7 December 2007
South Africa's Jordy Smith clinched surfing's ASP World Qualifying Series crown with a record total of 14 575 points after finishing equal ninth in the O'Neill World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach in Hawaii on Tuesday.
He advanced to the quarter-finals before having to settle for third in his heat behind Australian standout Daniel Ross and Hawaiian legend Sunny Garcia.
After huge and unruly surf of Monday, the round of 32 and quarterfinals enjoyed clean waves with six-metre (20-foot) faces, before decreasing to three-to-four metres (10-12 foot), with a side-shore wind for the final heats.
Sunset Beach local Makuakai Rothman utilised his lifelong knowledge of the conditions to pick off the best wave of the final and snatch victory from Leonardo Neves (BRA) two minutes from the siren, with world champion elect Mick Fanning and compatriot Ross taking third and fourth places.
New high
Smith's haul of US
$1 400 (approx R10 000) took his 2007 prize-money earnings to $78 755 (approx R550 000), while the 1 650 ratings points raised the total from his best seven results to 14 575, a new high for the World Qualifying Series (WQS).
Smith's points' tally was a significant improvement on the previous record haul of 13 128, established by Brazil's Adriano de Souza in 2005.
The 19-year-old, who also holds the ASP World Junior and ISA World Surfing Games Open titles, will be the highest seeded WQS qualifier on the elite 2008 Foster's ASP World Tour, the 11-stop series of events contested by the world's 45 highest ranked surfers in the world's best waves that determines surfing's undisputed annual world champion.
Bryson qualifies
The completion of the WQS determined the qualifiers for the 2008 elite tour and, along with Smith, East London's Royden Bryson qualified by finishing 18th to confirm his second successive season at the highest level.
The 2007 World Tour rookie is currently the world number-23 and, if he can maintain a position in the top 27 after the season-ending Billabong Pipeline Masters, he will qualify on two counts, thus opening up WQS spot to the next highest rated surfer.
Bryson has enjoyed an excellent first year on the World Tour, reaching the quarterfinals in his second event, the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach in Australia, and then achieving back-to-back ninth places in the two events in Europe.
He also compiled a phenomenal run of WQS results through the third quarter of the year, finishing in the top-16 in five out of seven events, including third-place finishes in Newquay and the Canary Islands, to secure his qualification through the WQS.
Basnett well placed
Fellow rookie Ricky Basnett, who like Bryson has not previously competed at Pipeline, is the best placed to re-qualify of the other three SA world tour campaigners.
The Bluff local, whose natural talent and flamboyant manoeuvres are tailor-made for the World Tour judging criteria, holds 20th spot in the rankings after reaching the third round in all nine events run to date, and going on to ninth-place in France and Brazil.
Qualifying question
Durban's Travis Logie, in his third year at surfing’s top table, has slipped to 26th on the World Tour rankings and is recovering from knee surgery, which could potentially see the 2002 ISA world champ fail to re-qualify.
However, the dynamic goofy-footer was entrenched in the-top 10 before injuring himself after the fifth event in Jeffreys Bay in July and, although he competed in the next event in California, he was eliminated early and has not competed since.
Logie's consistent record and high rating prior prior to his injury gives the 28-year-old an excellent chance of receiving one of three ASP injury wildcards for 2008.
Veteran in
jeopardy
The South African in most jeopardy of not re-qualifying is seasoned eight-year World Tour veteran Greg Emslie who, with prize-money earnings totaling over $500 000 (approx R3.5 million), is the country's most successful professional surfer.
The East Londoner turned 31 last Thursday and, despite becoming the first man from Africa to reach the final of a World Tour event in France in September, where he finished runner-up to Fanning, he has dropped to world number-32 going into the season-ending event.
Combined with a poor year by his own standards on the WQS, where he finished 51st, after using that route to qualify for six of his eight years amongst the world's best, Emslie needs to produce his best-ever result in the bone-crushing hollow tubes of Pipeline if he is to spend another year in the highest echelons of the sport.
Billabong Pipeline Masters
The R2.1-million Billabong Pipeline Masters concludes the
2007 Foster's ASP World Tour and the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing.
It runs in the best waves available at the hallowed Banzai Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii from 8 December to 20 December.
O'Neill World Cup of Surfing
Sunset Beach, Oahu-Hawaii
Final Results
Semi-finals
Quarter-finals
Final 2007 Top 20 WQS
Ratings
SAInfo reporter
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