Connor Slippen and Louise Lepront emerged as winners of the World Surf League Qualifying Series SA Open of Surfing 1,000 at a windy Gqeberha, with Luc Lepront and Natasha van Greunen being runners-up.
Sunday was an intense day of competition, completing multiple rounds, but the conditions improved dramatically after Saturday’s gale-force onshore situation. The conditions changed quickly in the morning, allowing the men and women to deliver.
The women’s final saw a flurry of waves exchanged between top seeds Van Greunen and Lepront. Fresh off a fine result at the Pro Taghazout Bay QS 3,000 in Morocco, Lepront was carrying this momentum and confidence into her approach at the SA Open of Surfing.
Van Greunen didn’t have the same success in Morocco, but she was driven by her experience and fond memories of competing at Pollock Beach to find the good scoring opportunities available.
There was not a lot of downtime in the final, with both surfers staying active to improve on their scores and catching 10 waves each in the 25 minutes. Lepront had a slight edge over Van Greunen with her first wave, and then improved with a solid back-up score. Van Greunen never gave up and earned her two best scores in the latter half of the matchup, but it wasn’t enough and Lepront earned the win.
With this result, Lepront extends her lead atop of the WSL Africa QS rankings and is on track to qualify for the 2025 Challenger Series.
Taking notes from his sister’s winning performance, Lepront was quick out of the gates to put a score on the board in the men’s final against Slijpen. Slijpen was right behind him and soon this matchup was gaining steam.
Lepront, a former finalist at the SA Open of Surfing, took an early lead, but in his first-ever WSL QS Final, Slijpen produced a handful of searing turns for a 6.83 (out of a possible 10) to jump into first. He backed it up with another decent 6.00 ride to shut it down with a total of 12.83 (out of a possible 20), with Lepront having to settle for runner-up.
As part of the City Surf Series, the SA Open of Surfing has become a solid fixture on the WSL Africa QS calendar.
Competitors will now travel down the Garden Route to George for the next stop on tour, the Vic Bay Surf Pro QS 1,000 from 22-23 March.
