“Have we just started the heat with two tens?” Just one minute into the broadcast of semifinal number two in the 2014 Billabong Pro Tahiti, two of the best waves of the entire contest presented themselves to professional surfing’s most beloved dudes. The first two waves of everybody’s dream heat at Teahupo’o gave us one perfect 10, one 9.9, one claim, and a lot of hoots in the channel. Oh, and exactly zero surprises. Oh, and this was all going down in picture perfect Teahupo’o.
It was a full year ago now that Kelly and John John duked it out in what ended up being one of the best heats in the history of competitive surfing. Their first two waves were an indicator of the blows they’d throw over the full 35 minutes. Everybody pretty much stopped rooting for Kelly Slater, or stopped pulling for John John Florence, simply because we were all so damn excited to see some great surfing at perfect Chopes. Even after Kelly opened up with a perfect 10, he already had his back against the wall by the time Florence caught his second wave. Needing a 9 (yes, needing a 9 after only three total waves had been surfed) just over five minutes into the heat, of course Kelly eventually got the scores he needed. He’d edge out John John’s semifinal 19.30 with a 19.77, and these 35 minutes went down in ASP history.
