West Aussies Jacob Willcox and Willow Hardy are proudly flying the flag on the international stage, currently competing on the World Surf League’s Challenger Series, the critical pathway to the elite Championship Tour.
The World Surf League (WSL) has just confirmed Pipeline and Newcastle will round out the 2025–26 Challenger Series schedule, raising the stakes with two world-class stops to decide who qualifies for the 2026 CT.
Read the full media statement below.
LOS ANGELES, Calif., USA (Sunday, June 1, 2025) – The World Surf League (WSL) today announced that this year’s Challenger Series (CS) will add two events to the 2025-26 season to help decide the qualifiers for the 2026 Championship Tour (CT). Pipeline will be added to the schedule as the penultimate event, while Newcastle will return as the seventh and final event of the season.
With the recently announced changes to the Championship Tour schedule and format, this season’s Challenger Series season will now run from June 2025 to March 2026, with the last two events being held at Pipeline in January, and Newcastle in March. It will be the first time since 2022 that a wave on the North Shore of O`ahu in Hawai`i has counted for Challenger Series points, and the first time since 2020 that Pipeline has contributed to a surfer’s CT qualification.
Pipeline is one of, if not the most, important waves in surfing, playing host to some of the biggest moments in the culture and the sport. Its addition to the Challenger Series schedule will give the next crop of CT surfers a taste of competition at one of the most perfect and intense waves on the planet, ensuring each batch of qualifiers is being prepared for the intensity of the Tour.
“The WSL is super excited to announce that Pipeline and Newcastle will be the last two stops of the Challenger Series this season,” said WSL Senior Tour Manager, Travis Logie. “Pipeline is the ultimate proving ground and one of the most perfect yet challenging waves on the planet. For the next crop of CT surfers to get the opportunity to compete out there is a huge step forward for the Challenger Series, not to mention incredibly exciting for our fans to enjoy two major events at Pipe in just a couple of months. To then finish the season and decide our CT qualifiers at the iconic Newcastle SURFEST is amazing. It’s an event with so much surf history, and the whole town gets behind it, so to see our CS surfers realize their dreams in front of thousands of fans at Merewether will be a huge moment.”
In 2026, the iconic Newcastle SURFEST will celebrate its 40th anniversary, cementing the event as one of the longest-running professional surfing competitions in the world. Born from one of the most passionate and talent-producing towns in Australian surfing, Newcastle SURFEST has been won by the biggest names in the sport, including Kelly Slater, Stephanie Gilmore, Tom Curren, Layne Beachley, Mick Fanning, Frieda Zamba and Mark Occhilupo, to name a few. With so much history to celebrate, it will be a fitting location to decide the qualifiers for the 2026 Championship Tour.
2025-26 WSL Challenger Series Schedule:
Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia: June 2 – 8, 2025
Ballito, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: June 30 – July 6, 2025
Huntington Beach, California, USA: July 29 – August 3, 2025 (US Open festival window: July 26 – August 3)
Ericeira, Portugal: September 29 – October 5, 2025
Saquarema, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: October 11 – 19, 2025
Pipeline, Hawai`i, USA: January 28 – February 8, 2026
Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia: March 8 – 15, 2026
At the end of the season, the top 10 men and seven women from the Challenger Series Rankings will earn a spot on the 2026 CT. The best five of a possible seven results count towards each competitor’s end-of-season ranking.
As both the Challenger and CT schedules transition into their new looks and seasons, as a one-off, for the 2025-26 season, the Burton Automotive Newcastle SURFEST will count twice in the one season, with Merewether hosting the opening and closing events of this year’s Challenger Series.
The regional Qualifying Series (QS) will continue as a year-round series in each of the seven WSL regions, with a specific number of surfers from each region graduating from the top of the QS rankings to the Challenger Series each year.
For more information, please visit WorldSurfLeague.com.
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