John John Florence experienced one of the most frustrating heats of his career today against his “friend” and neighbor, Ezekiel Lau, who applied paddling tactics, did not give him an inch of the peak and bothered the Hawaiian as much as he could, paddling around him and sticking to him… He got into his head and beat him.

The two-time world champion had his chances to turn the series around, but he wasted his time and missed them. He showed that Lau was right on target by annoying him like that. He fell on the first wave of a crucial wave doing a strong maneuver and then failed to complete the aerials he set out to do.

“Let him feel the pressure a little bit, he's the champ, you can't give him any room” - @zekelau eliminates @john_john_florence in Round 3 #RipCurlPro #BellsBeach @ripcurl_aus

A publication shared by World surf league (@wsl) the Apr 2, 2018 at 2:35 PDT

After the series, a visibly upset John John made a new analysis about when competition becomes too serious. Asked about the situation, he said: “It’s all about competition, I kind of laugh about it, he was paddling on my board and doing things like that (laughs). One way of looking at it is that it’s a bit pathetic because it’s fun to compete with pure surfing and not have to win them by sitting on someone’s board, but it’s a competition and maybe I’ll do the same thing next event (laughs).”

Meanwhile, Zeke said, a little nervous because his unorthodox tactics had worked out well, that "you can't give a champion an inch" and that's why he did what he did.

It is worth remembering that surfers like Gabriel Medina have been heavily criticized for doing the same thing that Lau did today to beat John John.

Will it become a trend? Will Lau's be everyone's new strategy to beat John John?