Several of New Zealand’s top surfers are in action at major international events across the globe this week including Matt Hewitt, Richard Christie, Jay Quinn and Billy Stairmand.

Matt Hewitt got the late call up to compete at the Arnette World Pro Junior event in Brazil.  After jetting half way around the world, Matt made it just in time to compete at the six-star Brazilian Open where he progressed through one round to finish 73^rd overall.

More importantly Matt set himself up for the Pro Junior event in Rio de Janeiro where he cleaned up his first heat posting 11.34 out of 20 to defeat Hiroto Arai (JPN) and Medi Veminardi (REU).  The win advanced Matt directly through to the third round and a few days off.  He should be up again tonight (Thursday) or the wee hours of Friday morning in a head-to-head match up with Beyrick De Vries (ZAF), a win slotting him nicely into the top 16 surfers at the event.

The event is one of three on the World Pro Junior Tour and offers up $25,000 for first place.

You can follow Matt’s advance at the Arnette Pro Junior live.

The second major event taking place is the final leg of the O’Neill Cold Water Classic being held at Santa Cruz, California.  Only Ricardo managed to surf in the first round today placing second to Kolohe Andino – winner of the previous two ASP events in Brazil.  The result pushed Ricardo through to the second round and inside the top 48 surfers.

Jay and Billy will surf their first round match ups tomorrow with Billy, who placed third at the event in 2010 coming off a knee injury.

You can also follow their progress at the O’Neill Cold Water Classic live.

The race is on for qualification points, Ricardo and Jay sitting in 47^th and 48^th respectively and Billy falling back to 87^th.  Three further events remain after Santa Cruz with the guys needing to break into the top 32 to qualify for the ASP World Tour in 2012.