Gabriel Medina's semi-final tie against Jordy Smith could have given Julian Wilson the title if the South African won and if the Australian then won the Pipe Masters once again.

The exchange was good, very tight, ending 16,27 vs 15,83.

On social media and in forums in various media, the same thing has been discussed as basically Ross Williams, the WSL commentator and coach of John John Florence, said during the live broadcast: Medina's 9,1 Backdoor did not seem better than Jordy's 8,5 but “equal” and Jordy's Pipe wave that yielded 7,27, as Williams himself said: “It's sure to be better than the 7,33 that the South African surfed on his first wave.”

In short, if the former CT and recognized member of the Momentum generation had been the judge, Smith would have beaten Medina.

On the panel of judges, a French judge gave him 7,8, a Basque one gave him 7,7, then an Australian and a Frenchman gave him 6,8 and a Brazilian one gave him 7,3.

At the same time, Jordy's Pipe wave was also, they point out, better than Medina's Pipe wave but for the judges it was only 0,1 better.

These were the waves of that series: In order you see Jordy's 7,3, Medina's 7,17, Jordy's 8,5, Medina's 9,1 and Jordy's 7,27.

Kelly's three
If there were no camera replays and the judges only saw the angle from the beach, that wave where Slater falls into the tube and stands up on the way out would have gone somewhere within the excellent range. The angle of the tube's mouth "gave away" Slater and the judges considered that the tube that he came out of unscathed was a three instead of a nine.

Kelly wrote on Instagram that he thought he was going to bodysurf off the wave when he realized his board was still there. He then took the opportunity to stand up again.

This, like in 2015 at Lowers, when he completed a lying backside aerial and was awarded a 3,07, is a flaw in the judging system: It’s true that neither the barrel nor the aerial were completed in the cleanest way, but they were completed, which makes it ridiculous to pay “average” for a wave that turned out to be good.