The greatest surfer in history, Kelly Slater, declared: “For a couple of years I thought Yago might be the best surfer in the world; maybe not the best competitor yet, but his surfing was excellent.”

He added: "Now he seems to have progressed much faster, while Gabriel, Italo, and Filipe have stabilized a bit. So I think Yago has taken advantage of the opportunity, and that's great because he's a really good guy."

The statements were made to communicator Michael Ciaramella in an interview published in Stab.

Slater added: “I think everyone likes Yago: He’s not confrontational, he’s not a know-it-all, he’s not arrogant. He has a lovely family and good lifelong friends, and he just lets his surfing speak for itself. So, even if the tour is doing something wrong, the good guys still win the heats,” he said, referring to whether there are unfairnesses in the scoring.

Slater touched on several topics in the interview published yesterday by Stab.

Dora won the world title two weeks ago in Fiji after winning her only series against Griffin Colapinto in the first match.

Slater even opined that Yago's wave of 8,33 could have been higher.