THE EVE EDITION
FIRST BLUSH | TUE OCT 20
Supertubos has been waiting since Saturday. The swell gave out with the women’s quarterfinals half finished, and the MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal resumes at 2:45 AM with three rounds left to decide the first event of the postseason. Teresa Bonvalot, the Portuguese surfer who sent the season leader home in the opening round, is still in the draw, and so are two world champions, Molly Picklum and Caitlin Simmers, and Erin Brooks, who won the last three events on tour.
Ningbo’s second day puts Jelena Ostapenko back on court three days after her Wuhan semifinal, against #5 Belinda Bencic in the night session. In Morocco, the second round of U-17 Women’s World Cup group games begins at 11:00 AM, and the hosts meet Germany at 2:00 PM with first place in Group A at stake. The U.S. under-17s, 17-0 winners over Samoa on Monday, are off until Thursday.
NXT is in Orlando tonight, 11 days before Kelani Jordan defends her championship against Wren Sinclair at Halloween Havoc.
PINK HOUR
Women’s Finals at Supertubos
2:45 AM · World Surf League
Two women’s quarterfinals remain. Bonvalot, in the event only as the replacement for the injured Isabella Nichols, knocked out #1 Gabriela Bryan in the opening round and now faces Lakey Peterson. The winner meets the winner of Picklum and Brooks, the reigning world champion against the surfer who has won the last three tour events. Simmers is already through after beating Carissa Moore 11.50-8.93, and she meets Bettylou Sakura Johnson, who edged Portuguese wildcard Kika Veselko 7.43-7.34 in the first quarterfinal. Moore had taken the lead in the live rankings when Bryan went out.
EVE’s Edge: Simmers to win Peniche, over Picklum in the final. She surfed Moore out of the event with the most urgent heat of the week, and nobody left in the draw is in better form.
Jelena Ostapenko vs. #5 Belinda Bencic
7:00 AM · Tennis Channel / App
Both were beaten in Wuhan last week by Sonay Kartal, who went on to reach the final ranked #170. Bencic, the #9 seed there, lost to her in the second round. Ostapenko reached the semifinals and had chances in both sets before losing two tiebreaks. Bencic leads their head-to-head 2-1 and won their last meeting, in the first round of the 2025 Australian Open. The winner lands in a draw led by Elena Rybakina, last year’s champion, who arrives already qualified for the WTA Finals, while #2 Iga Świątek and #3 Marta Kostyuk are still chasing places there.
EVE’s Edge: Ostapenko to win, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. She played her best tennis of the autumn last week in Wuhan, and Bencic has not found her rhythm since Kartal beat her.
Morocco vs. Germany
2:00 PM · FS2
Both teams opened Group A with wins. Morocco needed 57 minutes to break down New Zealand, then scored four times in 25 minutes and finished with 39 shots to two. Germany fell behind Argentina in the ninth minute, leveled through Johanna Hebben and won 2-1 on Mia Kuhn’s goal after Argentina went down to 10 players. Morocco is hosting the tournament for the second of five straight editions. The top two in each group and the four best third-place teams reach the round of 16, so a win today all but settles a place in the knockout stage for either side.
EVE’s Edge: Germany to win, 2-1. The home crowd will push Morocco forward from the start, but Germany has the sharper finishing and already showed against Argentina it can come from behind.
WWE NXT
8:00 PM · The CW
Kelani Jordan defends the NXT Women’s Championship against Wren Sinclair at Halloween Havoc on October 31, and tonight is one of the last stops on the way. Sinclair earned the shot by winning the October 6 battle royal in disguise while she was still suspended for attacking Jordan and hitting a referee in September. General manager Robert Stone has since lifted the suspension and let the fans decide whether the match should happen, and they cheered for it. No women’s match has been announced for tonight’s show.
EVE’s Edge: Sinclair to get the last word tonight. She has already found a way into a title match by any means available, and she catches the champion off guard once more before Halloween Havoc.
UNBUCKLING THE BELT
WTA 500. After Ostapenko and Bencic, wildcard Hanyu Guo plays Ekaterina Alexandrova at 8:45 AM on Tennis Channel / App.
U-17 Women’s World Cup. Argentina and New Zealand, both beaten in their openers, meet at 11:00 AM on FS2, and Korea DPR, the two-time defending champion, plays Poland at the same time on Peacock with both teams on three points. Nigeria faces debutant Puerto Rico at 2:00 PM on Peacock.