Portuguese surfer Ruben Gonzales won his opening heat at the Billabong Pro Tahara.
RAGO LONG BEACH, Tahara/Japan (Thursday, July 25, 2013) - The Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 4-Star Billabong Pro Tahara presented by Xperia, the fifth ASP event unfolding in Japan this year, completed opening day of competition at Oishi Beach in Akabane, Tahara today with some high performance surfing from an international field.
Today’s action would see the completion of the Round of 128 in punchy two-to-three foot beachbreak with a variety of veterans and up-and-comers battling for the crucial ASP 4-Star points towards surfers’ ASP World Ranking.
Yasuaki Sugihara would put the first excellent score on the board, earning an 8.33 on his first wave to kick off a day of high-performance surfing. Young-gun Yuta Tsukamoto would punctuated the day’s high scores in the round’s final heat, earning a 8.67 backed up with a 7.60, securing the high heat-total of 16.27.
Event organizers will reconvene tomorrow morning at 7:30am local time with Tatsuya Fukagawa (JPN), Eli Olson (HAW), Masato Watanabe (JPN), and Koki Nakamura (JPN) scheduled to surf in heat 1 of the round of 96.
The ASP 4 Star Event Billabong Pro Tahara presented by Xperia, is the largest surfing event in Japan. Running for 4 days, the event starts on the 25th of July and will run through to the 28th, at Tahara in Aichi Prefecture. The event boasts a total prize pool of USD $95,000 and will be held at Long Beach or Loco Point, Irago. Tahara is famous for its consistent beach breaks, which often produce hollow waves with the right swell direction.
