Business as usual for Ricardo Christie and Paige Hareb on the World Surf League tour as they both made it through the early stages of Corona Open J-Bay, while unable to kick on to greater heights. Christie was knocked out in his Round of 32 heat and Hareb made it to the equivalent stage on the women's side, knocked out in her Round of 16 heat which gives Hareb four straight finishes in the 9th bracket and Christie has finished '17th' in every event this year.

That consistency is encouraging, regardless of it being niggly that neither Hareb nor Christie can crack the next stage of their respective tournaments. Hareb won her Seeding Round heat, with a score of 12.33 (5 and 7.33) which was a fine effort and put her straight into the Round of 16 where she came up against Carolin Marks from USA. Hareb could only manage score of 7.90 (2.73 and 5.17) while Marks ran rampant with a 16.67 score to win the heat.

Christie also won his seeding round heat, with a score of 10.66 (4.33 and 6.33) to slide straight into the Round of 32. There Christie came up against France's Michel Bourez and Christie pushed Bourez close with a score of 12.83 (6.60 and 6.23) as Christie scored with his 2nd and 5th wave only for Bourez to finish strong with his 6th and 7th waves combining for a winning score of 13.60.

Having Christie and Hareb consistently get past the Seeding Round, skipping the Elimination Round is fantastic and while they will need better results to hit the qualification mark for next year, they are showing that they belong on the WSL. Hareb is now 16th, on 12,530 points and the re-qualification line is at 10th.

Christie sits in 30th spot on the men's side with 7,980 points and their re-qualification line is at 22nd. This means that both Hareb and Christie are in the mix to hit that qualification mark, but with four events left this year they will both need to go a step further to rack up more points. Next up for the men is the Tahiti Pro which will be an exciting test for Christie later in August and the women hit California for the Fresh Water Pro in September.

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