Jordy vs Travis

It does seem to happen too often. Two South Africans on the pro tour, and they seem to draw each other way too often. As soon as it happens, the conspiracy theorists light up, cry foul, bemoan the ASP and the contest administration, and declare the whole thing as crooked as an eight rand note.

It doesn’t work that way. In this day and age of professionalism and enquiring minds, it’s not as if the ASP can just randomly select the two South Africans so that they come up against each other early on in a contest, thus one being eliminated. That would be uncivilized.

Here is how it works, but bear with me, as I wasn’t the best at math at school back in the day when we still used log books and shit. It was a time before calculators, before Mr Google. If they had a level below Standard Grade for math, I would have opted for it.

In the draw, top seed gets pitted against bottom seed in every round.

Prior to the completion of round 2, Travis was seeded 20th, and Jordy was seeded 12th – fairly far apart.

Then five surfers placed above Travis lost in the second round, and his seeding improved to 15th. In the same round two surfers placed above Jordy lost their heats, boosting him to 10th seed.

Jordy went from 12th seed to 10th seed, and Travis went from 20th seed to 15th seed.

In round three, in every contest, 10th seed surfs against 15th seed.

Therefore Travis and Jordy will meet, probably tomorrow, and only one of them will advance from their third round encounter.

It’s just mathematics. Nothing sinister.