CT Watch: Jacob Willcox And Francisca Veselko Rattle The Cage
Where you begin is where you return: The Newcastle SURFEST.
Happy stories are bad for business.
Narrative structure lives in loss and collapse. Death is rocket fuel for the algorithm. Trump’s polling numbers, another coup, a sub full of billionaires vanishes en route to the Titanic. A riot outpaces a baby goat. Click. Click.
Surfing, improbably, has drifted into a state of uninterrupted delight. Friction in the culture is vanishing. Even the Challenger Series, a program long roasted for running in bubblewrap waves, just added Pipeline to the schedule. The deadliest wave on Earth, now part of the cadet program.
Even Newcastle pumped for most of the waiting period. Very suspicious.
What the hell is going on here, and why is everybody smiling? It’s disconcerting and I don’t like it.
Here’s how Francisca Viselko and Jacob Willcox won the first CS event of 2025 in pumping-adjacent conditions.
Women’s Semifinals
You learn to appreciate what’s still here before it vanishes. We don’t got no certainties, just fragile moments. For now, at least, Sally Fitz is a constant in Challenger Series finals day.
She started slow against Teresa Bonvalot, circling the lineup like a wary shark, before sinking her teeth into two waves — one a high six, the other a steady five — that doused Teresa’s flames.
Sally’s now 2-0 against TB, and somehow, predictably, headed to yet another CS final. Destiny’s favourite daughter.
“There’s seven spots up for grabs on the CT, but really, only five,” said Stace, already handing out golden tickets to Sally Fitzgibbons and Tya Zebrowski for the 2026 CT.
Tya is 14 and chews through heats like they’re after-school snacks. This is only her second Challenger Series event ever — the first being Ericeira last year, where she finished runner-up to Sally. By Stace’s reckoning, she’s already ghost-signed her CT contract, which would make her a 15-year-old rookie.
The booth had declared her win. Everyone nodding. Then, with half a minute left, Francisca Viselko swung on a sleeper and knifed it to pieces. Game over. Tya out. But not really.
Rip Curl, one assumes, are sleeping well after locking her down through 2028, presumably in blood. Another prodigy on the books, because the future must always be brighter, faster, and more terrifyingly French.
Men’s Semifinals
Matty McGillivray had been dodging reality for three heats straight, by the time he landed in the semis. Last-minute wins scraped from the bone. “I think I might be addicted to chaos,” he told Vaughn Blakey. Very Fight Club.
His opponent, Jacob Willcox, had just survived seven death-matches in Surf100. Ahem. Have you watched yet?
“Feels like a different sport sometimes,” Jacob said, contrasting comps and filming clips. “Surfing in this, then chasing barrels. Hopefully I can get the opportunity to meet them both in the middle.”
Waves had been decent all day, though better in the morning, before the wind came in like a stubborn blow dryer, pressing the lineup flat. Paddling was a slog. Every wave a bad date: all charm and promise, then ghosting you mid-bottom turn. Heartbreakers, the lot of them.
Matty needed a score, and forced his way into a wave, arms flailing, with five minutes to go. A strong first turn, but the wave flattened before he could do anything else. Needed a 5. Got a 4.83.
Jacob moves to the final. Matty, chaos’s favourite son, settles for third — a noble exit and a big first step on the comeback trail.
Mikey C texted through a few heats earlier with an observation:
“Trend alert: goofy advantage in strong offshores. Can surf up and down while regs can only go lateral.”
Worth pocketing as Semi Two approached — Ryan Callinan, local lad and fresh dad, versus Kauli Vaast, gold medallist from an island faraway.
Paul Evans, in his CS preview, framed the moment well:
“Former faves can easily slip from our attention. There’s something equal parts unsettling and satisfying to suddenly notice them blasting onto the IG feed in a surfer-on-surfer round at Huntington, still out there campaigning, still raging—like 2nd Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Imperial Japanese Army, who carried on fighting WWII alone in the Philippine jungle until 1974.”
Kauli, a reigning Olympic gold mealist, had just scalped Peterson Crisanto in the quarters — who, honestly, I’d sworn was lost to the void — and he fits the Onoda mold rather well. Still raging, still swinging, locked in his own strange little war.
Kauli’s rail game was quietly lethal, a sharp edge hiding behind the usual tube whispers. This, his best CS result yet, ought to shut down anyone still stuck on the “tube-only” narrative. He went rail-for-rail with R-Cal and knocked the local out cold. New dad Ryan is done for now. Kauli’s heading to the final.
Women’s Final
The tap turned back on. Newy puffed up like a soufflé — fat, brown, lovable. Cosplaying as Bells Bowl.
Francisca and Sally went blow-for-blow, set-for-set, huck-for-huck. But every time, Fran got the nod —her willingness to subject herself to the dry rock shelf wave after wave netting proportionate returns.
So the 22-year-old from Portugal takes her first ever CS win. She leaves Newcastle at the top of the rankings. The season will end where it began, and if fate’s feeling poetic, she’ll step in the same brown river twice.
Men’s Final
Two of the world’s most cold-blooded tube fiends. Kauli Vaast and Jacob Willcox. Raised in reefs and heavy water, sent to Newcastle for a backhand knife fight in slopey, uneven rights. Two assassins in a bake-off.
The early minutes were all posturing. Feints, jabs, elbows in the ribs. Jacob edged ahead. Then silence.
With half a minute left, Kauli flared — three hits, a sharp blade but not much room to stab.
Then Jacob took off behind him and drove a tent peg through the earth.
Done.
He spent all of Surf100 losing gloriously. Six heats without a win. Now he hasn’t lost a heat all Challenger season.
Math tells us what the heart already knows: the CS is easier than Surf100.
Next up: Ballito Pro. End of the month.
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