Cronulla goofyfooter Connor O’Leary took an important step up on his 2018 tour in making the fourth round at the Uluwatu CT, the make-up event for stop number three on the WSL Championship Tour.
After the cancellation of the Margaret River Pro in April, the WSL decided to complete the event in Bali, Indonesia following the Corona Bali Protected presented by Hurley.
The biggest upset of the first day happened when 2018 CT rookie Michael Rodrigues took down CT leader and fellow Brazilian Italo Ferreira.
Tahiation Michel Bourez then went down to CT sophomore and 2017 rookie of the year O’Leary in heat eight of round three as the shire surfer hunted his first major result of the season.
O’Leary wasn't headed in his crucial heat scoring a 5.3 for his first wave over Bourez’s 4.7 and finished him with another mid range 5.7 to take his first third round win of the year.
In the three-man fourth round O’Leary was leading with seven minutes to go before being steamrolled first by Gabriel Medina who scored a 9 and then event winner Willian Cardoso who scored a 7.9, relegating O’Leary to a ninth-placed finish, his best result of the year.
That leaves O’Leary in 29th position going into the Corona Open J-Bay on July 2.
It was almost as good as it gets on the Cronulla beaches over the last few days-yesterday it was 4/5ft and offshore all day, Monday a bit bigger but with a little more wind and today perfect conditions but a lot smaller-Gold medal week so far.
Swellnet predicts this swell to drop slowly today but with offshore winds and a fun peaky easing East swell. Thursday it is going to be smaller still with the rest of the week remaining very clean under a predominant westerly airstream, but there’s not a lot of size potential.
The weekend will start on a small note, ahead of a building Southerly swell into the afternoon that’ll become quite large into Sunday as S/SW gales develop in the western Tasman Sea.
Sunday’s on track for solid 6-8ft surf at south facing beaches with smaller waves elsewhere due to the acute direction. Winds should remain SWesterly so there’ll be workable options at most beaches.
Johanne Defay (FRA) and Willian Cardoso (BRA) won through a marathon day of surfing at the Uluwatu CT on Bali’s Bukit Peninsula.
2018 CT Rookie Cardoso was the in-form surfer of the event, posting massive scores and dominating performances over both days of competition.
The women’s Final was an all-time, goofy versus natural-footer battle as Defay came up against 2018’s most consistent surfer Tatiana Weston-Webb (BRA) at the Uluwatu racetrack.
Defay was behind but found a set and went to work, narrowly flying past Weston-Webb by just 0.46 points, to take her first CT win since the Fiji Pro in 2016.
