Beautiful waves and striking scenery set the stage for the Uluwatu contest, which concluded the event that had been canceled earlier this year at Margaret River. It was a very different environment and it produced two new event winners this year as Johanne Defay won the women’s event and rookie Willian Cardoso captured the men’s title Saturday in Bali, Indonesia.
The win for Defay is her third career Championship Tour victory and propels her into fifth place for the season after a somewhat slow start. Defay had to battle back in the final heat, topping Tatiana Weston-Webb 13.13 to 12.67. Needing a 6.13 in the closing minutes, Defay managed to spot an opportunity and took full advantage, surviving one very committed turn and remaining on her board to finish off the ride and earn a 6.63 for the victory.
It’s obviously disappointing for Weston-Webb to come up just short, but her runner-up result keeps her in third place for the year. She is the only woman on tour to have reached four semifinal rounds this season, including another runner-up finish at Bells Beach. But it’s been four straight final fours for Tati and she is very much a part of the world title picture as the season heads into its second half.
Tati had a brilliant semifinal win over Stephanie Gilmore, putting the six-time world champ in the combo position and earning a one-sided 14.50 to 2.50 victory. Defay had the opposite in an extremely tight win over Tyler Wright, in which she ultimately prevailed 13.77 to 13.73.
While this seemed like a prime opportunity for Carissa Moore to begin her upward climb, things did not go in her favor as she fell victim to Weston-Webb in the quarterfinal round, 13.10 to 12.66. Moore has still yet to make a single semifinal this season, which is following a pattern that began last year. Her first semifinal of 2017 didn’t occur until Cascais, the eighth event of the season.
But it’s a drastic shift from how she has typically started. She made the semifinal round in the first five contests of 2016, the first four of both 2015 and 2014. It’s usually her setting the pace in the early stages of a season. But recently, for whatever reason, that narrative has flipped. To get back into the world title race, she’ll have to start consistently breaking through into that top four at most stops the rest of the way.
Lakey Peterson holds onto the yellow jersey by the narrowest of margins as she leads Gilmore by just 55 points — 35,630 to 35,575. A little more than 6,000 points back, Tati has ground to make up, but she also has a 13th-place result to replace at some point. It’s a very tight race and a lot will certainly change over the coming months.
For Cardoso on the men’s side, it’s a monumental victory for the young Brazilian. Rookies winning events has never been much of a possibility, but the depth of the tour has now put a few fresh faces in contention. His win over Julian Wilson in the final vaulted Cardoso up to fifth in the rankings and gives Brazil four of the top five.
Wilson regains the yellow jersey from Italo Ferreira, who fell out surprisingly in the third round.
The win for Cardoso was not the only surprise of the event, as wild card Mikey Wright continued his astounding season as a call-up. He reached his second straight semifinal, eliminating Gabriel Medina in the quarters. Wright now sits in seventh place on the season, having only surfed four of the five events to this point. He’d probably be in the top five had he been in the field at Bells Beach.
Concluding the Margaret River event at Uluwatu proved to be a great decision and gave a fresh feel to the 2018 season. The back end of the year will get another breath of life when both tours head to Jeffreys Bay on July 2.
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David Simon can be reached at dsimon@thegardenisland.com.
