It all comes down to this. Like it or lump it, the WSL Finals will for the third time determine our world champions this year. Potentially, the results over the nine-event season will be ratified at Trestles, but on the flip side of the coin there is every chance that somebody who was not the best surfer throughout the course of the year will end up with a world title, as we have seen multiple times over the past couple of years.
On the men’s side, it’s hard not to think that John John Florence deserves this world title given how far ahead of the pack he has been all year – even if he only ended up less than 3,000 points clear at the top after an early exit in Fiji. And for the women, young gun Caity Simmers ended up nearly 6,000 points clear atop the world rankings, but this will be her first time to the WSL Finals and, if results go the way of the seeds, she could end up needing to beat reigning world champion Caroline Marks to add her own first world title to the trophy cabinet.
It was a bold move by the WSL to so drastically change the way the world title is decided, and there is no denying that it does mean a hell of a lot more is left to chance than under the old system. Trestles is generally a really consistent wave at this time of year, but there are no certainties in the ocean. This year’s forecast is decent albeit unspectacular; there will be contestable waves and the best day looks likely to be right at the start of the waiting period, but it isn’t going to be all-time Trestles. More likely we will see clean waves a little over head-high when Finals Day is called on, which will of course advantage surfers capable of creating plenty of speed and making things happen on medium-sized waves, rather than those who excel in waves of consequence.
The waiting period kicks off on the 6th of September and goes until the 14th, but as mentioned, it seems more likely than not that we will get underway early on during that period. The WSL Finals take place across the course of just one day, so the job for the powers that be is to figure out which day over that nine-day period will provide the most high-quality waves. There is always the risk, if it’s run early, that there will be better days later in the waiting period. But though there is signs of a pulse of swell right at the very end of the waiting period, it’s not a huge one nor one that the WSL is likely to hang their hopes on. Instead, expect them to make the most of a small-medium swell running into the start of the waiting period, meaning that there is every chance the world title winners are decided on the 6th or 7th of September.
Women’s WSL Finals
Women’s surfing is littered with prodigious young talent at the moment, and there is every chance that one of the members of that club will be the 2024 world champion within a few days. Of the five surfers competing in the WSL Finals, three of them are aged 22 or under, while the woman who enters it as the number one seed in Caitlin Simmers is just 18. At the other end of the top five, Tatiana Weston-Webb is clearly the most experienced of this bunch at 28, though she will have to beat out all four other finalists to hold her inaugural world title trophy aloft. Below, we take a look at how all four Finals ‘Matches’ might play out.
Match #1 – Molly Picklum (#4) vs Tatiana Weston-Webb (#5)
This will be Picklum’s second time to the WSL Finals in just her third year on tour, after she finished 5th in the world rankings last year to sneak into the contest at Trestles. That time, she was knocked out by Caitlin Simmers in the first Match, and she will have to turn around some relatively indifferent form to avoid the same thing happening this year. Picklum started the year brilliantly with a second and first place finish in Hawaii, but she didn’t make it past the quarterfinals for the next six events. Finally she broke that duck with a semi-final appearance in Fiji at the last event of the season to assure herself of a spot in the top five, but she will now need to beat an experienced opponent who is coming into some strong form at exactly the right time of year.
In contrast to Picklum, Tatiana Weston-Webb started the year poorly with a 5th and a 9th in Hawaii, but as the year has gone on she has more consistently been reaching the latter stages of events. In the last four contests, she made the semi-finals three times, and the Brazilian made her first appearance in the final of the year at the latest event at Cloudbreak. Weston-Webb very nearly knocked off Carissa Moore in 2021 to win the world title that year and has surfed well here in the past, and while going that far this time around from 5th is a long shot, with the form that she is currently in she looks well-placed to knock off the 4th seed in Picklum and advance through to Match #2.
Match #2 – Brisa Hennessy (3) vs Winner of Match #1
A lot of the members of the previous generation of women’s surfing have been usurped over the last year or two by the new wave of prodigiously talented competitors entering the ranks, but Brisa Hennessy has gone the other way. Granted she is still only 24, but Hennessy has been on the tour full time since 2019 and, entering this year, had only once finished inside the top ten in that time – that being when she came 5th in 2022. But after last year failing to make the mid-season cut, the Costa Rican has surfed as well as she ever has this year. She was the most consistent surfer in it over the first half of the season or so, making the semi finals in five of the first six events, though she struggled to get past that stage, only once making the finals from there. Unfortunately, her form has waned a little in recent months and she has endured three consecutive quarterfinal exits in the last three contests. There is an argument to be made that each of the two surfers in Match #1 have a higher ceiling than Hennessy, and particularly if Weston-Webb makes it through, the #5 seed will have a claim to being favourite in this matchup given the respective recent form of those surfers. Hennessy is among the most consistent surfers in the business and will put up a decent score at mid-sized Trestles, but if Picklum or Weston-Webb surf their best they might have her measure.
