Cavaday's shock victory lifts the gloom for Britain

Naomi Cavaday was left to fly the flag for Britain after a day of mixed home fortunes in the first round of the DFS Classic in Birmingham yesterday.

While past and present British No 1s Elena Baltacha and Anne Keothavong suffered three-set defeats, 18-year-old Cavaday powered her way past Russia's Vasilisa Bardina, ranked 182 places above her. The British No 4 dominated, cruising to a 6-2, 6-1 victory in 57 minutes to set up a second-round meeting today with the Italian sixth seed Marion Bartoli.

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Cavaday, who reached the fourth round of the Wimbledon juniors last year, is clearly benefiting from her time spent at the Nick Bollettieri academy in Florida.

"I have had great opportunities at Bollettieri's," she said. "Practising with players like [Nicole] Vaidisova and [Tatiana] Golovin and knowing it's not that scary, I think makes it easier when you come somewhere like this and you have to play someone who is 60 in the world."

Both Baltacha and Keothavong had chances to reach the last 32. The British No 1 Keothavong, who has won one of seven matches in Birmingham, took the first set against 16-year-old Tamira Paszek, of Austria, but never fully recovered from trailing 3-0 at the start of the second. She fought back to level at 4-4 in the deciding set but dropped her serve and her teenage opponent served out for a 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 win.

Baltacha put up a valiant effort before losing for the second time in three years to the California-based Venezuelan Milagros Sequera. Baltacha, who has sunk to 437th in the rankings after missing most of last season through back surgery, showed a fighting spirit against the world No 54 before going down 6-4, 1-6, 7-5 on centre court.

* Russia's Anastasia Myskina, the former French Open champion, has pulled out of Wimbledon with a foot injury. Myskina is joined by China's Jie Zheng (ankle) and Italian Romina Sarina Oprandi (arm). They have been replaced by Catalina Castano (Colombia), Melinda Czink (Hungary) and Anna Smashnova (Israel).