 7475
Simpson,Brett USA 6 7338
Polo,Marco BRA 7 6950
Thompson,Jay AUS 8 6900
Yeomans,Nathan USA 9 6813
Payne,Dusty HAW 10 6800
Munro,Luke AUS 11 6588
Thornton,Blake AUS 12 6438
Logie,Travis ZAF 13 6301
Zubizarreta,Gony ESP 14 6238
Jackson,Brandon ZAF 15 6025

Check the Full Ratings

For the rest of this month, there are no ASP WQS events other than the ASP WQS 3-Star Lizzard Nando Pro in Durban, which will not affect the ratings so I’m off on holiday, my first one in 25 years. However, we do have another event well worth watching via the web in Tahiti at Teahupoo sponsored by Billabong, which I’m sure you are all well aware of.

Have fun and I’ll be back in a few weeks. Regards, Al Hunt

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Al Hunt / ASP WQS Tour Manager

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