Kinda Pumping: Cole Houshmand And Teresa Bonvalot Win ‘Plan B’ Ballito Pro

San Clemente’s Cole Houshmand and Cascais, Portugal’s Teresa Bonvalot just won the first stop of the 2026 Challenger Series in Ballito, South Africa.

It’s both Teresa’s second Challenger Series win and Cole’s third, the latter winning this same event back in 2023.

Cole is currently on the CT, sitting at the precarious 25th spot. Teresa Bonvalot has yet to make the Tour, but has competed in the 2024 Olympics for Portugal and has surfed in CT events before as a wildcard.

So, how does CT qualification work this year, and why were there eight CT men (Cole Houshmand, Jake Marshall, Mateus Herdy, Joel Vaughan, Crosby Colapinto, Oscar Berry, Luke Thompson and Rio Waida) and seven CT women (Francisca Veselko, Bella Kenworthy, Sally Fitzgibbons, Brisa Hennessy, Nadia Erostarbe, and Anat Lelior) surfing in this CS event?

Put simply, the Challenger Series is a bottom-ranked CT surfer’s Plan B.

At the end of the 2026 season, the top 22 men on the CT will stay for 2027, and the top 10 in the Challenger Series will move up. On the Women’s side, the top 14 women will stay for 2027, and the top six in the Challenger Series will move up.

So, if you’re a bottom-ranked CT surfer with the money to travel to the Challenger Series on top of the CT events, it’s a smart play to rack up Challenger Series results in case you can’t put things together in the back half of the 2026 CT season.

Ballito, South Africa, is the first of six stops on the 2026 Challenger Series, and, surprisingly, only four of the 15 CT surfers competing — Cole Houshmand, Jake Marshall, Francisca Veselko, and Bella Kenworthy— made it to the Quarterfinals. It’s evidently not an easy Plan B when upcoming surfers like Sierra Kerr, Eden Walla, Surf 100 stand-out Jackson Bunch, Dane Henry, and Weslley Dantas are in the mix fighting for their young lives.

So, what happened in the actual event? Here are the highlights straight from the English Thoroughbred’s (Paul Evans’) mouth:

• The waves were better than a lot of CT events this year; it’s been a banner season for South Africa, and there’s more sand on the beaches than there’s been in years.
  
• Total heat scores were way down for the Women’s side for uncertain reasons. The waves were punchy but short and often demanded airs, which some of the women frequently do (Sierra Kerr, who’s been on a wavepool tear, for one), but there weren’t many completions.

• Taj Lindblad, Dane Henry, and Wessley Dantas really impressed. Taj all power, Wessley all airs, and Dane amazing at everything.

• Cole’s straight air from the Final must be replayed.

• Paul’s prediction? Cole won’t need the Plan B, and he’ll get himself back into the Top 22 by season’s end.

On the Wessley Dantas point, we have a profile dropping on the 28-year-old Brazilian soon. After early career promise on the heavy heels of his brother Wiggolly, he went on a many-year hiatus from competing and has been AWOL for the past few seasons. However, he looked great at this event and by all accounts is gearing up for a comeback.

The Challenger Series is headed next to the once-great HB bacchanal that is the U.S. Open of Surfing for its next stop. It’ll be a battle between CT surfers’ Plan B and Challenger Series surfers’ Plan A to see whose professional surfing dreams will continue or who will have to hit the tools.