Wow. The 2022 WSL Finals were just the second using this format in CT history and the first following a season not disrupted by Covid, and wasn’t it one to remember. The waves can certainly get better at Trestles than what was on offer in the early hours of Friday morning, but they were rippable enough and ultimately gave rise to a result on the women’s side of the draw that had to be seen to be believed. Beginning with Match #1 between fifth seed Steph Gilmore and fourth seed Brisa Hennessy, this is how the women’s WSL Finals unfolded.
Match #1: Brisa Hennessy (4) vs Stephanie Gilmore (5)
Despite being the lower seed, Steph Gilmore entered this matchup with a huge advantage over her opponent in terms of both experience and success at this wave. From the outset, however, Hennessy appeared anything but overawed by the seven-time world champ. The Costa Rican started strongly, picking up a 6.00 on her second wave which was quickly relegated to her third best score after she followed it up with a 7.00 and a 7.33 to take her two-wave total to a very strong 14.33.
Gilmore took a little longer to get going, failing to register more than a 5.00 on her first three waves, but once she hit her straps she looked every bit the Steph Gilmore of years past. Her first score of consequence was a 7.93, and when she backed that up with a 6.83 she took a narrow lead into the dying stages of the heat. As well as she’d surfed, Hennessy was unable to find the score she needed to wrestle the lead back, and was resigned to a fifth place finish in what was a year of significant improvement for the 22-year-old.
Result: Hennessy 14.33-14.76 Gilmore
Match #2: Tatiana Weston-Webb (3) vs Steph Gilmore (5)
Gilmore looked strong in Match #1, but Weston-Webb loomed as a more intimidating opponent for her in her unlikely search for a record eighth world title. The Brazilian was heartbreakingly close to winning her maiden world title here last year, and with the form she entered this contest with was certainly not without a chance of going one better in 2022. And from the outset, it was clear that strong form had carried through to the finals. After a 5.17 to start, Weston-Webb scored an 8.00 on her second wave before following it up with a 6.87, taking her to a formidable total of 14.87 which Gilmore, once again, had her work cut out to surpass after a slow start to the heat.
The lanky Australian, however, was never going to go down without a fight. After managing just one wave of any consequence in her first four, she put together her best wave of the heat with a 7.00 to keep herself in the contest. Soon after, she showed just why she’s had so much success at Trestles with the best wave of the event to date. That one scored her an 8.30, a number which took her two-wave total to 15.30 and ultimately saw her advance through to the second-last match of the event with a second consecutive narrow win over a gallant opponent.
Result: Weston-Webb 14.87-15.30 Gilmore
Match #3: Johanne Defay (2) vs Steph Gilmore (5)
By this stage, Gilmore was well and truly in her groove and the prospect of her becoming the most successful surfer in the history of women’s surfing suddenly appeared very much on the cards. Defay, as well as she has surfed all year, would not have been thrilled with the prospect of paddling out for her first heat of the day against a rampaging seven-time world champ. And pretty quickly, it was evident that any such concerns were well and truly justified.
In contrast to her first two matchups, Gilmore started this one where she’d ended the last one. She kicked things off with a strong 6.33, but by heats end she didn’t even need that in her two-wave score. Immediately after it, she surpassed her previous best wave of the event with a huge 8.83, and when she followed that up with an 8.00 it was always going to be tough for Defay. The Frenchwoman certainly couldn’t be criticised for a lack of trying; she took wave after wave in an attempt to match the imposing 16.63 total she needed to win, but in her nine waves she was unable to put together anything better than a 5.93. 2022 was the best year of her career to date, but in a reminder of the cut-throat nature of the new WSL Finals format, her season was brought to an end in ignominious fashion in the space of just 35 minutes.
Result: Defay 10.53-Gilmore 16.83
Title Match: Carissa Moore (1) vs Steph Gilmore (5)
The Title Match could hardly have been more tantalising if it was scripted. Moore, the best surfer in the world for years and the comfortable number one seed this year, was always going to be incredibly tough to beat in a best-of-three matchup. In the form she was in, however, Gilmore was the one to do it.
Heat 1
There have been plenty of criticisms about the new WSL Finals format since it was brought into play last year, one of which is whether it’s disadvantageous for the higher seeds to have to watch on from the shore while their competitors get into the flow of things in the water. Heat 1 was a perfect representation of that argument. Gilmore was no doubt advantaged by having got her legs beneath her over the course of three heats, but equally it was questionable how much she would have left in the tank having spent close to two hours surfing competitively throughout the course of the day entering this heat.
As it turned out, that tank had plenty left in reserve. Her first wave was an 8.33, putting her in the box seat immediately, before she followed that up with a 5.27 and then a 6.67. Those were her only three waves of any significance in the heat, but surprisingly Moore was unable to mount much of a challenge. The yellow jersey wearer took just three waves in the heat, with a 5.90 the best of them. Gilmore made it four from four with the win, and moved to within just a heat of an incredible world title.
Result: Moore 10.90-15.00 Gilmore
Heat 2
As fantastic a surfer as Moore is and as good as her form has been all year, by this stage it was looking unlikely that even she would be able to stop Steph Gilmore. Early on, however, the two went toe to toe, with Gilmore winning the first exchange but only by a slim margin, and Moore remaining well and truly in the fight.
The best in the world don’t reach such lofty heights without an innate ability to perform when pressure is at its highest, and with 12 world titles between them it’s safe to say that both of these surfers have that ability in spades. On this occasion, however, it was Gilmore and Gilmore alone who was able to reach deepest into her bag of tricks with everything on the line. Moore ultimately managed her best score of the contest with her fourth and final wave, a 6.80 to take her total to 11.97, but as it turned out that was no match for Gilmore. With an eighth world title within her grasp, she surfed like a woman possessed in the latter stages of the heat, accumulating an 8.00, a 6.67 and a 7.23 in consecutive waves. This took her heat total to 15.23, and saw her become the first woman to win eight world titles; with this perhaps the most memorable of them all.
Result: Moore 11.97-15.23 Gilmore
At 34 years of age, Gilmore probably won’t be getting near Slater’s record 11 world titles, but with her eighth she now stands alone as the most successful female surfer in the sport’s history. Entering this contest, her chances of achieving that goal seemed slim; she was going to need to spend close to four hours in the water at a minimum and had zero margin for ever, but as it turned out she didn’t need it. It was an incredible display of surfing, one of the best of her glittering career, with all five of her heats ending in a score of at least 14.76. Her day could quite easily have come to an end early with both Hennessy and Weston-Webb getting close, but she did what she needed to against them before beating the best two surfers in the world like she was shelling peas. The extraordinary display came 15 years after she won her first world title at the age of just 19, and in the words of Gilmore herself was ‘the greatest achievement of my career’. And for someone with a trophy cabinet as full as hers, that’s saying something.
