Reigning women’s surf champion Caitlin Simmers is showing no signs of slowing down — and the Oceanside surfer is making it known she’s still on top.

Simmers, 19, won her latest big surf event on Sunday in an unlikely place, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where manmade waves powered by a machine challenged the world’s best surfers far from the ocean in recent days.

Simmers, who has earned the moniker “Pride of Oceanside,” now takes the ratings lead as the top-ranked surfer after a runner-up finish at the first World Surf League event of the year at Pipeline in Hawaii.

Several Southern California surfers had strong finishes at the latest event, the inaugural Surf Abu Dhabi Pro, with San Clemente’s Bella Kenworthy, Sawyer Lindblad and Olympic gold medalist Caroline Marks all making it to the quarterfinals at the event.

The feat was especially notable for Kenworthy, a teenager who is a rookie on tour and going up against much more experienced, seasoned surfers.

Huntington Beach’s Kanoa Igrashi also made it to the quarterfinals in the men’s division but was bested by eventual winner Italo Ferreira of Brazil, who eventually earned the men’s title.

“In a wave pool it’s always super exciting when I have a wave or have a chance to perform,” said Ferreira, the 2019 world champion and first-ever surfing Olympic gold medalist, who also took the WSL ratings lead following his win. “You’re always going harder and bigger, and that’s what I did, you know.”

On the women’s side, it was a finals match-up between Simmers and Australia’s Molly Picklum, who met in the finals just weeks ago in Hawaii for the season’s first event, the Lexus Pipe Pro, with Picklum taking that win.

Simmers was back for a rematch, earning the highest single-wave score of the event, 9.57 out of 10, on her way to the finals.

Simmers called the finals out in the water with Picklum “pretty fun.”

“The most pressure you’re going to feel is when you’re in a wave pool waiting for your wave, and you know exactly what you need, and you know you’re going to get the opportunity to get it,” she said in a WSL interview.

Unlike the ocean, it’s not about the luck of Mother Nature sending you a wave, rather the anticipation of waiting for a wave you know is going to be pumped from a machine. The wave was created with the same technology used to build Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in Lemoore, near Fresno, California.

“The pool is going to send you this wave, and you gotta get the score,” she said. “And so I think that’s what makes it very special for me.”

The action was a nail-biter until Simmers’ last, buzzer-beater wave, the duo waiting in the shallow water for the scores to drop.

“All I can think of is really just how thankful I am, honestly,” Simmers said after the score swung her way. “I’m thankful for surfing, for just being able to ride waves. It’s like the funnest thing ever, I really enjoy it.”

She’s also thankful for Picklum, she said, a surfer who helps push her own skill level in the water.

“I feel like we both do that to each other, so that’s always fun,” she said.

Simmers is kicking off her third season on the World Tour, already making history last year by becoming the youngest World Surf League shortboard champion, a title earned at Lower Trestles just south of San Clemente in September.

Since being on tour, she’s made nine finals and earned seven championship titles.

The surfing action looks to get bigger, literally, with a “green alert” for the Tudor Nazare Big Wave Challenge in Portugal, where some of the world’s best big-wave surfers will take on building-size waves.

On the World Tour, the next stop is the Rip Curl Pro Portugal in mid-March. More info: worldsurfleague.com.