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.

Move out the way boys, the girls will be out and all about the swell today. The holding period for the Roxy Pro Hawaii began yesterday and will continue until December 6th, when the waves are at their best. This is the longest running professional women’s surfing event on the island, and a key event in the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour. The prize for this event is a whopping $85,000 – I definitely need to consider a career change!

Visit back here during the holding period to see contest results.

In the meantime, shop Roxy and more surf brands at surffanatics.com and receive free shipping on any size order.