You can probably figure out the rules of this game by its name alone, so let’s play a round. Julian Wilson: Overrated, Underrated, or Properly Rated?
Wilson’s finished a season outside of the Top 10 exactly once in his CT career (14th in 2014) and came into 2019 with back-to-back Top 5 campaigns (third in 2017 and second in 2018). He was within an arm’s reach of catching Gabriel Medina last year for the World Title; a title that wasn’t decided until Medina made it through the semifinal of the Pipe Masters. So you’d be silly not to have named the Australian vet a World Title favorite when this year kicked off, right? But then he laid a couple of eggs once things actually got started, collecting back-to-back Round 3 losses on the Gold Coast and at Bells. Suddenly, it was kind of easy to count Julian Wilson out — like he was having an uncharacteristic “off year.”
Throwaway year or throwaway results? The way things have shaken out since Kelly Slater bounced Wilson from Bells back in April, it’s now looking more like the latter. This behind the scenes look at the Tahiti Pro Teahupo’o feels like a perfect parallel. He spends his downtime surfing and getting reacquainted with the wave, and when he’s not in the water he’s geeking out with Jordy Smith and Kolohe Andino, talking conditions and technical approach, so on and so on, before going home with another result that somehow is keeping him in the mix.
Now consider this: Julian Wilson won France, made the semis in Portugal, and lost to Medina in the Final of the Pipe Masters last year. He’s made it to at least the semis in Portugal the past three years and is a former Pipe Masters champ.
Anybody want to predict a hot streak coming up? Overrated, underrated, or properly rated?
