Nine months after the season kicked off in incredible fashion with a Kelly Slater win at Pipeline, the five men who will compete at the WSL Finals at Trestles have been locked in. Slater won’t be there, but a couple of other regulars in Filipe Toledo and Italo Ferreira will, alongside two vastly improved young Aussies in Jack Robinson and Ethan Ewing, as well as Kanoa Igarashi. Let’s take a look at each of them – their seasons, their careers and what they have to do to win – in the lead up to the event.
#1: Filipe Toledo (Brazil)
His Season
In the absence of compatriot Gabriel Medina, who has for a long time superseded him – at times along with Italo Ferreira – as Brazil’s best surfer, Filipe Toledo has had his best year on tour in 2022. He started slow in Hawaii at waves which don’t really suit him, but thereafter he went on a tear. He finished second in Portugal then won the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, and by the halfway point of the year had the yellow jersey on his back.
And he wouldn’t relinquish it. He continued his blinding form with back-to-back runner-up finishes at G-Land and El Salvador, before a win at the Oi Rio Pro made it five of six consecutive events at which he had made the finals. By then he had opened up such a substantial lead atop the world rankings that even despite a Round of 16 exit and Elimination Round defeat to finish the year, he still finished as the number one seed.
His Career
Despite having been a constant world title threat for many years, the 26-year-old has never actually broken through for a world title. He’s finished fourth twice, third once, and last year made it through to the Title Match in the inaugural WSL Finals, but Medina played the spoiler and resigned him to another podium finish. With his fellow countryman out of the picture, this looks like his best chance yet to claim a world title.
The Task Ahead
Toledo is deservedly in the box seat to be crowned world title this year. He is in the position that Medina was in last year, watching on all day as his challenger is decided throughout the course of three other matchups. Once those are finished, he’ll take to the water for a best-of-three contest against one of the four below names, and if he can win two heats, he’ll be the world champ.
#2: Jack Robinson (Australia)
His Season
Robinson was expected to take a step forward this season, but particularly after an inauspicious start no one would have anticipated that step would be so significant. He was knocked out in the Elimination Round in two of the first three events of the year and was well below the mid-season cut line at that stage as a result, but a semi-final appearance at Bells and then a win at his home break at the Margaret River Pro saw him skyrocket into third halfway through the year.
He kept the ball rolling with a second consecutive win, this time at the Quiksilver Pro G-Land, before ending the season in solid but unspectacular form; a couple of Round of 16 defeats were mixed in with a quarterfinals appearance and a finals loss. He had a comfortable lead in second a long way out from the end of the season and never looked in danger of losing his grip on it, though with Toledo’s poor last couple of events, he may be ruing the fact that he didn’t finish a little stronger and given himself a shot at the number one seed.
His Career
From a young age, Robinson was viewed as a prodigious talent, particularly in conditions of consequence, but it’s taken a while for that to translate to the Championship Tour. Last year was his first full season at the top level and for the most part he struggled, though a win at the Corona Open Mexico in the last event of the season was a big step forward and saw him end the year in 12th. He’s never, however, been even close to world title contention, and it will be interesting to see how the 24-year-old fares with a championship on the line.
The Task Ahead
As the number two seed, Robinson is well placed to compete for the title at Trestles. He’ll face one of the below names in Match 3, and if he wins that he’ll head straight to the Title Match, where he’ll need to beat Toledo two out of three times to be crowned world champion.
#3: Ethan Ewing (Australia)
His Season
This was a huge moving year for Ewing, whose watchable style and obvious talent has at last begun to culminate in a bit of competitive success. Things started indifferently with two Elimination Round exits in the first three events, though they bookended a semi-final appearance at Sunset Beach, the best result of his career. He then replicated that result at the next two events, at Bells Beach and Margaret River, jumping into fourth place at the midway point of the season and establishing himself as a legitimate top five threat.
And he didn’t slow down thereafter. He made it through to the Round of 16 in all five of the remaining events of the year, and though three of those events ended there, he also threw in his first ever CT victory at the Corona Open J-Bay, and those results were enough to see him end up relatively comfortably in third place.
