Filipe Toledo would nearly have a World Title wrapped up already if this were any year before 2021. He has almost a 10,000-point lead on world number two Jack Robinson with just two events to go, and in previous years that used to mean a December Pipe Masters was really just a two-week-long victory lap for a new champion. We saw that a lot, actually, which is precisely why the WSL installed a Finals Day event to cap off the year — to make sure the end of every season actually matters.
So how close is the rest of the field? Very. The 6-12 spots on the leaderboard are separated by less than 5,000 total points going into JBay. John John (currently number seven) is sitting out another event with his campaign presumably over. Kanoa Igarashi, sitting one spot outside of the Top 5 at the moment, is a literal heat swap away from replacing number five Ethan Ewing. Calum Robson could leapfrog into the Finals Day roster with two more heats than Igarashi and Ewing, and so on and so on. There are too many heats to surf and too many different possible outcomes to know how it will all shake out through Jbay and Teahupo’o, but a quick glimpse at the points break down per result can help eager stat geeks theorize who else in the Top 10 is within striking distance of Finals Day:
1st place: 10,000 points
2nd place: 7,800 points
3rd place: 6,085 points
5th place: 4,745 points
9th place: 3,320 points
17th place: 1,330 points
