Fitzgibbons and West Australian Claire Bevilacqua are competing for Australia in the open women's division.

Fitzgibbons made the right wave selection and executed graceful and powerful top turns in her opening heats.

Fitzgibbons, who won in Costa de Caparica at the World Junior Surfing Championship last year, produced the highest combined scores in her both first and second round heats - 14.17 and 15.00 respectively.

The 17-year-old easily made it through the main event.

"It's good to get in the water today - we've had a couple of days of watching the boys in other divisions," Fitzgibbons said.

"Conditions all through the day are very contestable and it's pretty hard now to pick those high scorers.

"All the girls are surfing really well and just hope to keep moving through a couple more rounds and have a little bit of fun.

"I've been feeling good and the Aussie team has too."

Bevilacqua was another standout in the women's division along with Anal{aac} Go{aac}mez (Peru), Camila Cassia (Brazil) and Marie Dejean (France).

Former Tathra surfer Kai Otton is a member of the Australian open men's team, together with Dayyan Neve, Mat Bemrose and Heath Joske.

Australia has a strong history in this event, winning eight of the 13 WSG since their inception in 1982. A win this year will be Australia's third consecutive success.