CT Rankings Update: Moniz And Brooks Make Major Moves In Tahiti, Pacific Leg Hits Fiji Pro

Too much foam on that one. So you want those ones that just missed the outside. Oh, we've got another one. Wave after wave now. Wow! This is a huge score. Look at that. Head down, fired up. He's running for everything. He just speared Jake's GoPro. That was amazing. That's going to be on Snake Tales. That was incredible. I can't wait to see that. You guys need to get that clip ASAP. That was great. That is incredible. Speaking of Seth Moniz, let's take a look Starting at the quarterfinals, but you know what? Before we get to Alan Cleland Jr. in quarterfinal number one that Seth had to go through. Let's rewind. Emile Zermak, heat number one. Yago Dora defending world champ in heat number two. Baron Mamiya in heat number three. Then we get to this bracket right here, Flick, with Al Cleland Jr. Talk about taking down the hardest draw. I mean, Al Cleland, absolute charger when it comes to big pits, big tubes, and hucking himself over the ledge. The quarterfinal, the first one up against just like major, major tenacity. Seth had the toughest bracket, and he came through the hard way because he had to get past guys like this. Alan Cleland Jr., who was a standout in all the free serves. And just the style, the grace that this guy is capable of putting himself in the toughest situation that everyone's terrified and tenses up. He just looks freed up and as good as he could be. So props to Seth to make everything look so easy. So deep, so many barrels. He actually tapped out when we calculated the actual tube time in seconds. Coming up to this finals day, he already had 60 seconds. He clocked a lot more. Then coming up against Italo Ferreira, a former champ and one of the most informed surfers here in Tahiti in the semifinals. He really stopped the momentum of Italo because Italo was looking so hard to beat out here. Just the way he hunts around the reef. He makes himself available to any sort of opportunity. Seth really put a stop to that. It's not easy to do on your backhand in conditions like today. I feel like the sort of narrative storyline was like, oh, it's the goof. It's the goof today, coming from deep on the reef. But Seth, just with his technical ability on his backhand, being able to take down Italo, who would have been a favourite, is really, really impressive. These big, long, deep tubes coming from so deep on the reef, finding these ones that stay so open. Yeah, it just really was Seth's day today. A lot of times the shorter waves, but way hollower than most. And he was able to put himself in such a deep spot. Then on to the final where Seth is going to match his childhood friend in the way of Griffin Colapinto. Two back-to-back finals here for Griffin and a 10, but Seth came back from behind in this final. Griff really got it started with the 7, right? You're thinking, okay, Griff's getting things going, the momentum's going his way, and it was sort of the story of Seth really fighting back and locking in the 8-5 to start. And then you're thinking, okay, he had this incredible moment, too, where he kicked off in the crowd. And Kelly kind of said it before, you know, when you have a moment like that, and it kind of is this moment that's probably going to be replayed forever, it kind of feels like he's the guy. And I feel like that's so true in that moment. It was just really cool, everyone getting around him, supporting him, and you could really see just how much everyone wants him to win, because he is such the underdog here. When he came in at number 30th seed into this event, but what we were seeing from him out there, he could not put a foot wrong in the end. Ended up locking in a couple of 9s. Thanks for coming. And I'll tell you one thing, the 10-point ride came for Griffin, but he just didn't have priority, and Seth was just in the perfect spot. Griffin was a little deeper, so he probably would have capitalized even more on the 9.1 that we just saw on the screen from Seth Moniz. So just playing a perfect heat, very selective throughout the whole event. Congratulations to Seth Moniz. Seven years on the championship tour, his maiden CT victory at one of the marquee events on the championship tour here in Tahiti, and the numbers? Giant. Two 9s in the final, 18.17, the highest scoring heat of Seth's career. Incredible, and to do it at a wave like this, where you're going to get your first win, I mean, it's been a long time coming, I'm sure he would have loved one before then, but to win at Chopes, this is one of those events, when you qualify, you say, I want to win at Pipe, I want to win at Chopes. And he's done that, so it's incredible to see, and winning in such a convincing fashion with two excellent numbers feels good. Gigantic. Seth Moniz on the dock here, greeted by the goat, Al Cleland Jr., and good friend, like I said, from childhood, Griffin Colapinto. By the way, Griffin, incredible event for Colapinto, I just want to congratulate Griffin on, super entertaining. Well, this is stop seven of the championship tour, and so, after seven stops, let's see where we're at with our men's rankings. Italo Ferreira, he'll be in yellow when we get to Fiji. Griffin Colapinto still climbed into the top ten. Leonardo Fioravanti still in the conversation flick. And look at the rest. A lot of Brazilian flags still in the top ten, however. Oh, still a lot of Brazilian flags, and I mean, Italo, he's incredible out here. Hats off to him for jumping up into that number one spot. I mean, he's a past champ out here, he kept decimating through the draw. Leo, it's sad for him to drop out of there, but he's still, you know, he's still keeping at pace, but when I look at the points here, if you look at Italo, he's on 39,000 here, so there's quite a lot of points separating himself and Leo now, so Italo's sort of making a bit of a jump. You think to the events that we've got coming up, too. We've got Fiji, he does well there. We've got lowers. Well, he does really well there, too, so I'm just, wow, he's semi-running away with it at the moment. Yeah, second page of the rankings, too, I feel is where we're going to see a lot of movement on that second page, because some guys that were lower on the rankings skipped