The “Candidates” stage of the SA Closed tournament was played on September 29. There were eight players so the tournament was a three-round Swiss tournament. The top five players move on to the “Contenders” stage of the tournament.
The results were as follows:
| Player | Points | SOS* | SOSOS** | |
| 1 | Rocco Vivier | 3 | 5 | 16 |
| 2 | Ben Bredenkamp | 2 | 5 | 13 |
| 3 | David Gale | 2 | 5 | 12 |
| 4 | Paul Edwards | 2 | 4 | 15 |
| 5 | Christiaan Maasdorp | 1 | 6 | 12 |
| 6 | David Lubinsky | 1 | 4 | 13 |
| 7 | Fred Strauss | 1 | 3 | 15 |
| 8 | Adru van Niekerk | 0 | 4 | 12 |
*SOS is “sum of opponent scores”. *SOSOS is “sum of sum of opponent scores”.