Pictured: The Men’s and Women’s WSL Final 5 with WSL CEO Erik Logan and WSL SVP of Tours and Head of Competition, Jessi Miley-Dyer. Credit: © WSL / Diz
- Event Called OFF Again, Next Call Tomorrow, September 11 at 7:30am PDT
- New Single-Day Format Event Will Likely Run Between September 12 – 15
- More Available at WorldSurfLeague.com
The first-ever Rip Curl WSL Finals, the final event of the 2021 World Surf League (WSL) Championship Tour (CT), will see a second consecutive lay day as a South Southwest swell starts to build up for the following days. Next call will be tomorrow, September 11, at 7:30 a.m. PDT.
“We’re looking forward at the forecast and it looks like we’ll still have really good surf,” said Jessi Miley-Dyer, SVP of Tours and Head of Competition. “Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are looking super promising.”
The 2021 Rip Curl WSL Finals Format
The top-ranked male and female surfers, Medina and Moore, will have a major advantage over the other WSL Final 5 contenders as they will be seeded directly into the Title Match, a best-of-three showdown to determine the World Champion. The remaining surfers will enter the Rip Curl WSL Finals bracket based on their year-end rankings. The women will be the first to take the water with Match 1 and will alternate with the men for the remainder of the day.
Match 1 will see Johanne Defay (FRA) take on 7X WSL Champion Stephanie Gilmore (AUS), followed by rookie Morgan Cibilic (AUS) and Conner Coffin (USA). Both matches will have a traditional heat format in a head-to-head competition. The winners will advance to Match 2 where they will face world No. 3 on the WSL Leaderboard: Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) and Filipe Toledo (BRA).
The winner of Match 2 will then face-off against the number two ranked surfers, the Brazilian duo Weston-Webb and Ferreira, in Match 3. The winners of Match 3 will move on to the best-of-three Title Match, where they will face the World Number 1 Moore and Medina in a head-to-head competition with a traditional heat format. The first surfer to win two out of three heats becomes the undisputed 2021 World Champion. More information is available at WorldSurfLeague.com.
Surfline Forecast for The Rip Curl WSL Finals
On September 11 and 12, waves are expected to gradually build from multiple sources, on the slower side on the 11th with more size filling in on the 12th. This swell was generated by a large fetch that slipped past New Zealand last week. Chest-head high surf to build on Saturday, becoming head high to overhead on Sunday.
For next week, a long period SSW swell is expected to build on Monday into a Tuesday peak with surf holding on Wednesday, September 15 as reinforcing energy fills in. Waves will likely run in the overhead to a few feet overhead range Monday through Wednesday, with big sets up to 10’ faces. Consistency and the number of waves in the sets should be above average for a Southern Hemisphere swell as the storms took favorable tracks with good high pressure support on their west to northwest flank.
Watch LIVE
The event window for the one-day Rip Curl WSL Finals runs September 9 – September 17. The event will be broadcast LIVE on WorldSurfLeague.com and YouTube, as well as the free WSL app. Check local listings for coverage from the WSL’s broadcast partners.
COVID-19 Updates
The health and safety of athletes, staff, and the local community are of the utmost importance and the WSL has been working closely with local authorities to put a robust set of procedures in place. This includes testing and advance screening protocols, physical distancing and limited personnel on-site.
About the WSL
Established in 1976, the World Surf League (WSL) is the home of the world’s best surfing.
A global sports, media and entertainment company, the WSL oversees international tours and competitions, a studios division creating over 500+ hours of live and on-demand content, and via affiliate WaveCo, the home of the world’s largest high performance, human-made wave. Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, the WSL has regional offices in North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and EMEA.
The WSL annually crowns the men’s and women’s surfing World Champions. The global Tours and Competition division oversees and operates more than 180 global contests each year across the Championship Tour, the development tiers, including the Challenger, Qualifying and Junior Series, as well as longboard and big wave properties.
Launched in 2019, WSL Studios is an independent producer of unscripted television projects, including documentaries and series, which provide unprecedented access to athletes, events, and locations around the world. WSL events and content are distributed on linear television in over 743M+ homes worldwide and across digital and social media platforms around the world, including WorldSurfLeague.com.
WaveCo includes the Surf Ranch Lemoore facility and the utilizing and licensing of the Kelly Slater Wave System.
The WSL is dedicated to changing the world through the inspirational power of surfing by creating authentic events, experiences, and storytelling to inspire a growing, global community to live with purpose, originality, and stoke.
For more information, please visit WorldSurfLeague.com.
