Lorestas Trumpauskas started his defence of his Veterans Singles title with a comfortable cruise through his qualifying group with two successive 3-0 victories.

Trumpauskas beat both Sean Madden and Martin Smith without conceding a game as his challenge looks strong for yet another year.

His opponent last year, second seed Chris Bartram, also progressed through his group with minimum fuss by completing two straight 3-0 triumphs over John Payne and Jojo Senorin respectively.

One of the most dramatic matches of the veteran’s group stage was Mike O’Driscoll’s win over the seeded Costas Papantoniou. His win secured a quarter-final berth after an epic encounter that went right down to a deciding game.

Despite trailing 2-1, O’Driscoll fought back to win 3-2 (12-10, 8-11, 8-11, 11-7, 11-5).

In the other groups Andrew Horsfield, Chris Clinton, Jimmy Walsh and Jerome Jonah all progressed to make for an interesting quarter-final draw.

Trumpauskas vs Walsh, Jonah vs Charles, Horsfield vs Clinton and O’Driscoll vs Bartram.