MURMUR-MAGS DAY 2 RECAP OF THE RIP CURL NEWCASTLE CUP

With another day down at the Rip Curl Pro Newcastle Cup, we decided to have a look at who came out on top and has moved on through to the quarter finals and who missed the mark on day 2.

With the event being called off due to small conditions for a few days, it was an exciting surprise to see the event called on yesterday with our eyes glued to the TV (in between surfs) and in a strange twist Newcastle did it’s best Bells Beach impersonation providing long right handers.

Watching the Elimination Round in the morning we had our favourites to get through and were hoping (for the sake of our fantasy team) that they did! Unfortunately, we had to see Malia Manuel and Sage Erickson get knocked out of the event. Both becoming victim to the “drop and wait” heat strategy, it seemed the surfers that kept busy generally made heats throughout the day.

As the end of the day rolled on through, it was exciting to finally see some woman on woman heats play out with Steph Gilmore taking the jump on Macy Callaghan, what a heat that was! After the first exchange Macy looked like she might get the jump on Steph, however Steph on a long right hander was always going to be hard to beat.

We also got to see Isabella Nichols, rookie on tour beat her potential rival in the making Tatiana Weston-Webb as well as Keely Andrew knocking out Sally Fitzgibbons with all four girls being on an absolute tear. 

This started to set a tone for the underdogs for the day.

We thought heat 4 was really interesting as we saw World #1 Tyler Wright opt to surf the shore-break in a CT event and bow out in the round of 16 by Courtney Conologue who was looking really aggressive on some bigger set waves out the back. 

Carissa Moore got the jump on the local wildcard Philipa Anderson with some serious power hacking, the French powerhouse Johanne Defay knocking out another Aussie Nikki Van Dijk, as well as some really strong backhand surfing from Bronte Macaulay coming out on top over world #5 Lakey Peterson.

And last but not least Caroline Marks making it through to the quarter finals taking down Brisa Hennessy in a really tight heat. 

So, the quarter finals are looking jam packed and look like this:

Stephanie Gilmore vs. Isabella Nichols (what a heat right?!)

Keely Andrew vs. Courtney Conologue

Carissa Moore vs. Johanne Defay

Bronte Macaulay vs Caroline Marks (battle of the backhands!)

We are getting pretty excited to see how these heats unfold. Stay tuned for more updates after the finish of day 3…