His Career
Ewing first appeared on the Championship Tour in 2017, but despite his eye-catching style he struggled to win a heat and ended the year in 34th. He would compete just once more at the level until 2021, when a full year in the tour culminated in an improved but still relatively inauspicious 15th place finish. This year has been far and away the best of his career, and will be the first of likely many opportunities the 23-year-old will have to compete for a world title.
The Task Ahead
Ewing will kick off his WSL Finals campaign against either Italo Ferreira or Kanoa Igarashi, who he’ll need to beat to have a crack at compatriot Jack Robinson. If he manages to win both of those heats, he’ll head to the Title Match against Toledo.
#4: Italo Ferreira (Brazil)
His Season
It’s been a mixed year for Italo Ferreira, but the result after ten events is that he has a shot at the world title. He struggled in Hawaii with a Round of 16 and Elimination Round exit, but a semi-final showing in Portugal and a couple of quarterfinals appearance in Australia were enough to have him sitting in fifth at the halfway point of the year.
His second half of the year was similar. A couple of semi-finals were highlights, but he also threw in a Round of 16 loss and an Elimination Round loss. The latter of those came at the last event of the year in Tahiti, and could have proved disastrous; in the end, he finished with 40,460 ranking points, just 190 ahead of Igarashi in fifth, 285 ahead of Miguel Pupo in sixth, and 340 ahead of Griffin Colapinto in seventh.
His Career
The diminutive but powerful goofy footer has been a consistent world title threat since 2018, when a breakout year saw him jump from 22nd in the world the year prior to fourth. The next year he improved even further, and with 59,740 ranking points won his first and to this date only world title. He finished second at the end of last year’s regular season, but fell to Toledo in his first matchup and subsequently failed to make the Title Match at the inaugural WSL Finals.
The Task Ahead
Ferreira will kick us off in the 2022 WSL Finals with a matchup against Kanoa Igarashi. If he wins that, he’ll then need to beat first Ewing, then Robinson, to set up an all-Brazilian Title Match against Toledo.
#5: Kanoa Igarashi (Japan)
His Season
Kanoa Igarashi has improved nearly every year of his career to date, and 2022 appeared likely to be no different after a strong start. He made the final eight in each of the first three events, with one of those culminating in a second place finish at the Hurley Pro Sunset Beach, and he had the yellow jersey on his back heading to Australia. Unfortunately, things started to unravel from that point, and consecutive Elimination Round defeats down under saw him drop back to sixth at the midway point of the year.
He again struggled to advance deep into events in the back half of the year, picking up two consecutive quarterfinals losses and another Elimination Round defeat in the next three events, and was subsequently up against it to make the WSL Finals with two events to go. In the end, he did just enough; a third place finish at J-Bay was followed by a quarterfinal appearance in Tahiti, with a 9.70 in the dying minutes of his Round of 16 matchup with Jadson Andre proving the difference between a top five finish, and another year on the outside looking in.
His Career
Igarashi’s career has followed an almost strangely linear path to date. He’s competed in every event since he first got on tour in 2016, finishing, in order, 20th, 17th, 10th, 6th and 8th. He does appear to have stalled around the top five mark in recent years, raising question marks about whether the 24-year-old will improve to the level required to actually win a world title. In a tight battle for fourth and fifth spot this year, however, things just swung his way, and perhaps that will be the break he needs to take the next step.
The Task Ahead
Igarashi has it all ahead of him if he wants to win his inaugural world title this year. First up, he has to beat Ferreira; no mean feat on its own. After that he’ll need to go through the Aussie duo of Ewing and Robinson, before beating Toledo two out of three times in the Title Match.
The above five names will make up the second-ever men’s WSL Finals, and with only one world title between them, it appears likely that a new world champion will be crowned come the conclusion of the event. Youth will abound in this edition of the Finals, with three of the competitors 24 years of age or under, and Ferreira the oldest at just 28. It’s his compatriot in Toledo, however, who sits in the box seat, and will be very tough to beat at a wave which suits him to a tee.