Match #3 – Caroline Marks (2) vs Winner of Match #2
The reigning world champ hasn’t been at her absolute best all year, but testament to just how good she is, that has still been enough to see her finish in second place in the world rankings. Marks comes into the WSL Finals on the back of consecutive quarterfinal exits, but her form is a lot better than that would suggest – at the event prior to those two, she won the Surf City El Salvador Pro, while prior to the final contest of the WSL season she also snared a Gold Medal in Tahiti at the Paris Olympics. And of course, Marks is no stranger to this situation. Last year was actually the first time that she made the WSL Finals, having finished 11th and 6th the two years prior since it had been introduced, but after finishing 4th last year she reminded the surfing world just how good she can be on her day. Marks snuck past Simmers in a low-scoring Match #2, then upended the hierarchy with a win first over Tyler Wright – with a score of 17.40 no less – and then a 2-0 defeat of Carissa Moore in the best-of-three final – scoring 17.10 and 14.60 in those. Those numbers do not bode particularly well for whoever makes it through to this match. Whether it’s Weston-Webb, Picklum or Hennessy, they will have their work cut out beating Marks for a spot in the Title Match.
Title Match – Caitlin Simmers (1) vs Winner of Match #3
The Title Match, of course, differs from all that come before it in that it is a best-of-three contest. As has been discussed each year since the WSL Finals came into existence, it could be argued that Simmers will be somewhat disadvantaged by the fact that she will have been sitting on the sand all day long waiting for her heat, while whoever she surfs against will have had at least one competitive session out in the water, but that should be nullified to an extent by the fact that there are three heats – and if it goes to the third, she should benefit from being fresher than her opponent. Regardless, Simmers is going to be extremely hard to beat. The 18-year-old has a remarkable winning record since joining the tour full time last year, winning twice in 2023 and three times this year for five event wins in just 19 events. Last year she knocked off Picklum in Match #1 with a 15.17 heat total before losing to Marks, but she is a more accomplished surfer now than she was then. If Simmers faces anyone other than Marks, she will deservedly be the comfortable favourite, albeit she will, in that case, be facing someone clearly surfing very well on the day. Marks will be a different story, however, and if those two go toe to toe then it will be an enthralling battle between the two surfers that most would agree are the best in the business at the moment. Whoever it is, however, one thing that is for certain is that they will need to surf very, very well to stop Simmers from winning the first of what could be many world titles in her career.
Our Prediction
The lower seeded surfers are certainly capable of enjoying a run from the earlier matches, with Weston-Webb one in particular who could easily get hot and sweep her way through to Match #3 or even the Title Match. But the dream Title Match clash is between Marks and Simmers, and I think that is most likely what we will see. If that happens those two are going to be hard to separate, but Marks has the confidence that invariably comes with being the reigning world champion, and has been in strong form over recent events – including the Olympics. Simmers would be a really deserving winner, but Marks, at the ripe old age of just 22, could be set to take home her second world title.
Men’s WSL Finals
If the WSL Finals didn’t exist, it wouldn’t have been a particularly close year on the men’s side of the draw, with John John Florence opening up a virtually unassailable lead with still a couple of events to go. He finished on top by 3,000 points even despite finishing 5th and 9th in the last two contests of the year, while the man he finished ahead of in Griffin Colapinto finished 3rd and 1st in those two, and there was another 6,500 points back to third. But the size of those gaps does not matter on Finals Day, and with Jack Robinson, Ethan Ewing and Italo Ferreira occupying spots 3-5, all five of these surfers is capable of putting on a show at Trestles and winning the world title.
Match #1 – Ethan Ewing (4) vs Italo Ferreira (5)
Ethan Ewing has now finished in the top four in three consecutive years, and though he has been consistent without being spectacular this season he will be ideally suited to the long, stretched out walls of Trestles. Ewing only made it past the quarterfinals twice this year and didn’t win an event, but he did finish 3rd at Cloudbreak at the most recent contest, and should come into his own at this break. Last year, he finished 3rd in the world but made it all the way through to the Title Match with a few huge scores – first he beat Joao Chianca with a 17.60, then Griffin Colapinto with a 17.10, and though he lost to Filipe Toledo in the Title Match he was far from disgraced with scores of 17.23 and then a more disappointing 12.37. The year prior, Ewing also finished 3rd and incidentally came up against Italo Ferreira, on that occasion failing to fire and losing 13.10 to 11.83.
