New Zealand's Paige Hareb joined women's world surfing championship leader Stephanie Gilmore in qualifying for the quarter-finals of the penultimate event of the year in Hawaii yesterday.
Hareb finished second in her heat with a score of 8.90 in 2m-plus waves at Sunset Beach, behind Hawaii's Alana Blanchard. Among those
eliminated in the heat was former world champion Sofia Mulanovich, of Peru.
Gilmore made the quarter-finals directly from round one in the Hawaiian format of four-woman heats.
But the Australian was upstaged by local trials winner Carissa Moore who won their heat with the day's best score of 14.83 points out of 20 as Gilmore compiled just 8.9.
"I knew it was going to be a tough heat because the girls I was surfing against, I've grown up with, and they have been ripping really hard. Sunset's really shifty and hard, but I just tried to do my best and have fun," said 17-year-old Moore, who has qualified to join the tour fulltime in 2010.
Gilmore was happy enough with her performance: "Carissa got the best waves and she's got local legend Pancho Sullivan helping her out.'
The Australian can wrap up her third consecutive world crown at Sunset as she leads closest challenger, Brazilian Silvana Lima, by 579 points.
"It'd be nice to sew it up here at Sunset, but it's going to be pretty difficult," Gilmore said.
Much will depend on the next day's surfing as both are in the second quarter-final along with Moore and Australian Sam Cornish.
Hareb is in eighth place out of 18 in her rookie year but could move closer to the top, depending on her finish here.
