Robert Blair and Gabby White, the only GB players contesting the Li-Ning BWF World Superseries finals in Liuzhou, China, lost their opening Group A match today.

The Anglo-Scottish pair went down 21-10 21-12 against Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir in just 23 minutes in a match the Indonesian pair dominated almost from the start.

Blair and White are back in action in tomorrow against the Group A seeds and world champions Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei of China with their final group contest on Friday against Yonex All England champion Xu Chen and Ma Jin.

Xu and Ma lost their opener today, falling 21-18 19-21 21-18 to Zhang and Zhao.

In Group B Joachim Fischer Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen of Denmark defeated Thailand's Sudket Prapakamol and Saralee Thoungthongkam 21-15 21-17. In the other contest Taiwan's Chen Hung Ling and Chen Wen Hsing won a close three-game contest with Shintaro Ikeda and Reiko Shiota of Japan
19-21 21-16 21--17.

Meanwhile at the XI Italian International in Rome, English National champion Nicola Cerfontyne found that Holland's Scottish International champion Judith Meulendijks had too much experience for her as the Dorset player went down in the first round 21-13 21-8.

Four-times National champion Elizabeth Cann also found Spain's Yonex Irish Open runner-up and third seed Carolina Marin too hot to handle.

Marin took a topsy-turvy first game 21-17 after Cann had come back from
10-3 down to lead 15-12 before the Spanish girl then took seven points in a row to lead 19-15.

In the second game Marin opened up a 10-1 lead but there was no revival from Cann this time as her opponent clinched the match 21-6.

World No. 24 pair Mariana Agathangelou and Heather Olver, who were runners-up in Ireland, had a first-round bye before going into action tonight as England's remaining hopes. They faced Steffi Annys and Severine Corvilain and came through smoothly 21-9 21-6 against the Belgian pair.

In the quarter-finals they will face Germany's Johanna Golizszewski and Isabel Hertrich..

In yesterday's qualifying Robert Kettle lost to eighth qualifying seed Indra Chandra of Indonesia 21-8 21-17 while England international Andrew Smith defeated Hungary's Rudolf Dellenbach21-15 21-19 in his opening match but went down to Swiss player Anthony Dumartheray 21-12 13-21 21-14 in his second contest.

In the women's singles Hana Littlecott was promoted into qualifying but lost to Russia's Anastasia Kharlampovich 15-21 21-19 21-14.

To follow both the Superseries finals and the Italian International check out www.tournamentsoftware.com