Griffin Colapinto faces Hawaiian surfer Barron Mamiya in the semis while his brother Crosby Colapinto will meet South African Jordy Smith. If both brothers win their next heats, they will compete against each in the finals.

Meanwhile, in the women’s competition, Australian Sally Fitzgibbons suffered more heartbreak at Margaret River after enduring a cruel loss to world No.1 Gabriela Bryan that also wrecked her 2026 season start.

Fitzgibbons needed to beat Bryan, the defending Margaret Pro champion, to avoid the top-10 mid-season cut for the third successive year.

A victory in the heat would also have secured 14th-ranked Fitzgibbons a place on the 2026 Championship Tour after the WSL announced a larger women’s field next year.

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If Tyler Wright had beaten Lakey Peterson, Fitzgibbons would have requalified, but instead the Californian veteran took the final spot, sending the Australian back to the Challenger Series.

Fitzgibbons opened her heat by attacking a wave to earn a 6.83, and with Bryan uncharacteristically falling off a few waves the 34-year-old NSW surfer looked in control. She bettered her back-up score with a nervous 4.33, leaving Bryan requiring a 7.33 score to reach the quarter-finals.

With 90 seconds remaining, the Hawaiian launched on to a wave and showed off her power moves in a two-turn combination, wowing the judges to score a 9.00 to take out the heat.

An emotional Fitzgibbons stayed out in the water, devastated to have let the win – and the opportunities it secured – slip away.

“I think for the first, like, 98 per cent of that heat it was all going against me, I could not get it together,” Bryan said. “I’m like, I just need to do two big turns, and I hit the first one as hard as I could, and then I was like, OK, just finish this thing, and it all worked out, so I was so stoked.”

With AAP