The Dutchwoman came into the Championships as hot favourite to add European title number three to her collection following her wins in Genoa in 2009 and two years ago in Split.

Barnéoud had other ideas as she inflicted an opening group phase defeat on the 2010 world champion by 6-11, 11-9, 11-4, 11-4, in the women's singles class seven category.

The Frenchwoman was not the only player to cause an opening round upset as Italy's Michaela Brunelli prevailed against London 2012 bronze medallist and Genoa 2009 champion Alena Kanova of Slovakia on a scoreline of 11-9, 11-7, 9-11, 11-2 in the women's singles class three.

In another shock in the women's singles, class five second seed Ingela Lunback of Sweden suffered a surprise defeat to Serbia's Zorica Popadic.

However, the big names in the other women's singles classes all recorded comfortable wins, including Russia's Nadezda Pushpasheva and Raisa Chebanika, Serbian Borislava Peric-Rankovic and Thu Kamkasomphu of France.

London 2012 bronze medal winner Alena Kanova also went down to a surprising defeat in Lignano





























British player Sue Gilroy had an impressive day as she won both her class four matches to reach the quarter-finals, while teammate and Paralympic bronze medallist Jane Campbell had a hard-fought win over Italian Federica Cudia.

"I haven't played particularly well but I've done what I needed to do," said former Commonwealth champion Gilroy.

"I know I can do a lot better but it doesn't matter because winning is the important bit and hopefully I'll improve through the next couple of days."

In the men's singles competition, upsets were at a premium as most of the big guns recorded wins on the day, including British star and London 2012 silver medallist Will Bayley.

The defending men's singles class seven European champion looked in good form as he overcame the challenge of Italian Davide Scazzieri 3-0.

"It was good to get that out of the way," said the 25-year-old.

"The first match is always difficult and he obviously wants to do well in front of his home crowd so it's nice to get a win under my belt.

"I played pretty good, not my best, but for the first match I was quite happy with that."

Bayley's class seven teammate Paul Karabardak also started his campaign with a 3-0 win over Patrick Otte of Denmark, while Aaron McKibbin had a much closer battle in his first class eight category match, eventually coming out on the right side of a five-setter with Slovakian Josef Krsiak before an impressive display saw him overcome Belgium's world number 10 Marc Ledoux in his second match.

Great Britain's Aaron McKibbin came through his opening two matches in the men's class eight category undefeated























"After the scare in the first match I felt a bit more pumped up and a bit more focused," said the 21-year-old from London.

"So I think it helped in some ways.

"I think I played solidly all the way though the match against Ledoux - I stuck to my tactics really well and didn't get nervous when it was getting tight."

There were also notable wins for Welsh duo Rob Davies and Paul Davies.

London 2012 champions Patryk Chojnowski of Poland and Hungary's Peter Palos recorded impressive wins as did Germany's Holger Nikelis and Thomas Schmidberger, Maxime Thomas of France and Norway's Tommy Urhaug.

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