Haakenson: At U.S. Open, check out the main event

The Vans U.S. Open of Surfing is set to begin this weekend, and with it, the world comes to visit Huntington Beach. Meanwhile, Huntington Beach visits the world.

In other words, when visitors from Riverside to Rio de Janeiro come here, many locals head out of town to avoid the crush of humanity.

And it’s a shame because they have something going on here that’s really entertaining and interesting. Most people, it seems, don’t see it. They are busy getting freebies at the vendor booths, maybe checking out the Vans store or just generally kicking up a sandy dust storm.

What is it that most visitors don’t see? Wait for it …

It’s the surfing.

On the men’s side, the contest is a “prime” event, meaning it is not one of the 11 contests on the World Surf League’s (WSL) World Championship Tour (WCT). But it is an important contest on the Qualifying Series (QS), an event where surfers trying to qualify for the WCT can score critical points.

Oh, and the winner gets a check for $100,000.

Of the WSL’s top 35 surfers in the world, 25 will be in town to compete in the men’s main event. That list includes top 10-ranked surfers Adriano De Souza, Italo Ferreira, Jordy Smith, Michel Bourez, Julian Wilson and Sebastian Zeitz.

The list also includes Huntington Beach’s own Kanoa Igarashi, ranked No. 21 in the world.

Other notables who will surf the men’s main event include H.B.’s Brett Simpson and Tim Reyes; last year’s U.S. Open winner, Hiroto Ohhara of Japan; and San Clemente’s Griffin Colapinto and the Gudauskas brothers, Patrick and Tanner.

A few other locals — Derek Peters and Matt Passaquindici of Huntington Beach and Tyler Gunter of Newport Beach — will surf in the trials, getting a chance to compete for the one remaining open spot in the men’s main event.

On the women’s side, the U.S. Open is one of the WCT’s 10 contests of the season and vital to a world championship. Santa Ana’s Courtney Conlogue enters the contest ranked No. 1 in the world and has the confidence of knowing she won the event in 2009 when she was 16 years old.

She’ll have plenty of competition for the women’s crown this year, since the rankings separate the women by only a minimal amount in the points standings.

No. 2 Tyler Wright of Australia has won three of the five WCT contests so far this season; No. 3 Carissa Moore of Hawaii is a three-time world champion, including winning last year, and has won the U.S. Open twice (2010, ‘13); and No. 4 Johanne Defay of France is coming off winning the Fiji Pro in the most recent WCT event last month. Plus, she won the U.S. Open last year.

The women’s winner gets a check for $60,000.

LISTEN TO LISA

While Huntington Beach’s wave certainly isn’t the greatest when comparing it to other competition sites around the world, where barreling reef breaks provide surfers opportunities for incredible rides, it does provide its challenges.

Wave knowledge is key to winning an event like the U.S. Open, and people who surf the area regularly might consider themselves experts. But there might not be a better analyst of the wave on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier than Lisa Andersen.

Andersen, 47, is a women’s surfing pioneer, having grown up surfing in Florida before running away from home at age 16 and landing in Huntington to pursue her dream.

She has surfed Huntington for more than 30 years, though you’re more likely to find her in the water these days down at Trestles, closer to her San Clemente home. But along the way, Andersen made her mark in H.B.

You might even call her the female Kelly Slater. Andersen and Slater dominated the world surfing scene in the mid-1990s. From 1994 to ‘97, Andersen and Slater won four consecutive world championships. (Slater won a fifth in a row in 1998).

Andersen also won the first U.S. Open in 1994, after it switched from being called the OP Pro from 1982 to ’93.

So when Andersen is willing to give some advice to those surfing in a contest on the south side of the pier, it would be wise to listen. And Andersen did just that in an interview with Daniel Jenks of worldsurfleague.com.

“When you get a really big deep south swell, it tends to wall up and be really fast,” she said. “(It’s) all lefts towards the pier, good for one big move on the shoulder. Then people just try to make that reform on the inside. An incoming tide is the best because you can get (a wave) outside when the sets come.

“The medium ones are the best, never the bigger waves, never the smaller. Not the first wave of the set, but the second or third, they have better shape. You take off left, just in front of the judges’ area, that turns into a right off the bank and then a right again on the reform.”

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JOE HAAKENSON is a Huntington Beach-based sports writer and editor. He may be reached at joe@juvecreative.com.