Title Race Hots Up

Thursday 19 September 2013 Three events to go after the Hurley Pro. Can Jordy Smith win his maiden world title? You bet! Things are looking exciting as the top three jostle their way into the final sprint of the race, writes Craig Jarvis.

Travis Logie upset Mick Fanning in the quarters, holding the Australian back from extending his lead at the front of the world ranking. Photo ASP / Scholtz

Slater slipped to second after bowing out of the Hurley Pro Trestles in a wave-starved heat against Pat Gudauskas and even on the waves that Kelly caught, he wasn’t looking as sharp as we his fans like to see him. Dancing along, high-lining, trying his hardest to suck speed out of speedless waves to do little dancey-jiggle backhand spins onto the sand wasn’t going to get us bellowing support but Kelly knew that he messed up and he was bummed. With no more results to throw away, he’s got, in his own words ’no room to move.’

Then, unbelievably our current world champion Joel bowed out as well, eliminated by Adam Melling. Just like that the world title race breathed open, Fanning and Jordy stepped into the ring, and it was game on.

In the end, Fanning had quietly consolidated his ranking with points for an equal 9th, but he will rue this result, the ideal chance to pull away from the pack.

A win could have seen Jordy get to second place on the rankings and first place on adjusted ratings (surfers get to drop their worst 2 results). Explosive surfing from Taj and Julian Wilson put paid to that.

On his side of the draw Jordy made quick work of Brett Simpson in the third round, displaying fast and tight surfing on what has become known as his ‘magic surfboard’ and looked equally as fast and confident in his fourth round heat in which he comfortably defeated CJ Hobgood (USA) and Taj Burrow (Australia) to go directly through to the quarters.

However, Taj got his own back, taking Jordy out in the semis after Jordy took out Kai Otton (US) in the quarters.

In a somewhat ironic twist Fanning (Australia), who needed to beat Jordy in this event to maintain his current first place rating, drew Jordy’s good mate and travel partner Durban surfer Travis Logie in the fifth round, and Logie has some experience at upsetting the apple-carts so to speak, having messed up world title races more than once in his illustrious career. Of course, he did it again.

Apart from his obvious rhythm and determination, Jordy’s performance has been further bolstered by the fact that the onsite commentators and webcast commentators are completely enamoured by his recent form and are constantly calling him as the star performer at the event so far.

What’s even worse is that Jordy has that relaxed, big smiling look of someone who is having so much fun, enjoying himself and hasn’t a care in the world, while Fanning is looking tense and serious. Jordy has the look he had in Brazil, throwing down claims with a big grin.

He may not have won, but he came close. With his third place, Jordy moved from 4th to 3rd on the rankings, closing the gap on Slater and Fanning.

The title race is wide open.