The 14th Annual Roxy Pro holding period began last week in Sunset Beach, Hawaii. For those who don’t know, this competition is huge. It determines the year’s world champion as well as the World Championship Tour women’s lineup for 2009. Oh yeah, and did I mention the prize is more than $80,000?

After waiting almost a week for some solid surf, action was seen Friday morning. Hawaii native, Melanie Bartels, who looked at ease in the challenging eight-foot waves, did her thing. She posted the top two waves ridden of the morning, totaling 18.4 out of 20, advancing her directly to the quarterfinals. In her heat was Coco Ho (Hawaii), Rosanne Hodge (South Africa), and reigning world champion Stephanie Gilmore (Australia).

Defending Roxy Pro Champion, Sofia Mulanoich (Peru) is currently No.2 on the ASP Women’s World Tour and has made the short cut to the quarters after putting in a solid round one effort.

The competition was scheduled to reconvene on Saturday morning, but was postponed.

Check back later for the complete results.