Jordy Smith was crowned the Billabong Pro J-Bay 2010 champion at Jeffreys Bay, convincingly defeating Adam Melling from Australia in the final to become the first South African surfer to win an ASP World Tour event since the legendary Shaun Tomson back in the mid-eighties and cementing the 22 year-old Durbanite’s position at the top of the ASP World Title Race Rankings.

Smith stamped his authority on the final from the outset, locking in excellent scores of 8.90 and 9.03 in the first five minutes to leave his opponent in a combination situation and needing to improve on both his scores throughout the 35 minute match-up.

“This is the best day of my life,” a beaming Smith said on the podium. “The crowd on the beach has been supporting me the last few days and hearing the cheers and the vuvuzelas just get me fired up to perform. It feels like they’re pushing me along. I couldn’t have done it without them."

“I knew the swell was dying and I had to take advantage of every wave that came through,” Smith said of the final.

“Adam (Melling) is such a dangerous surfer. He’s been in form all day and I knew that if he got the waves, he would get the scores. I went out there knowing I had to open up strong.”

Smith defeated Nate Yeomans (USA), Owen Wright (AUS) and Adriano De Souza (BRA) before facing his biggest test in the semi-final against Bede Durbidge (AUS).

The experienced Australian seemingly had a berth in the final sewn up with the swell dropping and less than three minutes remaining. However, urged to catch a hip- high wave by his advisers on the dunes, Smith raced down the line and punted a high-risk ’Superman’ aerial that he landed successfully and performed a couple more moves before the ride ended.

In a classic never-say-die effort before the scores for the ride were even in, Smith then paddled into what was to be the last wave of the heat which opened up and allowed him to execute a series of progressive manoeuvres.

Needing 7.41 to advance, his score of 7.93 resulted in rapturous applause and a cacophony of vuvuzelas and cheering from the packed partisan crowd basking in the mid-winter sunshine.

Rated a lowly 41st on the World Title Race rankings heading into Jeffreys Bay, the 2010 ASP Dream Tour rookie who had not won a single heat in the first three events of the year powered his way through five rounds of competition, including defeating compatriot and 2007 Billabong Pro J-Bay winner Taj Burrow in the semi-finals.

His runner-up finish sees the Australian bumped up to ASP World No. 19, well inside the safety zone for the dreaded mid-year reduction in the field from 45 to 32.

Burrow consistently wowed audiences with his performance from Round 1 onwards, collecting the event’s highest heat total of 18.87 out of 20 in yesterday’s Round 4 to win the Nixon WTA award of a US $10 000 custom built Nixon timepiece. Despite today’s semifinal loss at the hands of Melling, Burrow moves up to the ASP World No. 2 ranking heading into Tahiti.

Sean Holmes’ rampaging run through the event was finally ended by Durbidge in the quarterfinals. The 32 year-old wildcard from Cape Town, who eliminated former ASP World Champions Kelly Slater (USA) and Andy Irons (HAW) yesterday, came within half a point of upsetting Durbidge too, but came up short in the small wind affected waves early Sunday morning.