World No.14 Ryan Callinan heads to Hawaii on Friday excited to have some direction back in his surfing as the championship tour opens at the traditional finishing line of Pipeline.
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The goofy-footer and tour rookie Morgan Cibilic will give Merewether two surfers on the elite series for the first time since Matt Hoy and Luke Egan flew the flag together in 2000. Cibilic was set to debut at Snapper Rocks in March but the tour was suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A new-look schedule to decide a 2021 champion will start with the Pipe Masters from December 8. The iconic break has hosted the tour finale in recent times and Callinan was excited to experience the change.
"It's going to be a different feel to other years," Callinan said. "There's definitely a lot going on going into Pipe each year, but for maybe 75, 80 per cent of the surfers there's almost no extremes.
"The guys at the back are about to fall off or are trying to requalify and the guys at the top are going for the world title, but there's a bunch of guys in limbo as well just surfing the event.
"The first event of the year is usually at Snapper and the energy is normally super high, and I can't imagine it will be anything less than exciting going into Pipe to fire up and start the year in big, heavy waves."
The tall and athletic 28-year-old has long impressed with his power surfing and aerial prowess but he has also shown his tube-riding skills at Pipeline. He won his first CT heat, as a wildcard, against Dane Reynolds in 2013. He made finals day in 2016 and again, this time as the trials winner, in 2018. Last year, though, Callinan bowed out in round three.
"It's been a bit of a mixed bag," he said. "Sometimes it's the luck of the draw, but I feel really confident and comfortable out there. I just love the wave and the challenge.
"Normally you are surfing it with 300 guys and you're not getting the waves you want, so to be out there with one or two other guys and to have your pick to potentially have the wave of your life, I find that excitement takes over the nerves of a heat sometimes."
Callinan made an early exit at the Tweed Coast Pro, a non-CT contest, in September. It was his only World Surf League event since March and he was keen to get back into major competition.
"I feel going into events and warming up for certain waves or doing a certain type of surfing for that wave, there's always a lot of direction in my surfing," he said.
"I think through the year I might have got a bit lost because I had nothing to focus on. I was just surfing for fun, which was great but it's definitely going to be nice to throw some direction back into it and I feel like I've done that the last few months."
"But the start was definitely a lot harder.
"I'm really excited to get back into it and now there's a tour going again, it might give me a fresh take on it."