Chloe and Sam Magee opened their European Games campaign with an impressive win against Russia in the Mixed Doubles in Minsk.
The pair lost the opening game 16-21 and were down by six points at one stage in game two but rallied together to bring the match to a third game winning 21-19. The Magees then dominated the third game winning 21-15 with a strong showing to take the match win.
The Donegal duo face France on Thursday morning, who enjoyed a comfortable win over Belarus.
In the Men’s Doubles Josh Magee and Paul Reynolds faced tough opposition in Great Britain’s 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medalists Christopher Langridge and Marcus Ellis. Great Britain took the win over two games 21-11, 21-13.
Rachael Darragh concluded the first day of the badminton group stages with a tough loss to Hungary’s Agnes Korosi.
Korosi took the first game 21-11 but a gritty performance from Darragh in the second saw her almost take the match to a third game, drawing level at 18-18, then going ahead 20-19. Korosi rallied though, and eventually edged the win 22-20.
Earlier in the day Nhat Nguyen got Team Ireland off to a great start in Minsk with the 19-year-old dominating his first match in Group F of the Men's Singles.
Nguyen took the first game easily with a score of 21-11 and closed out the second game against Bulgaria's Daniel Nikolov 21-13 to take the match.
Next up for Nguyen in the group stages is 2015 European Games champion, Pablo Adian of Spain.
In boxing Grainne Walsh battled to victory in her welterweight bout with Great Britain's Rosie Eccles.
An extremely physical battle saw little separating Walsh and Eccles in the opening round, as they matched up extremely well.
Walsh took the edge in the second round, landing some key blows on the experienced Great Britain boxer and while an equally tough third round followed, Walsh again showed some great initiative to score a 4-1 win.
Twelve-time national champion and 2019 World Cup gold medal winner, Michaela Walsh also progressed from a tough bout as she overcame old foe Lacramioara Perijoc of Romania.
The pair have faced off against each other several times in the last number of months, most recently in the semi-finals of the Women's World Cup in Germany, with Walsh winning all clashes.
She emerged triumphant again as a strong and assured showing saw her win out on a 4-1 split decision in the end.
Earlier on in the day, Kurt Walker opened proceedings in style for Ireland, winning out his men's bantamweight fight with Armenia’s Zhirayr Sargsyan on a 4-1 split decision to secure a quarter-final berth.
Afterwards Walker reflected: "He was very, very good, better than I expected. He was very fit. This was his second fight and he was probably more warmed up, I felt a bit rusty in there, but it will stand me well for the quarter-final bout."
In the evening session Kieran Molloy suffered defeat in his welterweight bout against Yauheni Dauhaliavets of Belarus.
It was a tough day in the ring for Dean Gardiner however, as he saw his European Games campaign come to an end when he lost his opening bout in the men's Super Heavyweight to Georgia’s Mikheil Bakhtidze on a tough 4-1 split decision.
The Tipperary boxer took the opening round of a hard-hitting contest, but the Georgian had the edge on the cards in rounds two and three to win out.
In shooting, Aoife Gormally and Derek Burnett finished an impressive sixth in the Trap Mixed Team.
The Irish pairing regrouped after disappointing individual rounds to finish strong with 45-44-44, coming within 2 points of contesting for medals in the final.
"It's a great achievement, I feel very positive after," Gormally said after their strong finish. "We had a bad individual event, I finished strong yesterday evening, I was hopeful today, we did very well, I’m proud of us."
