Head-to-head history really shouldn’t have any bearing on who will win the next faceoff between Italo Ferreira and Kanoa Igarashi at the Rip Curl WSL Finals. Considering they’ve only surfed against each other three times in their CT careers, there isn’t really a huge sample size to suggest one has the other’s number. If anything, the fairest way to judge and eventually make a guess at who might win the first heat in this year’s event would be to look at who’s had the upper hand on a wave similar to the one they’ll actually be surfing in the next week: Trestles.
Igarashi got the first win in 2018 at Pipe — a quarterfinal heat in less-than-stellar Pipe conditions. In 2019, Ferreira won their quarterfinal heat at the Corona J-Bay Open in slightly overhead waves. The rubber match came this year at J-Bay in another quarterfinal matchup, once again. Kanoa got the W.
Still not much to go off of if you’re laying bets on that five-v-four finals day kickoff. Definitely not enough to make a prediction. But it’s fun to look back at matchups like these and analyze, dissect, and make completely irrational guesses as to what they say about the future.
Here’s an interesting note though: Italo’s had priority and taken a wave in the last minute of both his losses, unable to flip the scoreboard in the dying seconds.
