Snapper Rocks became a graveyard for women's world champions on Monday as Tyler Wright, Stephanie Gilmore and Carissa Moore were all toppled in the Roxy Pro quarter-finals.
The trio boast 11 world titles between them but it counted for nothing as one by one they fell in an afternoon of upsets in the first event of this year's WSL Tour on the Gold Coast.
Australian pair Sally Fitzgibbons and Keely Andrew, who beat Gilmore, will meet in the semi-finals while Hawaiian Malia Manuel and American Lakey Peterson will fight for the other final spot after beating Moore and Wright respectively.
Chasing her first win at Snapper, Fitzgibbons had to produce 8.17 and 8.40 rides featuring some rare aerial manoeuvres to beat rising 16-year-old Caroline Marks.
Florida's Marks, the youngest man or women to earn a full-time WSL Tour spot, had earlier shown her class by beating Gilmore to top spot in their third-round battle.
The 27-year-old Fitzgibbons, who made her WSL debut in 2008, said the results showed the new guard had officially arrived.
"I had to make really smart decisions (in the quarter-final); it means she's already keeping all of us really honest," Fitzgibbons said.
"It's a credit to the grassroots, it wasn't just Steph's generation then I came through then Tyler, it's nice to see there's no gap after that and we are producing forces to be reckoned with and Keels (Andrew) has improved out of sight."
Fitzgibbons isn't about to step aside though, saying her time for a maiden world title had not come and gone.
"It really is (my time), at the level everyone is surfing now ... I'm proud to be a part of it and it's down to circumstance," she said.
"It's a really even playing field, so competitive and is down to what happens in your 30 minutes and I want to be the one making the best decisions in those clutch moments."
Earlier, two-time defending world champion Wright had no answers in smaller surf to Peterson, while Mooloolaba's Andrew scored a 6.60 with her final wave to beat local favourite and defending champion Gilmore.
"That's what you want to see; go out there and be fearless, take opportunities when you can and just shine," Gilmore said of the youth brigade.
"You can see they're so bright eyed and soaking in all the information they can and there will be plenty of world champions in that mix for sure."
Men's action was put on hold on Monday, with second-round sudden-death battles featuring Australians Matt Wilkinson, Wade Carmichael, Joel Parkinson and Mikey Wright, John John Florence and 2014 world champion Gabriel Medina set for Tuesday.
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