Coral Beach Invitational tournament yesterday as she took the entire morning to defeat Molly Downer 6-7, 6-4, 6-2 in women's 45 play.

The contest was the first on court at 8.30 and when the final point was won lunch was being served! "It was certainly one of the longest matches I've ever played,'' said Laffont, who moved to Bermuda some 10 months ago and is fast making a name for herself on the tennis court.

Men's top seed Michael Way defeated Bruce Morehead 6-0, 6-0, and he then teamed up with brother Brian to oust Coleridge Place and Frank Gretz 6-0, 6-0, while men's second seed Greg Frigerio defeated Tim Petty 6-0, 6-0.

Meanwhile, the Laffont-Downer match wasn't the only one that took the entire morning as unseeded veteran Vernal Davis upset fourth seed Joe Heffernan 5-7, 6-3, 6-0 in a three-hour marathon reminiscent of their semi-final contest 10 years ago. At that time Davis was the top seed and Hefferman unranked.

Before he had a chance to take a break, Davis was back on court for two more hours with Bill Soloman to defeat Guy Spuring and Michael Moore 7-6, 7-5.

Women's top seed Gill Butterfield beat Pat Pamplin 6-1, 6-0, Earl Leader, top seed in the men's 45s defeated Mike Gorton 6-1, 6-2 while Graham Boyle and Mike Curry took two hours to down Stuart Smith and David Hyland 7-5, 0-6, 6-1.