Gilliver was one of three British wheelchair fencers in action in the first of five days of competition at the Paralympics.

Dimitri Coutya narrowly lost his quarter-final contest 15-13 to Poland’s Adrian Castro in the men’s sabre B and got to round three of the repechage – which could have provided him with an opportunity to win a bronze medal – before losing 15-13 to Dmytro Serozhenko of Ukraine.

Coutya, who will return to action in the men’s foil B on Wednesday, told BBC Sport: “Even though there were some very close calls today, I lost fair and square to people that are better than me.

“In all honesty, given sabre isn’t my favoured weapon out of the three that I’m competing in this week, I’m really happy with the control and consistency of performance I’ve shown.”

Gemma Collis was beaten in the last 16 of the women’s sabre A and, like Coutya, reached round three of the repechage before losing 15-10 to Brianna Vide of France.

“Today was such a mixed one,” she said.

“The first round didn’t go exactly how I would have liked it to go. I went straight into the repechage. But I think there was always a possibility of that because I had such an incredibly tough draw in the last 16.

“But I was really proud of the way I picked myself up for the next fight in the repechage. That was a really convincing performance and then another good performance against a top fencer. I’m just a little bit gutted with the way it ended.”

Collis will return to action on Friday for the epee A event.