Top seeds made their highly-anticipated debuts at the Gotcha Ichinomiya Chiba Open Men's QS 6,000 powered by Gravity Channel and elevated competition to new heights with incredible surfing. A marathon day of action completed the final two heats of Round 1 and all 24 heats of Round 2 before the final buzzer sounded.
But, amid dominating performances, early upsets shook up the ranks throughout the day with a few hefty eliminations.