SURFING / OP PRO CHAMPIONSHIPS : De Olivenca, Beschen Move Into Semifinals With Upsets

Jojo De Olivenca continued to show no respect for the rankings Friday at the Op Pro surfing championships.

After knocking out world champion Kelly Slater and 1989 Op champion Richie Collins in Thursday’s fourth round, De Olivenca and San Clemente’s Shane Beschen pulled another upset.

They eliminated former world champion Martin Potter of England and tour veteran Marty Thomas of Hawaii in the quarterfinals Friday at the Huntington Beach Pier. Only the top two finishers in each heat advance.

De Olivenca, an unseeded trialist from Brazil, won his second consecutive heat with a four-wave score of 26.94. Beschen, the 1992 U.S. champion who’s ranked 18th in his first full year on the world tour, was second with 26.27.

De Olivenca and Beschen advance to the semifinals, which start at 9 a.m. today, along with Cardiff’s Rob Machado and Australia’s Matt Hoy.

The other semifinal consists of Hawaii’s Sunny Garcia and Shane Dorian, Santa Barbara’s Chris Brown and two-time Op champion Barton Lynch of Australia.

The finals are scheduled for 11:30 a.m.

Thomas, a Seal Beach native who moved to Hawaii’s North Shore as a teen-ager, struggled catching the head-high waves early and finished third at 22.09. Potter was fourth with 20 points.

Tour veterans Flavio Padaratz and Fabio Gouveia were Brazil’s best bets to reach the finals, but were eliminated in the quarterfinals. That leaves De Olivenca, who’s surfing in his first Op Pro, as the country’s only semifinalist.

De Olivenca was by far the most aggressive surfer in his heat, catching five waves before Thomas caught his first. After scoring a 2.33 on a poor opening wave, Olivenca scored a 6.67, 7.67 and a 6.17 to take control of the heat.

“I was trying to do the same thing I did Thursday,” De Olivenca said through an interpreter. “I wanted to get four good waves at the start because I was going against strong surfers.

“I was trying a hard maneuver on the first wave and I fell off. I wasn’t worried because it was the first two minutes of the heat and nobody had caught a wave yet.”

De Olivenca surfed near the pier at the start of the heat and moved south as the heat progressed. Huntington’s beach break is similar to the one he surfs near his home in Brazil.

“The waves here are a little more mushy than the ones at home,” he said.

Although this is his first Op Pro, De Olivenca is no stranger to American contests. He reached the quarterfinals at U.S. tour stops at Oceanside and Huntington State Beach this spring.

Beschen counted on two big rides to advance--an 8.0 on his opening wave that he rode to the beach and an 8.1 that featured three solid moves.

Garcia and Lynch, who surfed against each other in the 1987 Op final, advanced despite flirting with elimination in the quarterfinals.

Lynch trailed Costa Mesa’s Todd Miller by 1.5 points with three minutes left. Both surfers paddled near the pier--Lynch hoping to catch a wave and Miller hoping to hassle him off it.

“You just don’t know with the waves here,” Lynch said. “It can go flat for five minutes. But I was more worried about Miller preventing me from getting one.”

Lynch, who was one shy of the minimum four scoring waves, caught one with 50 seconds remaining and scored a 3.83 to move into the second qualifying spot.

Garcia was third behind Dorian and Richard Marsh late in his heat before scoring a 7.0 and advancing by 33 hundredths of a point.

Both Lynch and Garcia have been steady through their heats, and Lynch predicted Garcia would win it all.

“Sunny’s supposed to be the best surfer in the world, and I think he has been for the past 12 months,” Lynch said.

“I’ve known Sunny for years, and he has always had trouble getting focused on his surfing. Now he’s married and having children, and that has given him some focus. He’s definitely the man to beat.”

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Tag-team competition: Hawaii and Australia advanced to today’s finals while defending champion Team USA finished a distant fourth and failed to qualify.

Australia advanced by edging Brazil, 96.06 to 95.55, Friday in the last of three qualifying rounds. Hawaii won the first two rounds and was third Friday.

“That was big, with the U.S. going down to Australia,” said Team Hawaii captain Marty Thomas, “but that’s to be expected. The tag-team was started by the Australians, and it’s relatively new in the U.S.”

Thomas said he hopes the big crowd expected for the finals will back Hawaii now that the U.S. team is eliminated.

“Hey, Hawaii is still part of the United States,” he said, laughing. “You can’t isolate us because we’re an island.”

The team competition was another in a series of disappointments for Team USA members.

None of the team members--Collins, Slater, Todd Holland, Dino Andino and Jeff Booth--advanced past Thursday’s fourth round of the men’s competition.

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Longboard division: Defending world champion Joey Hawkins of Huntington Beach easily won his quarterfinal and semifinal heats to advance to today’s 12:30 p.m. final.

Also advancing were Jesse Fernandez of Kitty Hawk, N.C., San Clemente’s Jeff Kramer and San Diego’s Joel Tudor.

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Surf report: A Southern Hemisphere swell that provided head-high waves Friday should drop to waist-high for today’s finals. Inconsistent larger sets from a second swell could reach the pier by the finals. The second swell isn’t expected to reach the pier until this afternoon.

Surf Notes

Frieda Zamba of Flagler Beach, Fla., will attempt to win her record sixth Op Pro title. She has advanced to the semifinals along with Huntington Beach’s Eve Allerton and Nea Post, and Newport Beach’s Tricia Gill.

The Op Junior amateur final will feature Kalani Robb of Haleiwa, Hawaii, Bryan Doonan of San Diego, Chris Strother of Carlsbad and Carlos Cabrerro of Puerto Rico.

Competition resumes at 8 a.m. today with the women’s semifinals, followed by the men’s semifinals at 9 a.m., the Miss Op Sports Model finals at 10 a.m. . . . The women’s surfing final starts at 11 a.m., the men’s final at 11:30 a.m., the Op Junior amateur final at noon, the longboard final at 12:30 p.m. and the tag-team final at 1 p.m. The awards presentation is scheduled for 2 p.m. . . . The winner of the men’s final will take home $8,000, the women’s winner $3,000 and the longboard winner gets $1,000.