Slater slayer Aranburu has maintained his form here in the Maldives, progressing through to round three of the Sri Lanka Pro. Pat Gudauskas was the man on form in round two, nailing a couple of 8 point waves, while Great Britain’s Russell Winter and Oli Adams failed to make it past round one. Check out Oli’s blog on SURFEUROPEMAG.COM. In the meantime check out the highlights and photos from day one…

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photos courtesy: Dara

Day 2 of the 2009 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Qualifying Series (WQS) 6-Star PRIME rated SriLankan Airlines Pro in the Maldives saw excellent, clean, small waves at Pasta Point today, providing ideal conditions for high-scoring heats as the remaining Round 1 heats were completed before heading straight into Round 2, which introduced all the highest-seeded surfers.

Hawaiian surfers have dominated this event over recent years and there’s a solid contingent here this season, clearly intent on trying to emulate last year’s all-Hawaiian Final.

Mason Ho lead the charge today as the young Hawaiian pulled some extremely high-risk and unique maneuvers on his way to an entertaining heat win over Joao Guedes from Portugal.

“I try not to think about the moves I go for but rather just do what feels right once I catch a wave,” Ho said. “I’ve been practicing aerial rides and landing them in the classic hang five position and it sometimes works and feels right and that’s what I went for today.”

As the event moved into Round 2, Hawaii’s Casey Brown continued his great form from yesterday, winning the opening Round 2 heat ahead of Aritz Aranburu (EUK) who also progressed in second place.

Makuakai Rothman joined his Hawaiian mates through to Round 3 when he scored a required 5.60 ride in the final seconds of his heat to jump from 3rd to 2nd place to advance behind Wigolly Dantas (Brazil).

The event’s best performance to date undoubtedly belongs to Pat Gudauskas (USA/CAL/San Clemente). Gudauskas posted two excellent scores with an 8.43 and an 8.33 to notch up the event’s highest heat tally to date of 16.76 to easily account for fellow USA surfer Eric Geiselman, who also advanced in 2nd place, with Masotoshi Ohno (Japan) a surprise elimination in 3rd place.

“That was a great start for me and I was really surprised!” said Gudauskas.

My warm up surfs yesterday and this morning were really ordinary and I was concerned with my surfing but then right on time I had a fantastic heat” added Gudauskas.

“It’s my third year here and we always get great waves here, it’s just an ideal contest venue,” Gudauskas said.

Australian surfers also performed well today, lead by Adam Robertson who took out a blockbuster Round 2 heat defeating former ASP World Tour surfers Cory Lopez (USA) and Jay Thompson (Australia).

Robertson was later joined into Round 3 by fellow Australians Yadin Nichol, Luke Munro and Brent Dorrington.

Just eight heats of Round 2 were completed today and with an optimistic outlook ahead, organizers will meet early tomorrow morning confident of a full day of action tomorrow.