Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach 2025: Finals Day

Bells Finals Day wrapped in challenging onshore but overhead surf with Australian winners for both Men's and Women's draws while not a single male Brazilian surfer featured on Finals Day for the second year in a row.

Jack Robinson is already in the pantheon of mainstream Australian sporting stars and that is only enhanced after todays win. He's now joined by female winner Isabella Nichols who absolutely blitzed all opponents today in a very dominant performance.

Jack (WSL/Sloane)

It was a game of two halves, with a morning of windy, sideshore pumping Bells (compared by Luana Silva to stormy Sunset Beach) until the tide killed it, and an afternoon of tricky, lully, onshore Bells with sets maddeningly scarce at time and clean faces at a premium.

You could make an argument for the men we didn't see the best surfers of the event in the Finals, nor the best surfing on Finals Day from the XY's.

You couldn't say the same thing for the women. Riding a magic DHD, with a longer rail line which winner Nichols claimed had helped slow her surfing down and make the turns bigger, and forced her to catch the sets, she laid down a masterclass through Finals Day, completely overshadowing opponents Tyler Wright and then Luana Silva in the Final. They weren't competitive heats. Nichols attacked the lip on the opening manouevre, faded deep bottom turns, carved back into the Bowl and then smashed the oncoming closeout. Beautiful, classic lines.

Isabella (WSL/Sloane)

Dare I say it, the Final would have been more competitive if Sally Fitzgibbon had snuck through her close loss yesterday and made it to Finals Day. Luana Silva looked underpowered and outclassed in the Final. She didn't have the quality or the amplitude of turns that Nichols had. She did ride the bigger waves to get past Brisa Hennesey in their morning Semi-Final but the quality of surfing just wasn't there to properly challenge for the Bell.

In the other women's Semi with Tyler and Isabella, the surf rapidly became tide-affected and the waves slowed right down. Tyler had a shocker, getting caught behind on a good one then getting bucked off on the takeoff for a total heat score of 2.50. Izzy got the only decent wave in the heat and shredded it for a high-6. A non-competitive heat.

Jack's title run was much tighter. His Quarter-Final opponent Jake Marshall did the bigger turns but could not convert on the end section. His highest scoring ride, an 8.17, was not textbook Bells surfing. It was incredibly busy and like a lot of Jack's rides featured a turn that looked overcooked, burying the rail so the board bogged and lost forwards momentum. Judges did not care. They paid the turn, they were not turned off by the 'busyness' and it ended up the highest scoring ride of the heat. In the end Jake needed a 9.44, which seemed excessive, and his Final ride on the hooter which looked the best of the heat, fell short. It was a very tight heat decided by a little over a point.

Jack (WSL/Sloane)

Jack's Semi-Final against a rampaging Griffin Colapinto, who had dispatched Sammy Pupo with a four-wave display, two rides going excellent, was even tighter. In an earlier presser, Jack had brushed away the 2-0 losing record to Griff, including the loss at Fiji last year with a cryptic: “He knows. It's good”. He brushed everything away on Finals Day - nothing was going to disturb that famous composure. If your life depended on someone surfing a wave to a heat win, you'd choose Jack Robinson to surf it. The initial advangtage went to Jack when he suckered Griff into a too-deep wave. Griff answered with a super technical high-risk wave which judges were cool on, only offering a 6.33. A crucial exchange followed with both surfers getting rides close to right on the excellent threshhold - Griff got the nod with an 8.00 to Jack's 7.50.

Griff basically had control of the heat. He buckled a board, made the switch, and was out the back with ten minutes remaining. Jack needed a 6.84.

Griffin (WSL/Sloane)

A critical event then unfolded, with some missing information. Jack caught a set wave with priority and pulled through the back. That should have handed over priority to Griff with nine minutes remaining. The camera cut to Griff paddling back out and Jack regaining P despite the mistake. With priority on his side he caught the next good wave with five minutes remaining and blitzed it for a 7.17 and a win by less than half-a-point over Colapinto.

That heat had an abundance of waves. The heat before, the first one after the break, with Morgan Ciblic and Kanoa Igarashi, was starved to the point of absurdity. Everything looked perfectly aligned for Cibilic as Igarashi started with three wipeouts and all Morgan had to do was wait for a set wave to crush him. So he waited. Nothing came. He waited some more and nothing happened. Grass grew and paint dried while Morgs waited for a set wave that never came. When he did eventually catch one it was a shitty mid-ranger that offered nothing except a few skipped turns.

“Can't argue with the ocean,” he said later. "It's pretty brutal." Igarashi through.

Kanoa (WSL/Sloane)

Igarashi threw more at the Bowl during the Final. He lit the lip and drifted the fins and stitched together a bunchy of janky, jerky rides, pinballing off sections here and there. Again, Robinson was forced into a come-from-behind scenario as Kanoa stitched a tidy total out of the pretty garbage conditions. Ten minutes to go. Robinson behind, needing a 7.50. Holding priority, sets approaching.

Jack let's the first wave pass. Paddles deeper and catches the second. The first turn is weak but he nails the second and third carves then puts the end section six feet under. It's the score. The shaman nails the clutch moment, yet again.

Kanoa's last and only win came in 2019. In the last four years Jack has won eight CT events. Of the ten CT Finals he's been in, he's won eight. There's no post-Kelly surfer with that Final's record.

Jack (WSL/Miers)

It wasn't always the prettiest or the most historic rail surfing we saw this long, sometimes torturous week, but Jack would exchange those accolades for the more long-lasting one that comes with ringing the Bell and getting his name put on the step.

One week now to regroup and hit the Goldy, where the Burleigh sandbar will dish out challenges all of its own. This will not be a Snapper Rocks perfection-fest. Ocean reads will count and no-one does that better than Jack Robinson. He could nail the entire Aussie treble.

// STEVE SHEARER