2007 O'Neill SA Open of Surfing

Surfing South Africa
Nahoon Reef East London South Africa
27 - 29 April 2007

Big money on offer in 2007 O' Neill SA Open of Surfing at Nahoon Reef East London

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 19 April, 2007 : - - Nahoon Reef in East London is famous for its powerful, challenging surf and contestants in the 2007 O'Neill SA Open of Surfing presented by Surfing South Africa, which gets under way on Thursday April 27 and ends on Sunday April 29, will be holding thumbs that the " Reef" will produce the type of conditions that will match the huge prizepurse of R55, 000 which is on offer for this Pro Surf Tour event.

The Men's division of the O'Neill SA Open has a 4A rating and is the biggest PST contest on the 2007 domestic calendar. Not only do the top eight surfers in this division get to share R40, 000 in prizemoney but all the surfers who compete will bag a whole lot of PST rating points which will count in their favour in the race for 2007 Pro Surf Tour honours.The Pro Junior Boys division is a 3A rated contest with R10, 000 in prizemoney on offer and the Women will compete in a 2A rated event for R5,000.

Over 60 surfers will contest the three divisions at this year's Open and while local knowledge may assist Nahoon Reef specialists such as Devyn Mattheys, Brett Corby, Wayne Monk, Tyrell, Orrin and Tristan Johnson, Tyde Gatke, Nikita Robb, Alice Mc Gregor and Telana Flanagan they will be coming up against some of the country's best and will need more than local knowledge to make their mark.

The Men's division has attracted a star studded entry which is headed up by 2006 Men's champion, Matthew Kruger of Durban and includes 2005 winner Dylan Stone and 2006 SA Team captain Granville West who are both from Port Elizabeth, Frankie Oberholzer of Warner Beach, Josh Redman of Durban, Brandon Roberts of Sun Valley, current SA Champion Quintin Jones of Kirstenhof and former SA Champion Shane Thorne of the Bluff.

2006 Women's Division winner Stacey Guy of Melkbosstrand's major rivals are Heather Clark of Port Shepstone, Tasha Mentasti of Durban, Sarah Maritz of Warner Beach, Nikita Robb of East London and Tara Hossack of Newlands who are part of a 16 strong Women's field while this year a new Pro Junior champion will be decided as Jordy Smith, who won in fine style last year, will be competing in a 5 star O'Neill World Qualifying Series event in Scotland over the same weekend.

The 2007 Pro Junior champion looks set to come from the likes of Rudy Palmboom Jnr of the Bluff, Josh Redman of Durban, local boy Tyde Gatke, O'Neill team riders Kelvin Zehmke of Scottburgh or Nick Molde of Muizenberg but this Division remains wide open and any one of the 20 or so competitors could take the honours.