COOLANGATTA, Australia (Monday, October 20, 2008) - Congratulations to Nic Muscroft (AUS) and Jano Belo (BRA) for their wins in the Canaries and Brazil this week.

At the La Santa Surf Pro on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Nic outpointed Hawaii’s Kekoa Bacalso in the Final with fellow Aussies Phil MacDonald and Drew Courtney in equal 3rd. For Nic this is his second ASP WQS title, the other being last year in the Canaries also.

Across the Atlantic in Brazil at the Maresia Surf International at Itajai, Brazilian Jano Belo has taken out his first ever ASP WQS win defeating Hawaiian Dustin Barca with Brazil’s Marcio Farney and Japan’s Masa Ohno in equal 3rds.

Now to the Men’s ASP WQS ratings and there has been a lot of major changes. MacDonald, Muscroft and Barca have moved into the Top 20 at the expense of Simpson, Monteiro and Paulino.

The Top 3 remain unchanged, 4th is now Drew Courtney (AUS) jumping up from 11th and David Weare (ZAF) in 5th.

The big movers upwards this week other than Drew were Gabe Kling 15th top 9th, Phil MacDonald 21st to 10th, Nic Muscroft 26th to 10th, Dustin Barca 25th to 14th, Kekoa Bacalso 44th to 22nd putting him a possible position to make the cut with another result like this one and Jano with his win jumped from 166th to 91st.

Unfortunate losers in the ratings were Marlon Lipke 6th to 12th, Michel Bourez 8th to 13th, Yadin Nicol 10th to 16th and Hizunome Bettero 12th to 19th.

As you can see from the list below we now have 11 guys with over 11,000 points, which was the magic number a few months ago and I still feel they are safe.

The Top 15 qualifiers for next year’s Dream Tour are as shown as there are no double qualifiers so the cut off for now is at Tiago on 10,750.

With two ASP WQS 4-Star, two ASP WQS 6-Star and then the two Hawaiian ASP WQS 6-Star PRIMES left I don’t think much will change from now on.

The reason being is that at the 4-Stars, unless you win one of these, the points won’t help as nearly everyone is carrying a low score to be replaced of around 1,000 points. For the 6 Star in Brazil and Portugal this is basically every ones last chance to make more points as in the last two Hawaiian big ones nearly all the Top 45 Men’s Tour surfers and hot locals have entered and as usual expected to take all the top spots. Perhaps one or two other than them may get a Final but that’s it.

Surfers carrying some low throwaways that could jump in the ratings are Simao Romao (BRA) and Kekoa Bacalso (HAW). Those inside the Top 15 that can jump also are Phil MacDonald (AUS), Josh Kerr (AUS) and Dustin Barca (HAW).

Guys near the cutoff like Bourez (PYF), Lipke (DEU) and Muscroft (AUS) are all looking to better 1125 points so need 9ths or better.

The current ratings for the Top 20 are: Curran,Nathaniel USA 1 13200 Davidson,Chris AUS 2 12525 Boal,Tim FRA 3 11888 Courtney,Drew AUS 4 11600 Weare,David ZAF 5 11450 Gudauskas,Patrick USA 6 11438 Kerr,Josh AUS 7 11325 Emslie,Greg ZAF 8 11188 Kling,Gabe USA 9 11163 MacDonald,Phillip AUS 10 11075 Muscroft,Nic AUS 10 11075 Lipke,Marlon DEU 12 10950 Bourez,Michel PYF 13 10900 Barca,Dustin HAW 14 10826 Pires,Tiago PRT 15 10750 Nicol,Yadin AUS 16 10675 Khodr,Jihad BRA 17 10575 Romao,Simao BRA 18 10500 Bettero,Hizunome BRA 19 10375 Henrique,Pedro BRA 20 10263

Upcoming ASP WQS events for the men this week are the ASP WQS 6-Star Estoril Coast Pro in Portugal, the ASP WQS 6-Star Onbongo Pro in Brazil and the ASP WQS 4-Star O’Neill Cold Water Classic in Santa Cruz, California. Both Estoril and Santa Cruz events also have an ASP Pro Junior division.

Story courtesy of www.aspworldtour.com