Simmers needed seven stitches to her ankle on her way to the trophy at Cloud 9, Siargao. The California surfer collided with Portugal’s Yolanda Hopkins in the quarterfinals, had the wound closed up between heats, and kept going.

She beat five-time world champion Carissa Moore in the semifinal, then edged Australia’s Isabella Nichols 12.00 to 10.77 in a final built almost entirely on two tube rides. It was Simmers’ eighth career Championship Tour victory and her first of the 2026 season, after she made back-to-back finals in Portugal and the Philippines.

“This is one of my favorite waves in the world, and I was almost in tears paddling out for the Final because I could really feel the love from everyone watching from the water,” Simmers said after the final to the WSL.

Nichols’ comeback cut short in the final

Nichols was the story on the other side of the draw. The Australian returned from ankle surgery six weeks before the event to reach a second straight Championship Tour final, but could not match Simmers in the exchanges that mattered. The final ran in four-to-six-foot barrels at Cloud 9, the right-hand reef break that has anchored competitive surfing on Siargao since the Siargao International Surfing Cup launched there in 1996.

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Gabriel Medina took the men’s title on the same day, beating Jack Robinson 16.93 to lower in the final. It was the Brazilian’s first Championship Tour win in more than three years.

Third place, and a live shot at a second world title

The result puts Simmers back in the championship conversation. She is third in the women’s rankings on 49,610 points, behind leader Molly Picklum on 53,695 and five-time champion Carissa Moore on 53,150. Picklum, the reigning 2025 world champion, leads Moore by just 545 points.

The title will be decided at the Lexus Pipe Masters on Oahu’s North Shore, which runs from 8 to 20 December. The event is the season finale rather than a one-day showdown, and its winner takes 15,000 points instead of the standard 10,000 awarded at the other stops on the tour. That inflated purse keeps Simmers mathematically alive from third.

Simmers knows Pipeline well. She claimed her first and only world title there in 2024 at 18, becoming the youngest WSL women’s world champion in the modern professional era.

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