Brett Simpson picked the wrong year to be an ASP rookie. The major ASP changes being implemented this year have given him little time to relax and settle in. After a decent showing at Jeffreys Bay Simpson now finds himself tied in the 24th position in the ASP rankings with just one event left to go before the field gets hacked from 48 surfers down to to 32.

While he's safe for now, a bad result in Teahupoo could easily land him on the outside looking in. So it's about as good as time as any to be heading back home to Huntington Beach where he'll begin defending his 2009 Hurley US Open of Surfing championship early next month.

Simpson, like a lot of guys in his position, are surfing the US Open because they have to in order to protect their ASP World Ranking. The World Ranking is their hedge against any poor performance on the World Championship ranking. Come December, when the season ends and a champion is crowned, the Top 22 on the World Championship tour ranking will make the cut for the 2011 World Championship Tour. Then remaining 10 slots will come from the new World Rankings.

Then in 2011, the World Championship Tour deck will be reshuffled after every three or four events (depending on the TBD tour schedule) using only the World Rankings. If a surfer falls out of the Top 32, they lose their spot. But they can just as easily get back in by way of performing in the Prime events, like the Hurley US Open of Surfing.

The stakes are high, which means the surfing level should be even higher this year. Simpson is coming in with very fond memories of his victory last year (see video). Rest assured he'll be mounting a strong defense of his home turf.