THE favourites survived a day of drizzle, doubt and cold as the 1996 French Open got underway at the Roland Garros Stadium in Paris yesterday.
All but one of the 12 seeded players on duty came safely through to the second round - the exception being 16th seeded MaliVai Washington of the United States who had to retire with a leg injury while trailing 20 year old qualifier Franco Squillari of Argentina.
Top seeds Pete Sampras and Monica Seles produced impressive wins despite their injury worries and a one and a half hour rain interruption, and third seeded Andre Agassi had a penalty point deducted for an audible obscenity and dropped a set before beating Jacobo Diaz of Spain - the world's 261st ranked player.
Seventh seed Jim Courier, the champion here in 1991 and 1992, dropped a set before putting out Russian Davis Cup player Andrei Olhovskiy - as did Spain's 12th seeded Alberto Costa who was up against Fernando Meligeni of Brazil.
Tenth seeded South African Wayne Ferreira and the sixth seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia looked to be in sharper form, winning their opening matches in straight sets.
Mary Pierce entertained the home fans by unveiling a new black tennis outfit - but very little else. A finalist two years ago, the Canadian born French player grimaced often and struggled badly to beat Austria's Melanie Schnell 7-5, 6-2.
Meanwhile Henri Leconte, 32 and preparing for retirement after the Championships, bade a sad farewell in his last centre court appearance as a singles player. The left handed Frenchman, the world's fifth ranked player a decade ago and a finalist here in 1988, was humiliated 1-6, 1-6, 4-6 by Sweden's Thomas Johansson.
Sampras, who missed a match at the World Team Cup last week after feeling a twinge in his back and who arrived in Paris after losing both of his matches at the Dusseldorf event, temporarily silenced his critics by chalking up a 6-1, 7-5, 7-6 (7/5) victory over Swede Magnus Gustafsson.
He now faces a tough test against twice champion Sergi Bruguera who won the all Spanish duel with Javier Sanchez in straight sets.
Seles, still unable to serve with anything like her normal power, ruthlessly cut down French wild card entry Caroline Dhenin 6-1, 6-1.
Top seeded jointly with Steffi Graf, Seles was forced to withdraw from the semi finals of the Madrid Open last Friday because of renewed pain from her injured shoulder and she admitted after, her first round victory over Dhenin that she felt pain every time she hit the ball.
Referring to her shoulder injury, Seles admitted that she still wasn't able to serve properly.
"I'm serving better than I was in Spain, but it's not the speed of my normal serve - no question about it. I just have to make the best of it."
She also revealed that she had been considering having an operation but her desire to play the major events in an Olympic year had helped her decide to postpone surgery until after the United States Open.
"That was a tough decision for me to make," she said.
"My schedule from here is pretty tough and when it comes to the point that it is hurting you every time you serve, you ask yourself `Why am I doing this?' The pain in your body is telling you not to do it. But the Grand Slams and the Olympics are so important..."
"I'm just happy to be playing here. Something I learned after Hamburg is that its never worth being disappointed."
