This year marks the fifth and final edition of the controversial/polarizing/undeniably entertaining WSL Finals, which has been the format to decide the Championship Tour’s world titles (Read why the WSL is returning to cumulative title points and a Pipeline finale here). The men’s and women’s WSL Finals are bracket-style competitions with surfers seeded 1-5, depending on the end of their “regular season” rankings. It ends with the best-of-three scenario — the No. 1 seed versus whoever made it out of the single-elimination rounds. Whichever surfer wins two out of the three heats in that title bout will be crowned world champion.
However, the WSL is doing something different for the upcoming WSL Finals at Cloudbreak. Today, in the same announcement that kicked off finals day at cooking J-Bay, the league revealed a major change to the WSL Finals format that has massive implications for those looking to hoist that title trophy.
The change is this: If the No. 1 seed wins the first heat of the best-of-three world title match, that surfer will clinch the title without needing to surf a second or third heat. Here’s how that could play out. Say Yago Dora is the top seed at Cloudbreak and faces Jordy Smith in the final. If Yago wins their first heat, he’s the world champion. If Jordy wins the first, however, he must win one more to get the title. Essentially, the final bout only becomes a best-of-three scenario if the lower seed wins the first heat. Obviously, this places an even larger emphasis on finishing first after the 11 “regular season” events before the WSL Finals.
Here are the changes as now stated in the WSL rulebook:
The Final Match is between the winner of Match 3 and the Surfer who placed 1st (based on CT Ranking Points following the last Regular Season CT Event), and the following scenarios will apply:
- If the Surfer who placed 1st (based on CT Ranking Points following the last Regular Season CT Event) wins the first heat, he will be crowned the World Champion.
- If the Winner of Match 3 wins the first & second heats, he will be crowned the World Champion.
- If the Winner of Match 3 wins the first heat and the Surfer who placed 1st (based on CT Ranking Points following the last Regular Season CT Event) wins the second heat, then a third and final heat will take place (Best of Three Heats) and the winner of the third and final heat will be crowned the World champion.
- The Surfer who placed 1st (based on CT Ranking Points following the last Regular Season CT Event) will have Priority over the Surfer who won Match 3 in all heats.
A WSL spokesperson also confirmed a second new edition this year: seeding will determine priority for every WSL Finals heat. Previously, this only applied to the first heat of the day with the No. 4 and 5 seeds. The fourth-seeded surfer would have priority over the fifth. But at Cloudbreak this year, the hierarchy will apply to every single heat. You finish the season higher, you get first pick of the waves.
On the whole, these two changes add more weight to finishing the season strong before Cloudbreak. J-Bay and Teahupo’o, already two of the league’s most prized events, just got that much better.