Joe Surf: Igarashi takes U.S. Open defeat with grace

He wandered around on the sand near the athletes’ tent entrance, appearing to be near tears. Disappointment was written all over his face.

While Huntington Beach’s Kanoa Igarashi was disappointed, frustrated — you name it — it wasn’t he who showed it. It was Igarashi’s 13-year-old brother, Keanu.

Keanu, a potential World Championship Tour (WCT) surfer himself a few years down the road, is always the first to greet his big brother when he emerges from the water. Grabbing his board from him, sticking a Red Bull cap on his head, giving him a hug.

Usually, there are smiles all around, considering Kanoa, still only 18, is already a WCT surfer and has enjoyed enormous success during his competitive career.

Sunday, though, was a little different. Igarashi reached the semifinals in the men’s main event of the U.S. Open of Surfing, just as he had last year, when he lost to eventual champion Hiroto Ohhara of Japan.

This time, Igarashi was up against Brazil’s Filipe Toledo, the U.S. Open winner in 2014, the No. 4 surfer on last year’s WCT and ranked No. 13 so far this year. Toledo was tearing it up all throughout the contest, one of those remarkable surfers who can do so much with small waves.

Toledo continued his momentum early in the heat against Igarashi, putting up big scores, first with a 7.50 and then an 8.17 before Igarashi could grab a decent wave.

As time wound down, Igarashi scored a 6.00 and then a 7.40 in the final moments, but it was not enough against Toledo, who went on to win the whole thing.

As usual in Huntington, Igarashi was mobbed as he got out of the water, signing autographs and posing for selfies as he made his way up the beach. He ran into the athletes’ tent, dropped off his board and immediately returned to the sand, where he posed and signed and smiled until every kid and every fan got their special memory.

I’m sure many of them had no idea Igarashi had lost his heat and was hiding his disappointment.

“I’m just bummed because I did the same exact thing last year, and I was hoping to finish a few spots better,” Igarashi said. “But I’ll come back next year better and stronger.”

Igarashi said he tried not to pay too much attention to Toledo during the heat.

“I was just trying to focus on my own game, and it just didn’t work out for me,” he said. “I’m learning every day. I still have some work to do, and I’m just going to focus on myself training harder and come back next time even better.”

Next up for Igarashi, ranked No. 21 on the WCT, is the Billabong Pro Tahiti starting Aug. 19.

SIMPSON REACHES ROUND OF 24

Huntington’s Brett Simpson, on a quest to return to the WCT, finished equal-17th in the men’s main event at the Open, which is not as good as he was hoping for but is his best result so far this year.

Simpson opened with a first in his four-man heat, buoyed by an 8.07, beating Matt Banting, Dion Atkinson and Timothee Bisso. In his second heat, Simpson took second, losing to Toledo but beating out Jeremy Flores and Santiago Muniz, advancing to the Round of 24.

The Round of 24 heats were three-man heats, with the top two advancing. But Simpson came up short, losing to Carlos Munoz and Maxime Huscenot as Simpson struggled to find good waves.

“Well, we are all out in the same conditions, so I never use that excuse, because I was on the other side of it in my first couple heats,” he said. “The guys each got a decent first wave and I waited a bit. I panicked and jumped on a bad wave, and that was it, my rotation and rhythm was shot.”

The Round of 24 exit gave Simpson an equal-17th place finish, a check for $2,700 and 2,200 points on the Qualifying Series (QS) tour.

“It was a tough loss, to be honest,” Simpson said. “The only guy I really worry about out there is Filipe, especially when it’s small, and I may have looked a little too far ahead knowing he was in the same side of the draw.

“I missed a big opportunity to grab some more valuable points. I felt I surfed two heats near perfect for the conditions, but then in the Round of 24 got a slow start, made a bad decision on my first wave and was playing catch-up the whole time with not a lot of waves.”

CONLOGUE DROPS IN WORLD RANKINGS

Santa Ana’s Courtney Conlogue scored an 8.77 on one of her scoring waves in the women’s quarterfinals, the highest scoring wave of any woman in the entire contest at the U.S. Open.

Trouble was, Tatiana Weston-Webb’s two-wave total in the heat edged Conlogue by a fraction — 15.23 to 15.00 — and knocked out the world rankings leader.

As a result of her quarterfinal exit, coupled with Tyler Wright advancing to the semifinals, Wright moved into the world’s No. 1 spot, dropping Conlogue to No. 2.

The next women’s contest on the WCT is the Swatch Women’s Pro at Lower Trestles in San Clemente starting Sept. 7.

GUNTER REACHES QUARTERS

Newport Beach’s Tyler Gunter, 16, reached the quarterfinals of the men’s Junior event at the U.S. Open. His equal-13th place finish leaves him ranked No. 11 on the North American Men’s Junior Tour of the World Surf League.

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