Aug 8 (Reuters) - Surfing's 11-times world ⁠champion Kelly Slater showed he still has what it takes to foot ⁠it with the best at the Tahiti Pro on Saturday, scoring the ‌highest heat total of the first day in huge and wild waves.

The 54-year-old, who retired from full-time competition in 2024, clocked up an excellent two-wave total of 16.23 out of 20 to advance to ​the second round and into a mouth-watering match-up ⁠with Brazil's three-times world champion, Gabriel ⁠Medina.

"It's sort of like riding a bike, but you forget how gnarly Teahupo'o is," ⁠said ‌Slater, who has won the event five times in 20 appearances. "We didn't get time for any big waves this week and all of a sudden, ⁠you just jump right back into it."

Teahupo'o, which translates ​roughly as "wall of skulls", ‌hosted the 2024 Paris Olympics surfing event and is considered one of the ⁠world's most ​perfect waves.

Saturday's conditions were far from perfect though, with big unruly swells and strong cross-shore winds taking the already challenging lineup to the next level. South Africa's Matthew McGillivray and Morocco's ⁠Ramzi Boukhiam suffered some punishing beatings in their ​round one heats before Slater took to the water against Hawaii's Eli Hanneman.

In waves nudging triple-overhead, Slater dominated, scoring a near-perfect 9 for a long, deep tube and backing ⁠it up with a 7.23 for another stylish and technical barrel. Hanneman's "highlight" was a terrifying wipeout, leaping from the top of a beast of a wave into oblivion and leaving his board impaled with chunks of coral.

"There's some intense waves out there. ​You've got to be ready," said Slater, who won ⁠the last of his 56 world tour events at Hawaii's Pipeline in 2022.

Local Tahitian Kauli ​Vaast, who won Olympic gold here in 2024, ‌was another to shine in the challenging conditions ​before competition was called off, with more big, powerful waves expected in the coming days.

(Reporting by Lincoln Feast in Sydney; Editing by William Mallard)