Be it rather briefly, the Rip Curl Pro resumed this morning in windy two-to-three foot surf at Supertubos. After just four heats organisers were forced to put the competition on hold again.

However, in that time local wildcard threat Frederico ‘Kikas’ Morais was able to eliminate Kelly and all but extinguish the 11-time champ’s hopes at this year’s world title.

“Frederico (Morais) had the better waves and capitalized on it, he made a couple big moves,” Slater said. “I’m expecting now that I’ll probably need to win or at least make the Final in Hawaii for a shot at it. We got almost two months now, I’m going to go do some rehab, get my body back together and try to get my mind back in it. If this week works out, great; if not, well Mick (Fanning) has been the great performer of the year. Obviously his results have been great at every event, it’s hard to beat a guy like that.”

Fanning, current frontrunner survived his dangerous match-up against other local wildcard Francisco Alves. Nevertheless, the two-time world champ will still need to finish 3rd or better if he wants to claim the title in Portugal.

“It’s been a long week of getting up early every morning,” Fanning said. “This morning, conditions felt alright and once we got out there it felt a little bit weaker with that tide coming in. I’m just stoked to get the heat done and start moving. When you get the wildcard, people always want to see the underdog win, especially in Portugal where the fans are just fanatical but it’s really cool to see. Francisco (Alves) surfs really well.”

RIP CURL PRO PORTUGAL ROUND 2 RESULTS:


Heat 1: Mick Fanning (AUS) 13.00 def. Francisco Alves (PRT) 8.93

Heat 2: Frederico Morais (PRT) 12.34 def. Kelly Slater (USA) 10.13

Heat 3: Michel Bourez (PYF) 14.50 def. Dillon Perillo (USA) 8.26

Heat 4: Adriano De Souza (BRA) 12.60 def. Raoni Monteiro (BRA) 11.03

RIP CURL PRO PORTUGAL REMAINING ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:


Heat 5: C.J Hobgood (USA) vs. Yadin Nicol (AUS)
Heat 6: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Kieren Perrow (AUS)

Heat 7: Gabriel Medina (BRA) vs. Alejo Muniz (BRA)
Heat 8: Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs. Damien Hobgood (USA)
Heat 9: Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) vs. Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Heat 10: Brett Simpson (USA) vs. Miguel Pupo (BRA)
Heat 11: Travis Logie (ZAF) vs. Adam Melling (AUS)
Heat 12: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. Kolohe Andino (USA)