How are ties broken?

Under the SSA Rulebook 2025:

On paper tally sheets (Section 7):

• In a four-surfer heat, compare the tied surfers' placings on each judge's sheet with a plus/minus system: "+" to the higher placing, "-" to the lower. Most "+" marks wins.
• In a three-way tie, use plus/minus to find the top two, then again to split them.
• If still tied, go back to the best wave on the tied judges' sheets (drop the lowest wave score) and recalculate.

Re-surfing ties (Section 4): only completely unbreakable ties that affect who advances are re-surfed. Before that, the tie is broken by:

1. the best single score, then third best, fourth best, and so on (surfers with two priority interferences and zero top-two waves can't use lower scores);
2. the average of all five judges on the two best scores, then one, three, four best scores and so on;
3. if still tied, a re-surf of no more than 15 minutes, involving only the tied surfers.

If both tied surfers advance, the original team seed or previous-round scores break the tie. If both are eliminated, they share the place (for example equal third for a tie between third and fourth, or equal fourth if neither started) and the points for the places involved are averaged.