Photo by Daniel Smorigo//World Surf League
If the Championship Tour season were to end today the fourth edition of the WSL’s Finals would feature John John Florence, Griffin Colapinto, Jack Robinson, Italo Ferreira, and Ethan Ewing atop the rankings. I would bet money the five competitors on that list won’t make up the Finals Day roster after Cloudbreak. I’d bet even more money that even if the current five all make it out of Fiji with their title hopes intact their rankings/seeding will be different.
With that in mind, I started geeking out on random stats like head-to-head trends and past Finals Day performances among the current world title competitors.
John John Florence
Fun fact: John John Florence is the only guy set to compete on Finals Day who’s never been there before. His knees have been that much of a hindrance since the WSL shook up its title format following the winner-take-all Pipe Masters Final between Italo Ferreira and Gabriel Medina.
As for this season, Florence has only faced two of the current top five — Jack Robinson and Italo Ferreira — and lost to both in the Final (Margaret River and Tahiti). His dominance in the rankings right now is anchored by three straight appearances in Finals though, which stretched from that face off against Robinson in West Oz to a win in El Salvador.
And yes, if this were a pre-WSL Finals era season with 11 comps to decide a champion then we’d almost be assured of a third title for the Hawaiian at this point. It would take a massive meltdown for anybody to catch up to Florence in the rankings.
Griffin Colapinto
Oh, man. Can you imagine all the torn emotions of a Florence vs Griff best-of-three on Finals Day? Colapinto had his own hometown cheering section when he suited up for the 2023 Finals at Trestles and winning a title in his backyard would make for a great story. But that would require Florence losing out on a title he’s all but had wrapped up under that old format…and fans really love to whine about that possibility.
Colapinto has won four events since 2022 and nearly missed making the final five that same year by less than 200 points in the rankings. Otherwise, he could be getting ready for a third straight appearance in the contest at Trestles. Instead, Colapinto only has one WSL Finals heat — a two vs three loss to the lower seeded Ethan Ewing in 2023. Fast forward to this season and Griff got a W against Ewing in Portugal (an event he went on to win) and just recently lost to Italo Ferreira in the semifinal of the Rio Pro.
Jack Robinson
Jack might be the only surfer on this list who’s been more consistent than Colapinto the past few years. He won the final event of the 2021 season and has tallied two wins in each of the three seasons since (including this year). He hasn’t cracked a heat win at the WSL Finals though having gone one-and-done in 2022 and 2023.
This season he’s collected three heat wins against JJF and Italo Ferreira (twice) and all of those heats came in contests he went on to win (Sunset and Margaret River). That 2022 Finals Day loss, though, came to a red hot Ferreira.
Italo Ferreira
Speaking of red-hot Italo Ferreira…
The world’s most energetic surfer is riding a hot hand with two wins in the past month and a half but his season hasn’t been that remarkable otherwise. The 2019 world champ’s best result before Tahiti was a quarterfinal at Sunset Beach. Meanwhile, he’s exited three contests this year in the Round of 32 or Elimination Round (equal 17th).
He has appeared in two WSL Finals though and the only person to ever beat him there has been Filipe Toledo. In fact, Ferreira almost ran the table in 2022, a-la Steph Gilmore, but ran out of steam when he faced Toledo in the best-of-three matchup for a world title. By that point in the day Ferreira had mowed down Kanoa Igarashi (5th), Ethan Ewing (4th), and Jack Robinson (3rd) in order. He’d surfed more than 30 waves by the time that day was over.
Ethan Ewing
Ewing is the only other surfer on this list who’s won a heat in the WSL Finals. Ewing put up huge numbers at Trestles in 2023 with seven excellent scores including one that didn’t even qualify to make his heat total. He posted three consecutive total heat scores above 17 but Filipe Toledo just put up even bigger numbers when they met in their championship matchup. To put it simply, he’s on a short list of surfers whose style and talent is perfect for a big run on an all-time Trestles day.
As it stands now, he’ll need a big run for this to be the year he finally locks up a title.
