Lelilani McGonagle, Brisa Hennessy and Carlos Muñoz could compete in the Challenger Series.

The WSL has announced the schedule for the 2023 Challenger Tour season, which will begin after the fifth CT stop in Australia.

This year the Challenger Series will not visit Hawaii and will instead have two events in Australia and one in Brazil. The best four of the six races will count towards the standings. Here is the complete schedule:

- Gold Coast Pro (Queensland, Australia): May 6-13, 2023.
- Sydney Surf Pro (New South Wales, Australia): May 17-24, 2023.
- Ballito Pro (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa): July 2-9, 2023
- US Open of Surfing (Huntington Beach, USA): July 29 - August 6.
- EDP ​​Pro Ericeira (Ericeira, Portugal): October 1 to 8, 2023.
- Saquarema Pro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil): October 14 to 21, 2023.

These dates serve as a prelude to the world's premier surfing circuit, but to compete in it, surfers must qualify through the QS events. Currently, only Leilani McGonagle from our country qualifies via this route. She is currently ranked fourth in the North American region, and if she maintains this position after the final event in Barbados, she will qualify for the Challenger Series. In the men's QS category, Tomas King from Guanacaste has the best chance of qualifying for the Challenger Series. However, he must improve his current ranking (#18) and place among the seven surfers who qualify directly from the region. He will need to achieve this at the next and final QS 5,000-point event in Barbados, prior to the Challenger Series.

However, Brisa Hennessy and Carlos Muñoz could also compete in the Challenger Series if the Costa Rican players fail to make the mid-year cut and require this form of requalification for the 2024 CT. If they make the mid-year cut for the 2023 CT, their participation in these tournaments will not be necessary.

Each Challenger event will feature 80 men and 48 women, determined as follows:

- 12 men and seven women from the CT who did not make the mid-season cut.
-10 men and five women from the previous year's Challenger Series rankings.
- Three men and two women who were CT surfers in the previous season who did not requalify for either the CT or the Challenge Series.
- 49 men and 30 women assigned by the seven WSL regions (Australia/Oceania, Asia, Africa, Europe, Hawaii/Tahiti Nui, North America and Latin America).
- The 2022 World Junior Men's Champion.
- The 2022 Women's Junior World Champion.
- Five male and three female wild cards per event.

Each event will be streamed live and you can find more information at: https://www.worldsurfleague.com

Written by: Enrique Hernández