Championship Tour rookie Ryan Callinan scraped his way into the Quarterfinals with a last-minute win over Italo Ferreira in the slowest heat of the day at the Billabong Pro Cascais Friday. Callinan was searching for a decent score in the dying minutes, and he and Ferreira exchanged backhand blows in the final seconds. Both surfers were forced to wait on the beach for scores to come through, but it was Callinan who squeaked by with a 7.83 to overtake Italo.
This was a huge win for the Australian, who's on the requalification bubble for 2017. Sitting at No. 11 on the Qualifying Series (QS), Callinan needs the extra points -- 10 is the cutoff, unless CT surfers double-qualify -- and his CT ranking is No. 36, far below the cutoff at 22. He will meet another "bubble" surfer, Bino Lopes, in the Quarterfinals.