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Stephanie Gilmore and Sally Fitzgibbons have both lost painstaking Rip Curl Pro quarter-finals in blows to their hopes of avoiding the mid-season cut.
Sally Fitzgibbons has endured a "torturous" exit at Bells Beach while Stephanie Gilmore also left her run too late as both Australians lost Rip Curl Pro quarter-finals.
Their exits, at the hands of Courtney Conlogue and Carissa Moore respectively, are huge blows to their hopes of qualifying for the World Surf League's new mid-season cut.
They'll likely need to at least make the final of the next event at Margaret River in Western Australia to sneak into the top 10 and remain for the second half of the Championship Tour.
Bells Beach had produced superb conditions but Fitzgibbons couldn't find a wave as she battled in a 14.57 to 11.93 loss to good friend Conlogue.
"That was torturous; you watch perfect waves all day and then it turns into a swimming pool," Fitzgibbons said.
"That was the heat ... like the one against Steph in Portugal, whoever gets this one is moving up the ratings and the other is tumbling back down and unfortunately that has been me this year.
"Sometimes it just doesn't happen."
Seven-time world champion Gilmore (12.53) couldn't crack five points on any ride until the final six minutes of her heat, falling in a costly miss before then finding a heat-best 7.83 to threaten Moore (13.67).
Gilmore was given a chance with 11 seconds remaining when Moore used her priority and allowed the Australian onto a wave.
But her 4.70 ride wasn't enough to edge ahead, Gilmore squeezing everything out of the small wave as she rode it to the beach.
Earlier Tyler Wright (17.17 points) confirmed her place inside the cut-line with a dominant quarter-final defeat of compatriot Bronte Macaulay (12.07).
The two-time world champion, who will surf Conlogue in the semi-final, said she was fully recovered from influenza and post-viral syndrome that kept her off the tour for almost three years.
"It's been a game of patience and hard work to get my body back to where it's meant to be and connecting with the way I surf," Wright said.
"It's just all emotion ... I was just letting it out. In younger years I've held all that stuff in but I don't see the point anymore, celebrate everything."