Nikita Robb from East London (pictured) won the Ballito Women’s Pro presented by Billabong at Willard Beach in KwaDukuza today, 28 June, producing an assured performance in the tricky one metre waves to outshine South Africa’s top women surfers.
A World Surf League (WSL) Qualifying Series (QS) 1,000 event, the Ballito Women’s Pro is the first internationally rated event to be run in South Africa since 2009. The event offered total prize-money of R30 000 and coveted points on the QS rankings.
Robb, who competed at the highest levels of the sport, including a spending a year on the elite Championship Tour (CT) in 2010, defeated Fay Zoetmulder (Port Elizabeth), local junior Teal Hogg (Umhlanga) and veteran Heather Clark (Port Shepstone) in the Final to claim the R10 000 winner’s paycheque and 1 000 points.
“It’s just such an honour to have won this event,” Robb said. “I came up to Ballito a couple of days early and just surfed every day. It’s been a long time since I surfed an event and I really had to get my head into it.”
“I started in Round One and had to surf four heats, so I worked hard for it. It wasn’t just a matter of one day and I’m getting 10 Grand, it was a matter of me putting the effort in the water, spending endless hours being the only girl out there and really getting to know the wave. I put the effort in and that’s what really counts.”
Photo credit: Kelly Cestari
St Francis Chronicle 