Ballito Pro presented by O’Neill | WSL Challenger Series Stop 1
12–18 July 2026 | Willard Beach, Ballito, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
On Sunday, a 22-year-old from Swansea will paddle out at Willard Beach in South Africa and do something no British surfer has ever done before. When Alys Barton drops into her first heat at the Ballito Pro, she will become the first British surfer to begin a full season on the WSL Challenger Series.
Following her fantastic second place finish in the final WSL QS of the season at Taghazout Bay in Morocco in March, where she lost a hard-fought final to Basque Olympic powerhouse Janire Gonzalez Etxabarri, the reigning ISA World Games champion, Alys leaped from 12th to 5th in the European rankings, and with it came confirmation that she had qualified for the Challenger Series.
No British surfer, in men’s or women’s shortboarding, has ever qualified for the Challenger Series outright before. Patrick Langdon-Dark and Sky Brown had each competed in individual Challenger Series events as alternates or wildcards, but Alys is the first to earn a place for the full series.
The WSL Challenger Series, which sits immediately below the elite Championship Tour, will run five events this season across multiple continents, visiting some of the most renowned breaks in the world. Points are accumulated across all five events, and the top performers at the end of the series earn qualification to the Championship Tour for the following season.
It will be a dramatic step up from the regional QS circuit, in terms of both the quality of the field and the logistics of competing globally.
The 2026/27 Challenger Series Events
- Stop 1: Ballito, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa – 12–18 July 2026
- Stop 2: Huntington Beach, California, USA – 27 July – 2 August 2026
- Stop 3: São Sebastião, Brazil – 26 September – 3 October 2026
- Stop 4: Ericeira, Portugal – 6–12 October 2026
- Stop 5: Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia – 1–7 March 2027
Round 1: Willard Beach, Ballito, South Africa
The first test comes in South Africa, at Willard Beach, a stretch of coastline in the Indian Ocean on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast that has hosted the Ballito Pro for 57 consecutive years, making it one of the longest-running professional surfing events in the world.
Willard Beach is a beach break nestled between rocky outcrops that shape and focus the swell into a variety of left and right peaks. The waves are lively and fun, offering a range of sections that reward both power surfing and technical manoeuvring.
Unlike some beach breaks that can turn unpredictable and hollow, Willard tends to produce workable waves with enough wall to allow surfers to string together combinations, making it a venue where complete, well-rounded surfers thrive.