That year, Ferreira subsequently made it all the way through to the Title Match. He’d beaten Kanoa Igarashi prior to taking on Ewing, subsequently beat Jack Robinson with a 16.10 in Match #3, before falling 2-0 to Toledo in two very competitive heats – he scored 14.97 and 14.93 in those two. The year prior to that Ferreira had finished 2nd in the world but again lost to Toledo, so he will no doubt be glad that his compatriot, who is unequivocally the best in the business at this break, will be a notable absentee from this Finals Day. Ferreira is an explosive surfer with a big gap between his best and worst, as he has shown with his last four results – 1st, 17th, 1st and 9th – and his run from Match #1 through to the Title Match a couple of years ago showed what he can do on this wave. That means that he will be really tough to beat here, but Ewing is more than capable of doing it. This will be a really intriguing clash between two contrasting styles – the powerful backhand of Ferreira up against the smooth, carving style of Ewing’s forehand. Either of them could easily win and whoever does won’t be easy to knock out in the ensuing heats, but after Ferreira got the chocolates in the corresponding matchup in 2022, Ewing can flip the script and make it through to Match #2 with a tight win.
Match #2 – Jack Robinson (3) vs Winner of Match #1
For the third year in a row, Jack Robinson will head to Trestles to compete in the WSL Final, and he will be hoping that this time around he finally breaks his hoodoo there. In the past two years he has been knocked out immediately – in Match #3 in 2022 and then Match #1 last year – by the Brazilian pair of Italo Ferreira and Joao Chianca respectively. Robinson would no doubt prefer bigger conditions than what Trestles will likely offer up this year and generally excels in waves of consequence – his two victories this year were at Sunset Beach and Margaret River – but there is no reason to believe that he isn’t capable of more than what he has delivered in the Finals over the past two years. The Western Australian has had something of an erratic season, finishing 17th three times in the first six events but winning two of the other three, though he began to find a slightly more regular rhythm late in the season with a 5th, 9th and 3rd to finish things off. He also picked up a Silver Medal at the Olympics just a few weeks ago, so his form is pretty solid. Whether he faces Ewing or Ferreira, Robinson will have a tough task ahead of him and will be far from assured a spot in Match #4, but now aged 26 and with two previous years of world title contention behind him, he is as well-placed as ever to go all the way.
Match #3 – Griffin Colapinto (2) vs Winner of Match #2
Griffin Colapinto was no certainty to make it through to the WSL Finals a couple of events ago, even after a strong start to the year which saw him make two finals in succession within the first four events. A string of average results saw him drop down the standings thereafter, but he finished the year with a 3rd place at the VIVO Rio Pro before he won Cloudbreak, opening up a big gap in 2nd place in the world rankings in the process and even moving relatively close to Florence in 1st. The man from San Clemente will be competing in his second WSL Finals after, like this year, he finished 2nd in the world rankings in 2023. On that occasion he failed to advance through to the Title Match after he was knocked out by Ewing, but he didn’t do much wrong in that heat, scoring 15.96 only to go down to a 17.10 heat total by the Australian. Having grown up just around the corner, Colapinto has a home ground advantage that none of his opponents can boast, and the fact that he was knocked out immediately last year doesn’t detract from the advantage he has at this break. Add in the form that he comes into this contest in, and Colapinto is going to be a hard man to knock out. Ewing, Ferreira and Robinson will all pose a significant challenge for him, but Colapinto deserves to be favourites against any of them given his form and background at this wave.
Title Match – John John Florence (1) vs Winner of Match #3
Few would argue that John John Florence doesn’t deserve a third world title. He has been arguably the best surfer of this generation, but injuries have curtailed his career and played a major role in his inability to be crowned world champion since he went back to back in 2016 and 2017. But finally he has had a good run at things, competing in every event over the past two seasons. Last year, his first uninterrupted year since his previous world title in 2017, he failed to reach his best and finished 8th in the world, but with that season under his belt he has returned to the form which saw him develop into such a dominant figure in world surfing last decade. He ultimately only finished 3,000 points clear of Colapinto, but he was 10,000 clear just a couple of events ago and was never going to be usurped at the top of the world rankings. Had the WSL not decided to create the WSL Finals, there would have been a lot less excitement at the end of the season given how far ahead he was, but Florence would have been a very, very worthy world title winner. He still might be. He is yet to compete in the WSL Finals format in his career, but he has picked up a 2nd and a 3rd at the Hurley Pro Trestles, which left the tour after 2017. Florence has had a couple of quiet events, and like Robinson, would be at more of an advantage if this contest was going to be surfed on a heavier wave in heavier conditions. But Florence is perhaps the most well-rounded surfer on tour, and even in head-high Trestles he will have as many weapons to lean on as anyone. This is a very even final five and whoever Florence faces he will have to score big to win, but he has been the best surfer all year and would be a deserved world champion.
Our Prediction
There is not a whole lot to separate these five surfers, and it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see any of Ferreira, Ewing or Robinson charge through the heats to the Title Match. Equally, it would be no surprise to see results fall exactly the way of the world rankings, culminating in a Colapinto vs Florence Title Match. That would be an enthralling watch and Colapinto would no doubt prove extremely difficult to beat, as would any of the other three if they make it through. This is a really hard one to tip, but Florence has been fantastic all season long. He would be a popular and very deserved winner, and though he will have to surf really well to get there, the wispy-bearded man from the North Shore can notch up his third world title, and his first since way back in 2017.
