4 Surfers Chase the Last 3 Spots Above the Mid-Season Cut

The cut is about to blow right by us all and the biggest moment of the mid-season marker took  the shine out of day two at the Western Australia Margaret River Pro.  When he lost to Griffin Colapinto in the Round of 16, Kelly Slater didn’t make an “official” retirement announcement. But he did admit he hasn’t been committed enough to be successful on tour of late. The loss solidified his fate as a 2024 cut casualty. The writing had been on the wall for quite some time with Slater making numerous hints about hanging it up with the media. Questions about his imminent retirement have hung in the air for years now.

“I’ve made no qualms about it,” Kelly Slater told our own Ben Mondy in 2023 in Portugal. “That candle is burning out. I designed my life to be the greatest competitor I can be. I’ll soon design my life to fit my new priorities like my family, friends, free surfing and my businesses.”

Nonetheless, Slater was just one of eight in the first wave of surfers who didn’t qualify for the rest of this year’s CT. Ian Gentil, Eli Hanneman, Frederico Morais, Kade Matson, Callum Robson, Deivid Silva, Jacob Willcox, and Slater made up that list Tuesday while nine surfers secured their spots above the cut line (Rio Waida, Ramzi Boukhaim, Imaikalani DeVault, Italo Ferreira, Gabriel Medina, Ryan Callinan, Leo Fioravanti, Matthew McGillivray, Liam O’Brien).

That leaves us with six surfers from the Margaret River event trying to solidify themselves and just three spots remaining above the cut line. Two of those six were eliminated from competition and will have a rooting interest in the misfortune(s) of the other four in order to stay alive. Notably, Yago Dora, who missed the WSL Finals a year ago by about two heats, is hanging on to the second-to-last spot with nothing to do but hope for others to fall short. Connor O’Leary is fewer than 1,000 points above him in the rankings and will be watching with the same anxiety.

In fact, fewer than 1,500 points separate Seth Moniz’s 22nd and final spot above the cut line and the three-way tie between the last three surfers alive in the race: Caio Ibelli, Miguel Pupo, and Samuel Pupo. Those four surfers are the last in the draw still competing for the CT status and the most interesting and immediate domino to fall will come in Heat 2 of the Round of 16. There, the Pupo brothers will face off with the loser being relegated to the Challenger Series. The winner, like the other two surfers still alive in the draw at that point, will still have to make up some ground in the rankings or start preparing for their Opening Round heat at Snapper in a week to begin the Challenger Series.

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