Victor Fernandez, by rafasoulart
August 6, 2025 Created by Chris Yates
Day 6: Only top eight men and top sixteen women left standing after a long stop-start day eventually delivers
The forecast didn’t necessarily look amazing for Day 6 of the 2025 Playa Surf CBbC Hotel Tenerife El Médano Windsurf Grand Slam, but a few locals remained hopeful yesterday evening and in the end their positivity was correct. However, the beginning of the day proved to be a relatively frustrating affair as variable winds led to numerous cancellations. On the plus side, today saw the best waves of the contest thus far as El Cabezo gave a glimpse of what it’s capable of delivering and now the conclusion of the Men’s and Women’s Single Eliminations is within sight with just the top eight men and top sixteen women remaining.
Wave
Women’s
In the opening women’s heat – Heat 9 – Line Wittrup Bang (Goya Windsurfing) and Blanca Alabau (WeOne / Severne Sails) dominated proceedings to deservedly book their places in the quarterfinals. Heat 9 needed numerous attempts to be completed and on each occasion it was the Dane and the Spaniard in the top two, so it’s only fair that they did eventually progress as they were clearly a cut above.
Maria Behrens (Duotone Windsurfing / Maui Ultra Fins) was the standout sailor in the women’s opening round as the 23-year-old earned two out of the top three wave scores to comfortably progress into the top 16. Behrens showed excellent wave selection and was then able to use those scoring opportunities to maximum effect as she racked up a 7.37 and a 6.63, while Milanka Linde (Severne / Severne Sails) grabbed the other qualifying spot from an all-German Heat 10.
The other two Round of 32 heats proved to be relatively low scoring affairs in comparison as Sybille Bode (Goya Windsurfing) and Maria Schalin (JP / GUNSAILS) advanced from Heat 11, while 19-year-old Lisa Wermeister (Duotone Windsurfing / Maui Ultra Fins) won Heat 12 ahead of Cori McFarlane (Simmer / Simmer Sails), who actually finished tied on points with Lizzlotte Andrew Schilling (F2 / F2 Sails), but had the higher single wave score to also advance into the quarters.
Men’s
Philip Köster (Severne / Severne Sails) looked in fine form as the five-time world champion firstly set the highest score of the day thus far in the Round of 32 before going on to better his score in the Round of 16 as he set the highest score of the day – 19.75 points. The German was at his impeccable best in the air landing trademark double forwards, while he made wave riding look effortless as he danced from one move or turn straight into the next. After today’s performance, Köster has set the bar, and is who everyone else has to beat.
Also advancing from the opening quarterfinal is Victor Fernandez (Duotone Windsurfing), who looked perfectly at home again in El Cabezo. The Spaniard had to survive a late scare after fellow countryman – Alessio Stillrich (Bruch Boards / Bruch Sails) – landed a one-handed, one-footed backloop, but it wasn’t quite enough as Fernandez progressed by just over quarter of a point.
Defending event champion, Marc Paré (Simmer / Simmer Sails / MFC), set the second highest scoring heat of the day in the second quarterfinal – Heat 18 – as the Spaniard landed a double forward and then delivered some aggressive vert wave riding to rack up 18.9 points and will now face a stacked semifinal featuring Köster, Marcilio Browne (Goya Windsurfing / MFC) and Miguel Chapuis (Flikka / North Sails) for a spot in the final.
Meanwhile, Antoine Martin (Quatro / Goya Windsurfing / MFC) secured the second qualifying position into the semifinals after landing arguably the biggest backloop of the day in the dying minutes to deny Dieter van der Eyken (Severne / Severne Sails) a spot in the semifinal at his home event, who had looked in dangerous form all day and set the fourth highest heat tally of the entire contest in his second round performance.
Liam Dunkerbeck (Duotone Windsurfing) made a flying start to Heat 19 as the 21-year-old quickly landed an almost perfect double forward – 7.82 points – to give himself the remainder of the heat to concentrate on wave riding and the young Spaniard made no mistake with his early advantage to comfortably book his place in the semifinals. Behind Dunkerbeck though, there was an incredibly tight battle between Miguel Chapuis, Moritz Mauch (Simmer / Simmer Sails) and Ricardo Campello with just 1.31 points separating second to fourth by the end of the heat.
Campello spent most of the heat unsuccessfully looking for a double forward ramp and felt he was impeded several times when ready to jump, but in hindsight he may now regret not concentrating on waves more as he was left counting just a 3.38 point backup score.
Meanwhile, in the case of Mauch, he’ll be slightly disappointed he couldn’t properly connect with a wave in the quarters. The 29-year-old earned the highest singe wave score for the second day running – 7 points – but couldn’t quite replicate it in Heat 19. However, you can’t take anything away from Chapuis, who was one of the standout wave riders of the day – consistently showing solid wave selection and timing to progress.
In the last heat of the day – Heat 20 – Marino Gil (JP / NeilPryde / MFC) quickly landed the highest scoring jump of the contest thus far – 8 points – for a perfect double forward, which like Dunkerbeck gave him the opportunity to focus on waves for the remainder of the heat and the last quarterfinal also turned into an epic tussle for the second qualifying position. In the end, reigning world champion, Marcilio Browne, did enough to edge out Julian Salmonn (Naish / Naish Sails), who completed the podium here in 2024, after the Brazilian combined a super stylish bottom turn into a taka to advance.
Elsewhere, Jules Denel (Tabou / GA Sails) was a little bit unlucky to be drawn in Heat 16 with Browne, Campello and Jochen Stolz as the Frenchman would’ve advanced into the top 16 in all but one other second round heat. Denel outscored both Browne and Campello on the wave, but both of the latter landed double forwards, which ultimately proved to be the difference.
Heat 12 also saw a change in result after Takuma Sugi (Tabou / GA Sails / Black Project Fins) was adjudged to have interfered with one of Alessio Stillrich’s waves – meaning that upon review, Sugi was deducted his highest single wave score, and with just 0.7 of a point separating the two sailors, that led to Stillrich advancing in place of a disgruntled Sugi.
Thursday should hopefully see both the Men’s and Women’s Single Eliminations completed as the forecast for tomorrow has improved with slightly bigger waves and similar winds as today expected. The wave fleets will meet again at 9:30am (GMT+1) for their skippers’ meeting with a first possible start at 10am. The Slalom X fleet will be given an announcement again at 12pm with a first possible start at 13:00.