The ninth place that Peruvian Alonso Correa held in the 2020 QS ranking before the Covid-19 pandemic ended the tour, placed him in the Challenger Series tournaments that will define the new qualifiers for the first division of world surfing, reported DUKE from the offices of the WSL South America.

The Peruvian had had an excellent start to the 2020 season after placing second at the event in Morocco, third in Newcastle and gaining support in Noronha, Sydney and the central coast of Australia.

He and Brazilian Wiggolly Dantas are the two South Americans who guaranteed their place in the tournaments that will take place in Portugal, France and Hawaii between September and December.

According to DUKE's calculations, Lucca Mesinas, who was ranked 12th, has a chance of qualifying as well because he has three CT members ahead of him: Ryan Callinan, Jadson André and Leo Fioravanti, and in the event that any of them choose not to be part of the challengers, he would go as the second option (he has Vasco Ribeiro ahead of him).

On the other hand, the offices of the WSL South America informed DUKE that the criteria to determine the rest of those classified for the challengers is the following: The three best results of 2020 will be added to the two QS from Ecuador. From there, the best 10 men and five women from the region qualify for the challengers.

But they make one clarification: since Wiggolly and Alonso are already there, there is room for eight places. This suggests that the new system takes into account a number of qualifiers per region for the challengers.