By Greg Hutson & Paul Botha
If Brazil's Beto Fernandes felt like the odd man out at the start of the men's final of the Mr Prince Pro at Durban's North Beach on Sunday, he needn't have worried because, for the second year in a row, South Americans made a clean sweep of the finals.
Despite being unfancied and unheralded, much as was the case with Sofia Mulanovich in the women's final on Saturday, the 25-year old from Sao Paulo star showed why he was rated the most powerful surfer in the Brazilian Super Surf Series by putting together a series of strong rides in inconsistent 2-3 foot surf that was marred by a moderate north-easterly wind.
Competing against experienced World Championship Tour campaigners Daniel Wills, the event's top seed, Richie Lovett and Mark Bannister, who was the runner up in the open of the World Surfing Games in Durban last month, Fernandes found it difficult to establish his supremacy early on as the Aussies shut him out.
Coming into the event with a world ranking of 248, he was largely overshadowed but, with 12 minutes remaining and needing a scoring ride of 6.01 to overtake Wills, the heat leader, he gouged three huge moves on a head-high wave. That ride earned him 8.50 points, the highest score of the final, and gave him the lead that he never relinquished.
Fernandes' victory won him $10 000 (R100 000) and 2 500 championship points and propelled him by 240 places up the world rankings to eighth place.
Like Mulanovich on Saturday, Fernandes had never made a final before and won at his first attempt. "The waves here (at North Beach) are like my home town, and things worked out as planned," he said in Spanish after the prize-giving.
Earlier in the day, Fernandes took first place in the first semi-final with a reasonably comfortable cushion of 4.07 points over second-placed Wills in conditions that became progressively more choppy as the onshore breeze strengthened on a low tide.
Fernandes and Wills advanced at the expense of Fernandes' compatriot and last year's winner Peterson Rosa, and Chris Davidson of Australia.
Bannister, on the other hand, won a narrowly contested affair from Lovett by just 1.83 points, eliminating semi-finalists Armando Daltro of Brazil and Hawaiian Shane Dorian, who finished third and fourth respectively.
In Saturday's women's final, pint-sized Sofia Mulanovich of Peru showed superb tactical acumen to upset her more fancied opponents and claim the first prize of $3 500 (R35 000). After taking an early lead with a ride of 7.5, the goofy-footer found herself sitting in third place behind defending champion Jacqueline Rosa of Brazil and Australian Trudy Todd.
However, with 8 minutes left in the final, she found the wave she needed and ripped the guts out of it to rack up a score of 9.7 out of a possible 10 and retake the lead.
Knowing that Rosa was the only competitor with a realistic chance of overtaking her, Mulanovich closed her down, sitting on Rosa's inside, and denying her waves.
Despite struggling to raise her large wooden trophy in a victory salute, the ecstatic Mulanovich was all smiles after having won the first final she had made and said she had peaked just in time after a number of poor performances at the World Surfing Games last month.