THE Caversham International Tennis Tournament’s top seed Elena Baltacha had a scare in her opening game against fellow Brit Karen Paterson yesterday, losing the first set on a tie break before bouncing back to win the remaining two 6-3, 6-4.

The only seed to fall in the $25,000 tournament at Les Ormes was the No 3, Britain’s Jane O’Donoghue, who lost in three sets to Vedy of France.

The fancied Russian qualifier Schvedova had a straight set win over Sarah Borwell, who was 300 places above her in world rankings, 6-1, 6-2.

The men’s tournament progressed to the quarter-final stages with no seeds falling.

This leaves five Britons, two Frenchmen and one Czechoslovakian in the last eight.

Five of the eight matches went to three sets, an indication of just how competitive the $10,000 tournament is.

Matches start at 10 am each day with action often going on past 7.30 pm – the highest standard of tennis the Island has ever hosted.

The Ladies doubles start this afternoon with an intriguing all-Jersey first-round tie of Laura Cudden Large and Sarah Jones against Francesca Dubras and Rebecca Edwards.

The winners of this intriguing tussle will then play the No 4 seeds tomorrow, Chvojkova from Czechoslovakia and Stanislava Hrozenska from Slovakia.