CULBURRA Beach's Owen Wright has kept his Tahiti Pro Teahupo'o title dreams alive after two epic showdowns on Wednesday.
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After cruising through to round three earlier in the week, the Culburra Beach Boardrider was matched up with countryman Soli Bailey in the final 32, of stop seven of 11 on the 2019 World Surf League (WSL) Championship Tour (CT).
In building six-to-eight foot (2 - 2.5 metre) conditions, Wright's waves of 7.00 and 5.73, for a combined score of 12.73 was enough to see him edge out Bailey's score of 12.36.
This saw the current world number 12 pitted against France's Michael Bourez - who had just knocked out Hawaii's Sebastian Zietz.
In one of the match-ups of the season, the pair traded big waves, as Wright chalked up waves of 9.67, 8.83, 8.77, 7.00, 7.00 and 7.00 - for a best two-wave score of 18.50.
As excellent as Wright was, Bourez was just as dynamic, producing waves of 9.43, 8.67, 7.43 and 5.07.
But Bourez fell fall just short with a score of 18.10, seeing the Shoalhaven product progress.
Wright will now look to carry this red-hot form into his quarter-final match-up with Brazil's Jadson Andre, when surfing resumes.
The other three quarter-finals will see Brazil's Adriano de Souza take on South Africa's Jordy Smith, France's Jeremy Flores battle Brazil's Gabriel Medina (the event's reigning champion) and Hawaii's Seth Moniz clash with Brazil's Caio Ibelli.