The upsets began to mount early on and they continued to pile up in the later rounds of the Roxy Pro France, eventually leading to Tatiana Weston-Webb’s best result of her young career. Despite numerous wins at the Junior and
The upsets began to mount early on and they continued to pile up in the later rounds of the Roxy Pro France, eventually leading to Tatiana Weston-Webb’s best result of her young career. Despite numerous wins at the Junior and Qualifying Series levels, Weston-Webb hadn’t moved beyond the semifinals at her first 11 Championship Tour stops. That all changed Thursday as Tati outworked world No. 1 Carissa Moore to earn a spot in the final heat.
In a season that has been mostly dominated by Moore and Courtney Conlogue, we had not seen a women’s final that didn’t include those top two or No. 3 Sally Fitzgibbons. That all changed as Tati got the best of Fitzgibbons in the quarters and Moore in the semis. Conlogue was knocked off in round four by Tyler Wright.
The two who did the heavy lifting then met in the finals as Weston-Webb and Wright faced off for the French title. Wright hasn’t been a championship contender all season, but still played the role of favorite well in her first final of the year. She stalled into a quick barrel and then added a couple of maneuvers for an 8.67 to take control at the 18-minute mark.
Tati was hunting for big numbers, but it was Wright who came up big again with a savvy ride at the 10-minute mark for an 8.43. It furthered her combination lead with a 17.10 total and put the title on her door step.
Despite the huge deficit, Weston-Webb finished strong with an impressive 8.30 on a set wave in the heat’s closing seconds. It wasn’t going to flip the result, but it was a nice exclamation point to her best week ever on the world tour.
She began the contest with a sublime barrel on a huge set wave, resulting in a perfect 10. There’s a stigma that the women aren’t looking to get pitted in the big conditions, but Tati doesn’t fit into that ideology. The judges rewarded her accordingly and it propelled her to the heat win and a spot in round three, where she found the two best waves to again jump a round into the quarters.
Winning back-to-back heats against Fitzgibbons and Moore shows the true maturity that seems to be making Tati less of a rookie and more of a contender as the season wears on. Her Rookie of the Year honor will be a formality, but she’s in position to likely finish no worse than eighth for the year and easily re-qualify. That’s an even more impressive feat.
The women’s world title race now gets a break before coming to Maui for the season finale. The third-place result for Moore puts her back into the yellow jersey ahead of Conlogue. The two are in a virtual tie for first, but Moore actually has a little more room to improve, as she can eliminate a ninth-place point total with any result better than that. Conlogue would have to better a fifth-place result to gain ground.
Moore is eyeing her third world title while Conlogue is still trying for her first. Last season ended with Moore picking up a very emotional victory on Maui, which started a streak of three straight contest wins. If she can duplicate that result, she’ll get an epic chair lift up the beach in her home state and cap off an amazing year from start to finish.
