Leonardo Fioravanti defies a nasty injury but is eliminated from U.S. Open of Surfing

If Italian surfer Leonardo Fioravanti looked a little hesitant in the waters off the Huntington Beach Pier on Tuesday, he had a good reason.

He had 20 fresh stitches in his head and several pain medications in his bloodstream after taking a serious spill three days before men’s qualifying began at the U.S. Open of Surfing.

During practice Saturday, Fioravanti and his surfboard were launched in opposite directions as he was thrown off a big wave. 

A leash kept him connected to his ride, but when the force of the wave stretched it taut, the board was snapped back at him and the fin sliced open the side of his head. 

Fioravanti spent the night at a hospital, where doctors stitched him up and performed plastic surgery to treat a broken blood vessel.

Instead of taking it easy after the gruesome injury, Fioravanti fought to compete in the Qualifying Series round of 96 on Tuesday.

“I went to see a doctor [Monday] and he told me that if I was careful, I can still ride,” Fioravanti said. “A lot of doctors told me I shouldn’t. … I didn’t really care what people told me. It’s one of the biggest events of the year, and if you don’t try it, you’ll never know.”

Fioravanti entered the Open ranked No. 1 in the Qualifying Series, with second-place finishes at three events earlier this year. Injured or not, he was determined to solidify his rating by capturing the 10,000 points that go to the winner of the Open. (At the end of the season, the top 10 in Qualifying Series points earn an automatic spot on the World Surf League’s Championship Tour the following year.)

However, his mental toughness proved insufficient Tuesday to entirely overcome his physical impairment. He caught fewer waves than his opponents and was eliminated, having finished last in his heat.

He emerged from the water clutching his board and looking exhausted, his black eye and stitches plainly visible.

“I felt pretty out of it,” Fioravanti said. “When you’ve got so many pain medications, you just feel soft, you don’t feel 100%. I tried to go out there, I tried to do my best. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a groove, but that’s all right.”

Fioravanti has bounced back from a far worse wipeout, which took place at his first pro event of 2015,   at Banzai Pipeline in Hawaii. Vaulted over the falls as a huge wave crashed, he was slammed in a sitting position into a reef on the ocean floor.

He said his spine was “like a stick: it hits something and just breaks in the middle.” He suffered torn back ligaments and two broken vertebrae.

He was in a back brace for weeks and worked eight hours a day on physical therapy exercises for six months at a rehabilitation center in France before he was able to surf again.

Over the final few months of last year, he competed in seven Qualifying Series events — including two in Hawaii — to set himself up for what before this week had been a strong 2016 season.

“Last year when I went back to Hawaii, I was a little nervous, especially surfing Pipeline, but by the end of the winter I was feeling great,” Fioravanti said. “This year, I was really hungry to win and to do good in these events. I was just focused. I trained a lot, I put a goal in my head and I went for it. So far, it’s paying off.”

In spite of history — and logic, maybe — Fioravanti says he has no fears at all about suffering another injury when he paddles out to sea.

“There’s nothing really to be scared of,” he said. “It’s our job. It’s what we do. We know that you can get hurt, but you just have to go for it and hope for the best.”

renee.griffin@latimes.com

Twitter: @ReneeMGriffin