The World Qualifying Series is a different playing field this year than it has been in seasons past. While there’s been a proliferation of smaller rated events (including the pumping Mentawai and Keramas QS1000s), the cancellation of two QS10,000 events in the first half of the season has meant that those guys who are serious about cracking the big leagues have been effectively standing around twiddling their thumbs while they wait for things to kick off.

Luckily for them the QS6000 Ichinomiya Chiba Open gets underway in Japan in a few days’ time and they can all get their qualification campaigns back on track.

Once a staple stop for the world tour, with as many as two back-to-back CT events being held there back in the day, Japan has been completely absent from both the QS and the CT in recent years. In fact, the last time a professional event was held there was in 2013, when Mitch Crews took out the then 4-star Quiksilver Pro.

So what’s happened to Japan as a venue for the world’s best? While past contests there didn’t always deliver amazing waves, anyone who’s seen Kai Neville’s Dear Suburbia knows the place has the potential to go off it’s dial.

‘Japan seems like a massive surf market,’ says Crews, who’s pumped to head back to the Land of the Rising Sun and defend his title. ‘I don’t understand why there’s not a CT or a prime there, even during the typhoon season. The waves get so sick!’

Here’s some footage of Kelly Slater shredding in Japan recently …

Perth Standlick’s another Aussie hopeful who’ll be heading over for the event, and while he’s visited Japan before and is more than fond of the place, he points to the Fukushima disaster in 2011 as having had a pretty significant impact on the country’s ability to host a major event.

‘I’d say their economy is only just recovering to the point where people think they can spend whatever it costs to put on a 6-star. It must’ve changed hundreds of thousands of people’s lives along the coast.’

There’s no doubt that such a large-scale catastrophe has had a major effect on Japan’s economic and environmental capacity to hold professional surfing contests, but the fact we’re to see a QS event return there (and a QS6000 no less) shows positive signs for the future.

And what about the venue? Long-time fans of the sport will remember Chiba as the place where one of the great Kelly/Andy battles played out back in ‘06, with Andy getting the wood over Kelly in fun, shifty four-foot peaks.

‘It’s a little beach break setup,’ says Crews. ‘The year I won it was like three- to four-foot and heaps of fun.’

So there you have it. Pro surfing is heading back to Japan. Now we just have to wait and see if the curse of the CT will continue and the QS battlers will once again score better waves than those on the elite tour. Judging by the waves in Rio at the moment, it won’t take much.