Mateus has a long history with Wavegarden Cove. In 2017 he was the blonde grom who air-revoed his way through one of the first digitized sessions at the R & D facility. Fast forward to the hot mess that is 2020 and we find Mateus Herdy hitting Urbnsurf Melbourne shortly before the latest COVID-19 lockdown.

The Junior tour standout joined JS Industries vets Parko, Luke Egan, Dusty Payne, and Dean Morrison for an afternoon session saying he took full advantage of the surf on offer. The Brazilian used the Melbourne wave pool’s famous Beast setting to practice his airs.

“I wanted to get my Alley-Oop down, so I practiced it a lot,” said Mateus who then applied the newly learned muscle memory to the ocean shortly after. “It was crazy. I landed every Alley Oop I went for. I was like, OK, so what’s next?”

The clip is part of a promotional Wavegarden Cove video launched this week extolling the benefits of wave pool practice for high-level athletes so they can ultimately push the performance envelope. Many brand ambassadors, national and international teams book surf parks for practice sessions.

“Just imagine the possibilities if you could surf here all the time?” Continued Mateus. “The sky’s the limit, literally! I seriously think crazy airs will play a big part in the future and here we can practice them all day long.”

Next to the children of Wavegarden founders Karin Frisch and Josema Odriozola, Mateus might be the most Cove-sessioning surfer under 20 in the world. See the clip below for Mateus’ first artificial wave session deep in the Basque Country of Spain three years ago.