SAFFERS Keep Featuring While Auzzies Get Wildcarded

South Africa'sSarah Baum (ZAF)won the 2020Carve ProWorld Surf League (WSL) Qualifying Series (QS) 1000 rated event in front of thousands of spectators at Maroubra Beach, Queensland.

The former Durban local, who is based in Newcastle, NSW, Australia, started her 2020 QS campaign on a high note, claiming victory overCarly Shanahan (AUS). Baum struck early in the heat with a decent opening ride of 6.00 points (out of a possible 10). While time was running out, she struggled to find a solid backup score until the last few minutes when she bankeda 6.75 ride to gain the upper hand against runner-upShanahan.

Baum put on the same display of surfing that has seen her win two previous QS events, nailing a handful of traditional snaps and carves to finish the heat with a respectable 12.75 two-wave heat total (out of 20).

"This is my third victory on the QS and each one feels better and better. Hopefully, this will give me the momentum to build towards some decent results into the bigger rated events," said Baum. "My whole tactic out there was to stay busy in the lineup as there were quite a lot of waves that you couldn't tell if they were going to run or not. The conditions definitely slowed down in the final, but I was lucky to get those two six-point rides that gave me the edge."

Women's runner-up Carly Shanahan posted her best WSL result to date, coming second to Baum. Shanahan showed moments of brilliance in her heat but was unable to find the required excellent 8.85 wave score needed to steal Baum's lead.

"It was epic to share a heat with Sarah, she's such a good surfer and has won a handful of QS events in the past, so to share a final with her was awesome."

Meanwhile in AUCKLAND, New Zealand the WSL was thrilled to announce that the two men's NZ wildcard spots for the upcoming Corona Piha ProWSL Challenger Seriesevent went to Piha local Elliot Paerata-Reid (NZL) and Mount Maunganui's Kehu Butler is (NZL).

The pair will compete in their first-ever Challenger Series event which will see a field of over 100 of the world's best surfers descend on New Zealand all looking for precious rankings points and a chance to qualify for the 2021 Championship Tour.

"We're really happy to award two of New Zealand's most promising surfing talents wildcard spots into the Corona Piha Pro," said WSL Asia Pacific General Manager Andrew Stark. "This is a massive opportunity for both surfers and with a solid result here they could lock in a spot at other Challenger Series events throughout 2020. Breaking into the top 100 on the qualifying rankings is a serious challenge and opportunities like this are extremely rare so we're over the moon to give two Kiwi competitors this sort of leg-up"