Toledo, Parkinson take center stage at Hawaiian Pro

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HEFF / WSL

Felipe Toledo of Brazil advanced to the quarterfinals by winning his heat on Friday.

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Brazil’s Filipe Toledo and Australia’s Joel Parkinson took center stage at the Hawaiian Pro on Friday.

Toledo, ranked No. 3 on the World Surf League’s championship tour, carved his way to a 19.10 score out of a possible 20 to win his fourth-round heat at Haleiwa’s Alii Beach Park and advance to today’s quarterfinals.

Parkinson, who won the world title in 2012 and is retiring after this year, captured victories in his third- and fourth-round heats to advance.

“I figured if I was not going to surf another contest again after December, I should come and give this my best shot,” Parkinson said. “I’ve been surfing a lot.”

Parkinson will surf all three events in the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing, which also includes the Vans World Cup of Surfing (Nov. 25 through Dec. 6) at Sunset Beach and the Billabong Pipe Masters (Dec. 6-20) at Ehukai Beach.

“You need a little bit of luck to win the Triple Crown, so hopefully I can put up a fight for it,” added Parkinson, who earned Triple Crown (the best surfer in the three contests combined) titles in 2008, ’09, and ’10.

Toledo is one of three surfers still in the 2019 world-title chase. When the Pipeline contest rolls around, he will be aiming at that biggest of prizes, as will No. 1 Gabriel Medina (the 2014 world champion) of Brazil and No. 2 Julian Wilson of Australia.

Unlike last year, Toledo plans to compete in all three Triple Crown contests.

“I’m happy with it,” he said. I’m feeling good and ready. I can’t wait for Pipe and I really hope the swell shows up for us in the event window and we can really perform in perfect conditions and get barreled. I’m really happy to be in this position right now. It’s going to be really exciting.”

The crowd was buzzing when Toledo scored a 9.5 for two critical turns and then picked up a 9.6 for a sweeping cutback and dramatic finishing maneuver in the closeout section.

Hawaii’s Seth Moniz, who is No. 5 on the WSL qualifying series and likely to be on the championship tour next year, pulled out a last-minute 8.17 wave to move into second place in the same heat as Toledo, edging Brazil’s Peterson Crisanto by 0.16 of a point to make it into the fourth round.

Moniz is the only Hawaii surfer left in the field, which was cut down to 16 for today’s quarterfinals, semifinals and final. Hawaii’s Finn McGill, Mason Ho, Barron Mamiya and Ezekiel Lau (who won his third-round heat) were eliminated in the fourth round, and Tanner Hendrickson, Torrey Meister Kiron Jabour, Sebastian Zietz and Dusty Payne were ousted in the third round.