up, especially from what was it, 31 to 19 for Seth Moniz, climbing the rankings, and that was the biggest mover, and also some people falling down the rankings as well. I mean, it's crazy to think that Seth is still in 19 after an event win. That just shows how tough of a year he has been going through so far, but this just changed. Momentum shift. He's going into the Pacific once again, which he feels just at home, but you have guys like Felipe in 17, which is not expectable. Even JackRabo, 12. The final continues as we see an airdrop from Erin Brooks, pulls in super deep, gets a chance here, and she will make it out. Impressive read from Erin Brooks, who has just flipped the script on Anat Lelior. A few minutes ago, Erin Brooks was calm mode. What an event for Erin. It was crazy. She took down some really big names in this event. You think to Carissa Moore, the five-time world champ, she had pretty much probably the hardest road you could get after that. Molly Picklem, defending champ, and also the current world champ. Let's take a look. Let's take a look at the bracket and flick Erin's road to a victory here in Tahiti. There you go. Oh, yeah. It only got tough. It doesn't get any harder, really. I mean, prior to that, she took down Carissa as well. She had Tia Zabrowski in her early opening round, too, so not an easy draw. Then she matched up against one of her best mates in the semifinal, Isabella Nichols, on tour. That would have been a really difficult one just personally. Then in the final, matched up with Anat. Anat had her on lock. Two excellent numbers within the first five to ten minutes. She had to back up against the wall and she had to really fight her way back. She was in a combination situation. Yeah, and it was an excellent scoring final on both sides. It started with the quarterfinals and how that road came for Erin Brooks. She had to come up after Molly Picklem. When you talk about Tahiti, you talk about someone with backhand tube riding skills. You think about Molly Picklem. Oh, definitely. And just guinea pigs for the day, right? Like first heap of the morning you can see how much more lump and how much more unruly it was this morning compared to what we had in the finals. So, very tricky to navigate, finding clear water, but just did amazing work to get this one done. Yeah, 13.5. Pickles really couldn't find form in this quarter final. Just a 3.27 for Molly Picklem. So, the morning started out with Erin Brooks all on her end, all on her side in this quarterfinal. On to the semifinals with some great tube riding flick just like that. Yeah, it was awesome to see, when I reflect back on this and to your point Jesse, just how much she's been able to adapt throughout the day, just with the condition changes and, I mean my goodness, you look at the technique inside the tube it's just, she's got it she's got it on lock. Semifinals up against a good friend in the way of Isabella Nichols and you know friends go at each other hard. In this semifinal 9 point ride this is when things really turned up for Erin Brooks. I mean, just her read and how she's able to knife it, like keep herself compact, keep her arms always very close to her body which gives her the balance on those late takeoffs to keep the momentum going forward. Bella fought back got pretty drained actually on this heat, had two nice barrels, but it just wasn't enough it was one of those days that, you know, Erin was going to be unstoppable. I think so too, this was cool just to see the personal growth for Bella throughout this event, just even when you reflect back to last year to this year and to have that heat to get a few successful tubes, I think for her personally it's going to be really good, but just for Erin today, it was her day, like you said Jesse, just so informed, she couldn't really put a foot wrong, even when she had her back completely up against the wall, she was always going to fight back, so got the win over the best mate, and then it was on to the final. All goofy foot final and the hard charging Anat Lelior flick had Erin in a combination halfway through this final I was kind of baffled, I knew it was only a matter of time for Anat to really lock in an excellent score, because just seeing the waves she'd been taking off on previous heats, I was like hey, this chick's going to lock in an excellent number for sure but then Erin I mean man, she did so good to remain calm under pressure, because she was basically left chasing a combination of over 16 points to fight her way back, she locked in the first number, and then yeah, really chasing another big score, and this is the moment, this is the turning wave which really turned the heat, she locked in the 9 point ride or was that the really high 8 for this one or the 9? Yeah, 8.93 8.93, there's been so many 8's and 9's today, but yeah, she's just done so well, there was such a tight little tube to try and find the exit in, and so long great positioning, great heavy take off, she made the drop, and yeah, beautiful way to fight back. Let's take a look at our women's ranking after stop number 7 here in Tahiti and our women's ranking Gabby Bryant stays in yellow. Yeah, she's going to stay in yellow, heading into Fiji, Carissa, she's staying in second, and then really Molly, she's moved up one spot on the rankings there you got Katie Simmers, she's moved up as well, Nadia at the moment she's still holding on to that potential rookie of the year, so she's fighting for that, and then I think the next page, once again is where we're going to see most of the movement on the board, so the top sort of holding steady, but I'm interested to see where Anat's moved to and where Erin's moved to, because that is where the big movement's going to be. Yeah, there's the big mover right there, Erin Brooks, 10,000 points that's half of her year total right there she's had a tough year, right that's what a win does for you on the championship tour, right Jesse? Yeah, same for Anat, you know, fourth in place it was the year, I mean it was the event of the underdogs, all the guys that were, the girls and the girls that were kind of having a shock every year, and bouncing themselves back, London 17 now with a good chance of backing herself up in the second half, and gaining ground.