Her two team-mates Daniel O'Connell and Callum Evans both had to forfeit their opening matches, however, after failing to arrive in time. 

The trio were caught up in delays engulfing British Airways after their initial flight from London Heathrow was cancelled yesterday morning.

They were eventually re-booked from Birmingham Airport and made a journey of more than 100 miles by bus, only for this flight to also be cancelled.

After staying in England overnight, they finally boarded a plane and arrived here this afternoon.

Thomas' opening group stage qualification match against Emme Arias of El Salvador was postponed to ensure she had arrived.

When she did, the world number 394 recovered well to win 4-2.

O'Connell and Evans were less successful, though, as each lost to Egyptian opponents in their second matches.

O'Connell was beaten 4-0 by El-Sayed Lashin while Evans lost by the same margin to Mohamed El-Beiali.

O'Connell did, however, team up with Charlotte Carey - who had already been in Germany - to win their opening mixed doubles encounter 3-1 over Jann Mari Nayre and Rizumu Ono of The Philippines.

Evans and O'Connell then joined forces to beat mixed nation pairing Jan Medina of Venezuela and Alex Naumi of Finland 3-1 in their men's doubles opener.

The opening day of competition featured only non-seeded players.

As expected, it was sparsely attended, but organisers claim that 50,000 tickets have been sold so far and they hope for a sell-out later in the week.

There were few shocks elsewhere in the singles draws.

Belarus' world number 165 Pavel Platonov suffered a scare before defeating 596th ranked Saudi Arabian opponent Abdulaziz Bu Shulaybi 4-2.

In the women's event, world number 194 Orawan Paranang of Thailand was also made to work hard in the top group before beating Catia Martins of Portugal over six games.

Singles qualifying is due to continue tomorrow before opening round doubles action later in the day.

Seeded players will then enter proceedings in individual events on Wednesday (May 31).