The world number two suffered a shock defeat against Argentina’s Mauricio Javier Ibarbure on the opening day of action at the China Administration Sports for Persons with Disabilities and was pushed all the way by Ventura, coming out victorious following a 3-3 draw.

Smith positioned his first ball of the tie-break on the jack as Eduardo struggled to get close, meaning he joins Ibarbure in progressing from Group B into the last-16.

There, he faces a mouthwatering clash with world number one Daniel Perez of The Netherlands, the winner of Group A with two wins out of two.

One athlete who was unable to progress to the knock-out stages in China's capital was Canada’s Marylou Martineau, who suffered a 7-2 defeat at the hands of China’s Lie Yuan Dong in Group G of the BC3 competition.

Martineau can take consolation from the fact that she won her first points as an international athlete having failed to register in her two previous outings.

The BC3 tournament has seen a number of high-profile names fall short at the pool stage with four of the top 10 ranked players failing to make the elimination round.

The most notable is number four seeded Belgian Pieter Cilissen, who finished third in Group D behind Great Britain’s Jamie McGowan and Russia’s Aleksander Legostaev. 

The top seeds in the BC2 and BC4 categories - Brazil’s Santos Maciel de Sousa and Hong Kong’s Yuk Wing Leung - are both safely through with 100 per cent records.

Competition is scheduled to continue tomorrow, with the Championships taking place until Saturday (March 26).