England No 2 Blatacha crashed out at the first hurdle, going down 7-5, 6-3, in the shock of the day.
Fourth seed Anne Keothavong, the England No 1, cruised past another British girl, Naomi Cavaday, 6-4, 6-1 to set up today’s meeting with the Swiss player Gaelle Widmer.
Two other seeds, Florence Haring (No 7) and Matea Mezak (No 6), were also knocked out.
In the men’s $50,000 satellite tournament the top four seeds – Swede Jacob Adaktusson and three Britons, Matt Smith (No 2), Alan Mackin (No 3) and Martin Lee (No 4) – moved into today’s quarter-finals where they are joined by the unseeded Ian Flanagan (GB) who beat No 5 British seed David Sherwood, Philipp Marx (Germany) who knocked out Sergei Bubka – son of the Olympic champion pole-vaulter of the same name, – German Eric Scherer and Frenchman Laurent Recoudrec.
The main draw of the men’s doubles also started yesterday with Flanagan and Smith winning their match easily, 6-2, 6-3.
Today’s matches began at 10 o’clock this morning, with Baltacha’s conqueror South facing Croatian Ana Vrljic.
Spectators most welcome.
