WSL heats logic

How are the heats for each round on WSL chosen?

Having surf as a passion sport to practice and watch together with friends, it is great to understand how are the heats and rounds on WSL are organized.

If you are an avid Fantasy Surfing player, this understanding is great to figure out witch surfers will face each other and try to avoid friendly fire. The possibilities of matchups are very large, but you can simulate how the surfers will face each other with tools like FantasySurfingTips. As a fantasy player, it is important to avoid a Round 2 and Round 3 collision.

Once you understand the way WSL creates the rounds, you see how great it works to make a great show. It basically sorts the surfers from 1 to 36 and goes arranging the rounds. The first will face the last, the second will face the 35º and so on. If the two surfers on top continue to win heats, they face each other in the final (just remember that in 2015 we had two finals of Adriano de Souza against Mick Fanning).

The matchup rank is different from the championship rank. Although in almost every events the matchup rank is exactly the championship rank, on the Australian leg the matchup rank follows the last year Championship rank. If you look at the first and second event rounds of 2016 you will notice they are pretty alike.

We have made some animations to help you understand how the surfers are sorted. To ease the understanding we are going to advance until the final with a simple approach: the surfer ranked in a better matchup rank will win over a surfer ranked lower.

Round 1

As you know, the surfers that wins a heat on round 1 goes directly to round 3. For this simulation the 1º to the 12º will advance to round 3.

If you look at other events you will notice that h5 and h6 always have the first and second surfer of the macthup rank. The h11 and h12 are always great heats with high probability of tier B surfers collision (for WSL Fantasy).

Round 2

Now we have the first elimination round. The matchups here are just easy, from 13º to 24º with best ranked surfer facing the worst ranked. Here the 13º to 24º will advance to round 3

Round 3

Now we have the most complex Round to understand. The design of this round is amazing, here we normally see the major number of upsets. The heats are divided in four groups, because after round 3 we have the matchups more like a cup, and everyone of those groups will for a heat on round 4. The h1, h2 and h3 of round 3 will create the h1 of round 4. As an example you can look at the h4, h5, and h6 with the 12º, 8º and 1º as the head surfers, if they pass, they will face each other on h2 of round 4.

Round 4

As round 1, round 4 does not eliminate any surfer. The first will advance to quarterfinals and the looser will face each other on round 5. And here we have a great design to form round 5, the second of h1 faces the third of h2 (same for h3 and h4). So one more time you will see the better ranked facing the word ranked.

Round 5

Another great eliminatory round. And as we explained on round 4, there were some changes to guarantee the rule of best ranked facing worst ranked.

Quarterfinals

To create the quarterfinals the winner of Round 5 h1 will face the winner of round 4 h1. From quarterfinals until the final we have the same design of a normal cup (football world cup for example). And to form the semifinals the winner of h1 will face the winner of h2 (same for h3 and h4).

Semifinals

Looking at this perfect macthups (where the best ranked always advances) we see this amazing semifinal.

Final

And now the great final. Better ranked against the second better ranked. For sure this does not happen in every event, surf is a very unpredictable sport. You can't script what will happen.

Even though you understand the dynamics, and try to figure out the heats in advance, have in mind that you have a range of possibilities. If the first surfer on the matchup rank advances to Round 3, he can face a pretty consistent set of surfers (from the 36º until the 24º). So surfers in extreme sides of the matchup rank can face each other and close surfers in the middle of the matchup rank as well. It’s not an easy task to figure out how the rounds will advance, surf is a very unpredictable sport. But sure, there are tool out there helping with this task. FantasySurfingTips is a great example, as you can simulate how the rounds will advance based on surfers Momentum; Perfomance on waves and Past position in the same event.

If you like this article click on recommend, this will help other readers to find it