Lakey Peterson. Photo: WSL / Aaron Hughes
Gabriella Bryan, Caity Simmers, Molly Picklum, and Isabella Nichols are the only four women on the Championship Tour who enter the Margaret River Pro safe from the mid-season cut. That leaves three event winners — Tyler Wright, Bettylou Sakura Johnson, and Caroline Marks — still having to fight for their spots into the last four events of the season. And with a different event winner at each stop so far (a trend on the men’s side so far as well), it’s fair to say the CT has parity. It’s competitive. And the cut is pretty brutal.
Looking at the cut line on the women’s side, things get pretty tight between the ninth and twelfth-ranked surfers. The points gap between them is just 1,940, which can be covered in the jump from losing in the Round of 16 versus winning in the Round of 16. Here are the four athletes who are sitting in the most volatile part of the cut’s bubble.
9. Luana Silva
The fall from Erin Brooks at eight and Silva at nine is as large as the gap between Silva’s position above the cut line and Vahine Fierro’s number 12 spot. She just turned in her best CT result at Bells (runner-up) and backed it up with a run to the quarterfinal on the Gold Coast. Those two results may have been her saving grace and possibly kept her from falling victim to the cut for the second year in a row.
10. Sawyer Lindblad
Sawyer Lindblad was the 2024 Rookie of the Year. You could argue she turned things on in that campaign at Margs, making her first final there and getting back to another final before the end of the year when the tour went to Brazil. Those two results alone mark a solid season for any surfer, and earning that ROY honor put her on a list with Carissa Moore, Caroline Marks, Caity Simmers, and Stephanie Gilmore, just to name a few who went on to win world titles.
All this is to say that if I had to put my money on anybody in this position to fight off relegation, I’d go with Sawyer Lindblad.
11. Lakey Peterson
Lakey Peterson is in danger of missing the cut for the second year in a row and sitting just one spot too low in the rankings is a tough pill to swallow. But here’s a really tough pill to swallow when you match Peterson’s current ranking with one stat from the season so far: her average heat score.
Peterson goes into Margaret River with a 10.48 average heat score, which is higher than everybody on this list yet thanks to the luck of heat draws, she’s sitting behind Lindblad and Silva right now. She also has a higher average heat score than Caroline Marks and Tyler Wright, who both sit more than 6,000 points ahead in the rankings right now. So yes, heat draws matter.
12. Vahine Fierro
The 25-year-old Tahitian goofy footer has appeared in two semifinals this year, including last week’s run up against Bettylou Sakura in the Gold Coast semi. Now, as last year’s winner in a historic Tahiti Pro, she’d be a lock as favorite to repeat when the tour returns to Teahupo’o in August. Even if she is relegated after Margaret River she’ll likely still be in that Tahiti Pro draw, either as a local trials winner or event wildcard selected by the league. But as a wildcard, those results won’t be of any use to her for re-qualification or CT rankings points. Making the cut, however, makes her home turf advantage at Teahupo’o a factor that could potentially reshape the entire WSL Finals top five.
