Venus brought down to earth in major crash

It is the day all top seeds fear - the first day, the day not to show feet of clay. Venus Williams, in theory protected by her number two seeding, will wonder how, after four matches going back to 1998 in which Barbara Schett never went further than two sets with her, she finds herself packing her bags.

Williams should wonder whether the French open is going to be as cruel to her as it has been to her compatriots Pete Sampras and John McEnroe, who have never won here.

Well, no Venus nor indeed her sister sixth seed Serena, with whom family fortunes now rest, would ever entertain such a negative thought. The Williams' have always been quite heroically stoic in the face of tennis catastrophes.

"It was not the happiest day of my life. I'll move on," she said afterwards. "Nothing is a setback. It's just a loss. I just had a very rough day. It's too late now to turn the tables."

Quite a contrast to the refreshingly jovial Schett, who sat back in her seat and laughed her way through the post-match inquisition. "She went out and hit errors so. . .," chuckled Schett, "who cares ?...I don't".

That's a fair summation of Williams' 43 unforced errors. A game that was never close to steady repeatedly failed her. Her serving was mediocre and she couldn't keep her normally blazing ground strokes on court.

Part of the problem was that her footwork was sluggish and tactically she refused to change by coming into the net. Another harsh 6-4, 6-4 lesson for the Californian but not the only one yesterday.

Locally, Amelie Mauresmo's sharp exit to the German number 56 Jana Kandarr was more seismic than Williams'. The two would make uncomfortable bed fellows.

Mauresmo, ending her tournament being insightfully articulate and unafraid to speak of her own frailties was a counterpoint to Williams' terror of even mentioning failure.

The fifth seed and player of form coming into the competition and the one who adorned every billboard and grinned from every magazine cover shouldered enormous French expectations. That appeared to beat her.

"I thought that my match was bad. Not a question of tactics, fitness or. . . whatever. It was just a state of mind I was in and I couldn't overcome it," said Mauresmo.

"It is hard to put it into words but there is a feeling of powerlessness in addition to the stress. In fact, you feel as though you are being overwhelmed. I was trying to think of how to loosen up but I couldn't collect my thoughts."

Like Williams, who had two service breaks in the second set to survive, before losing on the fourth match-point, Mauresmo also had a chance to cling on going 5-2 ahead and earning the first set-point before burning.

Jelena Dokic had the honour of launching the women's tournament on the Centre Court. The Yugoslavian number 15 seed, whose record on clay remains on two victories, one from last year and yesterday, indicated that she might just improve on her statistics.

Her father and coach Damir, thankfully taking a back seat these days, was nowhere to be seen as Dokic set about her Czech-born opponent Adriana Gersi waspishly.

She soon made it a French Open debut to remember for the 24-year-old. The 40-minute 6-0, 6-0 match was a first for Gersi since she began on the circuit in 1996. Never before had she perished on court to what they call a double bagel.

Dokic has already won the Italian Open this year and on May 21st reached a career-high singles ranking of 18. In Rome she also treated Amelie Mauresmo, before Roland Garros, to only her third defeat of the year in 34 matches.