World champion Kelly Slater out for six weeks with broken foot

Surfing great Kelly Slater says the pain of breaking his foot in two places was akin to giving birth or being smashed with a hammer.

The 11-time world champion will miss six weeks of the tour after being injured while warming-up for the J-Bay Open in South Africa on Monday.

The American said he will require surgery after his board smashed into his foot while surfing Jeffreys Bay.

"Kinda like smashing my foot with a big hammer as hard as I can. Sorta feels like I'm giving birth out of my foot right now!" said Slater, who posted the x-ray on his Instagram feed, showing the shattered bones.

You ever folded your entire foot backwards? If you try it sometime, this is what it might look like. I pulled into a barrel this morning and the whitewash bounced the board back into my foot as I hit the closeout, taking all the pressure into the metatarsals. Kinda like smashing my foot with a big hammer as hard as I can. Sorta feels like I'm giving birth out of my foot right now! I'm guessing surgery and 6 week holiday is in order. Not looking forward to 30 hour flight home before surgery though. Ouch! It sucks but so many people deal with such horrible things around this world everyday that a broken foot is pretty minor in the scheme of things. Sometimes a bad thing is a good thing. I'll make the best of my time off. #ThatsGonnaLeaveAMark #INeedElephantTranquilizers

A post shared by Kelly Slater (@kellyslater) on Jul 17, 2017 at 5:53am PDT

Slater's withdrawal from the World Surf League event on Monday has given third-round opponent Filipe Toledo of Brazil a saloon passage through to the next round.

Toledo himself threw down the gauntlet to the field in the second round, nailing a wave to score 9.63 which featured a series of cutbacks and a late tube ride in 0.9-1.5m surf.

He put opponent Kanoa Igarashi away with a perfect 10 that included a long tube ride into a couple of big turns and a pose on the wave exit.

Australia's Julian Wilson was also a second-round winner, defeating compatriot Josh Kerr and moving into the third round along with Owen Wright.

Wright beat fellow Australian Ethan Ewing and was relieved to get through.

"It feels nice to get going and get that round two out of the way," Wright said.

"It was a scrappy heat but it played out to my advantage. I felt like it was going to be a slow one so I knew I needed to get going. When you don't get the best wave of the heat it's tough to come back."

The duo join a plethora of Australians in the third round, with defending champion Mick Fanning to take on Brazilian surfer Caio Ibell.

World No.1 Australian Matt Wilkinson will face Jack Freestone in an all-Australian heat.