Mangaluru, May 27 (IANS): Tamil Nadu dominated the penultimate day of the ongoing second edition of Indian Open of Surfing with most of their surfers booking their place in the semi-finals across all the categories held at the Sasihithlu beach here on Saturday.
Amidst near perfect conditions thronged by almost a 6000-odd crowd, the Tamil Nadu surfers nearly walked away with semi-final spots in all the categories, except for the women's open category, that was dominated by the local Mangaluru girls.
The penultimate day of the event consisted of the first and second rounds for the Juniors (17-21 Years), the first round for the Women's open category, second round for the Senior (22-30 Years) and Groms -- Under-16 categories.
The day began on a highly energetic mode with the two rounds of the juniors category, which witnessed Chennai's T. Manivannan, P. Surya, Ajith Govind, Rahul Govind and Sateesh qualifying for the semi-finals along with Ramesh, the lone surfer from Kerala.
The Women's open category gave a lot of respite to the locals with three out of the eight semi-finalists hailing from Mangaluru.
Local girls Tanvi Jagadish, Aneesha Naik and Sinchana Gowda along with Chennai's Vilassini Sundar and Shristi Selvam, Pondicherry surfer Suhasini Damian, Manipal surfer Ishita Malviya and Russian surfer Olga Kosenko made it to the last four stage.
The men's senior category witnessed a complete domination from Tamil Nadu surfers with six out of the eight semi-finalists hailing from the state.
Chennai's Sekar Patchai, Dharani Selvakumar, Manikandan Appu Desappan, Vignesh Vijaya kumar and Mahabalipuram surfers Santosh Moorthy and Raghul Pannerselvam qualified for the semi-finals. The others to complete the list were Goan Swapnil Bhinge and Kerala's Varghese Antony.
The second round of Groms- Under-16 category also witnessed the dominance from Tamil Nadu surfers with all the semi-final spots being taken from the surfers from the state.
Chennai's Santhosh Santhakumar, Mani Kandan M., Ajeesh Ali and Mani Kandan I. along with Mahabalipuram's Sunil Dhayalan and Sivaraj Babu were the ones who made it to the semi-final round of the Groms -- Under-16 category.
The semi-final and final rounds for all the categories and the stage two of the men's SUP race will be held on Sunday.