Pieter Coetzé dominated his rivals to win the 100m backstroke at the final third leg of the short-course World Cup series in Astana, Kazakhstan on Thursday evening.

The South African superstar, who won this event at the previous two galas, clocked 48.40sec to finish 0.89 ahead of runner-up Pavel Samusenko of Russia.

Coetzé was 0.19 off the personal best he set a week ago, but it was still the fourth-fastest swim of all time, behind Hungarian Hubert Kos (48.16 world record), himself and American Coleman Stewart (48.33).

Coetzé, who broke the 50m backstroke world record last week, was philosophical about his performance.

“Obviously getting so close to the world record [last week], that was on my mind, but that will come when it comes,” said the 22-year-old.

The victory lifted Coetzé’s tally to 134.1 points, closing the gap on men’s series leader Egor Kornev of Russia on 134.4 with two days of competition to come.

Michael Houlie had to settle for fourth in the men’s 50m breaststroke, touching in a disappointing 26.03, well off the 25.67 personal best he set a week earlier.

Rebecca Meder ended sixth in the women’s 400m individual medley, touching in 4min 36.80sec, narrowly missing her personal best.

A little later she ended eighth in the 100m breaststroke in 1:05.93.