{"id":597453,"date":"2026-04-10T07:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T07:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597453\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T07:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T07:57:08","slug":"molly-picklum-to-face-fellow-australian-isabella-nichols-in-bells-beach-semifinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597453\/","title":{"rendered":"Molly Picklum to face fellow Australian Isabella Nichols in Bells Beach semifinal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Molly Picklum wants to ring the bell but will need to topple defending champion and countrywoman Isabella Nichols after the pair starred again in the World Surf League’s season opener.<\/p>\n

Effervescent world champion Picklum (11.30 points) eased past Lakey Peterson (5.00) in their Bells Beach quarterfinal today before Nichols won a heated, late exchange for the second straight day to join her.<\/p>\n

The winner of tomorrow’s semifinal will meet either American Alyssa Spencer or Hawaii’s Gabriela Bryan in the first decider of three Australian events to kick off the season.<\/p>\n

It ensures a local presence in the women’s final, a scenario that looked unlikely when a host of Australia’s big names fell in the opening two rounds.<\/p>\n

Nichols found two late scores to beat five-time world champion Carissa Moore yesterday and, again in subdued Winkipop swell, left it late in a tense encounter with Caitlin Simmers on an overcast afternoon today.<\/p>\n

Both fell on potentially high-scoring waves midway through their heats, leaving Nichols holding the advantage with only a two-point effort as her second-best score.<\/p>\n

She built on the lead with a six-point wave before, in a repeat of yesterday’s one-two punch, outdoing her rival with the superior ride in the final minutes of their heat.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

A 7.33 on the biggest wave of the heat ensured Simmers’ 6.60 effort was in vain.<\/p>\n

Nichols, from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, credited regular trips to Bells each year for her ability to read what she rated one of the world’s “hardest waves to catch”.<\/p>\n

“I’m bloody stoked,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Oh man, Pickles \u2026 I’m so stoked there’s going to be an Aussie in the final. It’s going to be a sick battle.<\/p>\n

“I’m in a good headspace \u2026 ready for hopefully back-to-back heats tomorrow.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Molly Picklum wants to ring the bell but will need to topple defending champion and countrywoman Isabella Nichols…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5844,64,63,286840,291572,41995,588,85,24490,168657,6339],"class_list":{"0":"post-597453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-abc-sport","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-bells-beach","12":"tag-isabella-nichols","13":"tag-molly-picklum","14":"tag-sport","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-surfing","17":"tag-world-surf-league","18":"tag-wsl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}