The match featured 14-year-old Maddie Thompson, the youngest player for two decades to compete for GB, who had a solid game and in summary Helen Freeman, competing in her fourth BT Paralympic World Cup, said, "It was a great match although the result was disappointing, however it's a great experience to take forward to the future matches."

Later that day the GB women again came close to victory, this time against China, but narrowly missed out with a score of 46-48.

The GB men's team came into the BT Paralympic World Cup as Paralympic bronze medallists, having famously beaten USA in their final match in Beijing, but the Americans were too strong today and a disappointed British team finished 41 points to USA's 63 and will hope to come back stronger on day two.

Head coach Murray Treseder commented, "This was not the match we hoped to open our BT Paralympic World Cup with, but the guys on the team will gain a lot from this experience. We are looking ahead with London 2012 a long way to go but we will continue to prepare."

Paralympic men's champions Australia had a solid first day to beat Germany 62-51, whilst the Netherlands women's team also started with a strong result against China, finishing 58-34.

The BT Paralympic World Cup also got off to a speedy start at the Manchester Velodrome today at the track cycling competition, with qualifying rounds for both the men’s 4km and 3km individual pursuit events. High hopes rested with British Paralympians, Darren Kenny, Rik Waddon and Simon Richardson in the 3km and whilst Kenny and Waddon progressed to tomorrow's finals, Richardson missed out.

World Champion Darren Kenny will contest the gold tomorrow and Waddon the bronze and Kenny said, “I’m pretty pleased with the time but it is qualifying so I wanted to do enough to be in with a chance for gold, now have to see how we do tomorrow.

“I’ve competed here at the BT Paralympic World Cup every year since it began, it’s a good stepping stone event, I like to set out the year and plan. It’s great to have this type of international competition at home and it’s at a good time in the year so we can go from coming out of the winter training and have a main target for the first half of the year."

Elsewhere, Beijing 4km gold medallist, Czech Republican Jiri Jezek took to the track in the penultimate heat and secured his place in the gold, silver-medal ride off with a time of 4:47.637.

The BT Paralympic World Cup is the first major multi-sport elite disability event to be staged in the UK ahead of London 2012 and major international stars and a strong British contingent are expected. The competition is staged in Manchester from 20-25 May, with over 400 competitors from over 31 countries scheduled to compete.

Athletes compete in four sports at world class competition venues in Manchester: wheelchair basketball and athletics hosted at the Manchester Regional Arena, swimming at the Manchester Aquatics Centre and track cycling at the Manchester Velodrome.

Tickets for the BT Paralympic World Cup are now still sale and can be purchased via the event website: www.btparalympicworldcup.com or the ParalympicsGB website: www.paralympics.org.uk or by calling 0844 847 1622. Tickets cost £3 per session.

BT is the title sponsor of the Paralympic World Cup; the sponsorship runs up to and includes the 2012 BT Paralympic World Cup. The official 2009 stakeholders of the BT Paralympic World Cup are the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), Manchester City Council and UK Sport.

The BT Paralympic World Cup is held in association with ParalympicsGB and sanctioned by the IPC, the UCI and IWBF. The BBC, the official televised partner to the event, will broadcast live from the Manchester Aquatics Centre on Monday 25 May 2009 on BBC Television.