champion and his partner Robin Blackburne lost to Norberto Herrero and Stephen Marks in the Coral Beach Invitational.

On Wednesday, Tanner and Gary Holland had been knocked out of the men's doubles by the same opponents.

Yesterday's victory sent Herrero and Marks through to the final of the men's 45 doubles. The pair came back from a 2-5 deficit to defeat Tanner and Blackburne 7-5, 6-0.

"They were missing a lot of shots and we were keeping them off balance by varying our play,'' said Tanner. "But they soon got their game together and stopped making errors.'' That would not have been so bad, had not Tanner and Blackburne also stopped varying their game at the same time.

"Gary and I are now going for the Consolation title,'' quipped Tanner. "We can't leave empty-handed.'' Herrero and Marks will play the top-seeded pair of Earl Leader and Patrick O'Kelly or Dick Mount and Martin Zolnai in today's final at 2.15 p.m.

In other top action yesterday, the second-ranked pair of Mike Curry and Stuart Smith progressed, while third seeds Alec Anderson and Greg Frigerio ousted Vidar Lunoe and Mike Gorton snr. 6-4, 6-3.

In the men's 45 singles, top-ranked Earl Leader defeated Mike Gorton snr. 6-1, 6-3 and Wilf Gonsalves got past veteran Dick Mount 6-1, 6-4.

The top two seeds also reached the final in the men's open event, after Ricky Mallory defeated third seed Michael Curry 6-1, 6-2, while Greg Frigerio beat Chris Harris 6-4, 6-3, to set up what should be another classic battle in the final.

In the day's only upset, unseeded American Mary Giordano beat second-seeded Julie Lunn 6-1, 5-7, 6-1 in the ladies open singles and will now face Tara Lambert in the final. Lambert went through with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Nicola Jones.