Defending champions Issy Les Moulineaux of France got their title defence of to a decent start as they took care of Swiss champions Team Argovia. The Stoeva sisters made their entry into the tournament to blast their way through their women’s doubles while in one of the matches of the day Lucas Corvee came back from a set down to beat Pedro Martins. 

BC Chambly Oise followed suit and completed the only 5-0 whitewash for the top four teams. The French champions wasted no time seeing off TBR of Iceland with Bastian Kersaudy and Eetu Heino chipping in with a pair of wins each to star for the French on day 1. 

Fourth seeds Recreativo Ies La Orden were tested by a vastly improved BC Jonglenster as the Luxembourg champions came away with a point from the five game tie and it could have been more if they had taken their chance in the opening mixed where Spanish pair Ojeda and Martin eventually came through in three games. 

There was no joy for hosts Calvi Networks BC Milano who once again came up against Primorye Vladivostok as the Italians went all in with their team selection. Rosario Maddaloni had his chances against Sergei Sirant in the opening men’s singles but lost 5 points in a row at the end of the deciding set to give first blood to the Russians. 

Yee Yap levelled for the Italians but that was the only success for the Italians as the Russian champions cruised to a 4-1 win and look the odds of favourites to lift the title come Saturday evening. 

Czech champions Deltacar Benatky recorded an easy 5-0 win as they gave Latvian champions Valmiera a rude awakening on their championship debut while Kosice of Slovakia came through the closest match of the day recording a 3-2 win over the second Italian team in the tournament SVV Bozen. 

In what was probably the surprise result of the day in terms of the tie score and not the outcome, Club Sports De Madeira of Portugal beat Bad 79 Anderlecht 5-0 and look favourites to follow Chambly out of group 3 for a quarter final place. 

The writing was on the wall early for the Belgians as their new men’s singles star Julien Carraggi went down in three games to Duarte Nuno Anjo (pictured above). The Portuguese player lost the opening set but settled his nerves to come back and win in three games and from their it went downhill very quickly for the Belgians.

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