The Championship Tour rankings were shuffled up before a heat has even surfed at Trestles. Photo: Matt Dunbar//WSL
Last week, the WSL confirmed rumors that had been swirling for months and announced the cancelation of the Surf Abu Dhabi Pro. As a result, it shuffled up the men’s Championship Tour rankings.
Leo Fioravanti is back on top. The Italian briefly took the rankings lead after a runner-up finish in Brazil, but then Italo Ferreira snatched it back in Tahiti. However, with Abu Dhabi out and a 12-stop tour solidified, the WSL can now factor in a throwaway score into the point totals.
Fioravanti finished 17th in Tahiti. But Ferreira hasn’t been eliminated that early all season. He dropped a 9th-place finish. The new totals give Fioravanti a slight edge over Ferreira, with less than 100 points separating them.
If both surfers earn the same amount of points at Trestles, it wouldn’t affect their ranking because they both would drop ninth-place finishes as their second throwaway scores.
Yago Dora and Gabriel Medina remain in third and fourth, respectively, well within striking range of the title. On the women’s side, Carissa Moore maintained her number one spot.
The WSL’s revamped format in 2026 allows surfers to drop two results from the first nine “regular season” events to decide which surfers — 22 men and 14 women — qualify for the first two postseason events in Portugal and the Philippines. Mathematically, with one regular season event remaining, the rankings dropped everyone’s worst result. However, for the final ranking, surfers can drop three results from any events, regular season or postseason.
This is the point in the season where the math will start to give us headaches, calculating which results can be dropped, and how the season finale at Pipeline, weighted 1.5 times the other events, can shake up the title race.
Despite being a 10-year tour veteran, Fioravanti has limited experience competing at Trestles. When the event became the Final 5 venue, he never participated. He earned a 25th in 2017 and a 9th in 2025. Ferreira, on the other hand, has competed at Trestles seven times. He nearly took the world title at the cobblestone A-frame in 2022, but fell in the title match against Filipe Toledo.
So, when Trestles kicks off on September 11, Fioravanti will wear the yellow jersey reserved for the rankings leader, without having surfed a heat.
