Ever since Erik Logan departed the CEO role and Ryan Crosby stepped in, the WSL has been slowly but surely walking back the Final Five.

First was the shift away from Trestles, then came news Pipeline would resume its place as the season closer. That left this year as the last time the Final Five system would run, yet even so, the WSL is tweaking the format away from its original intent.

Jordy looking resplendent in yellow (WSL)

Overnight, the WSL has announced two changes that place more weight on finishing the regular season in the yellow jersey.

The changes are:

• If the No. 1 seed wins the first heat of the best-of-three World Title match, they will clinch the World Title without needing to surf a second or third heat. 
• The top-seeded surfer in all Matches will also start with priority. We had this for Match 1 previously (where World No. 4 had priority over No. 5), but it now will apply to all the Matches.  

And for those who need to read it in full, here's a cut and paste from the latest version of the WSL Rule Book:

(iv) The Final Match is between the winner of Match 3 and the Surfer who placed 1st (based on CT Ranking Points following the last Regular Season CT Event), and the following scenarios will apply:

• If the Surfer who placed 1st (based on CT Ranking Points following the last Regular Season CT Event) wins the first heat, he will be crowned the World Champion.
• If the Winner of Match 3 wins the first & second heats, he will be crowned the World Champion.
• If the Winner of Match 3 wins the first heat and the Surfer who placed 1st (based on CT Ranking Points following the last Regular Season CT Event) wins the second heat, then a third and final heat will take place (Best of Three Heats) and the winner of the third and final heat will be crowned the World champion.
• The Surfer who placed 1st (based on CT Ranking Points following the last Regular Season CT Event) will have Priority over the Surfer who won Match 3 in all heats.