Showing he's ready to defend his French Open title, Gustavo Kuerten breezed to a straight-set victory yesterday over Guillermo Coria, winning his opening match 6-1, 7-5, 6-4.

The top-seeded Brazilian served 14 aces and broke his opponent five times.

"I had to play a great game from beginning to end," Kuerten said after the win. "I really did everything I was planning to do."

Coria, 19, went down surprisingly easily against the two-time French Open champion. The Argentine player is ranked 13th in the ATP Champions Race and has the third best record on clay this season behind Kuerten and Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero.

But "Guga", as Kuerten is known to fans, is confident his opponent has a great future ahead of him.

"He's already one of the best guys around," said Kuerten. "Next year he will have more success."

Former Roland Garros champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov claimed his 500th career win by beating Italy's Federico Luzzi in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4.

"Even though I won in three sets, it wasn't easy," said Kafelnikov, seeded seventh here. "I was pushed almost to the limit."

Luzzi, a lucky loser, replaced South Korea's Hyung-Taik Lee who withdrew earlier yesterday due to a torn abdominal muscle.

Kafelnikov, who is playing his ninth consecutive French Open, has not won a title on clay since his 1996 win here. But the Russian is optimistic about his chances this year.

"If I can get going, it's going to be difficult to stop me," he said. Sixth-seeded Australian Lleyton Hewitt got off to a shaky start against French wild card Paul-Henri Mathieu before winning the three-and-a-half hour match 7-6(2), 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Hewitt, 20, saved two set points to force the tie-breaker and served only five aces to Mathieu's ten. But the 18-year-old Frenchman, who was the 2000 junior champion at Roland Garros, made 86 unforced errors compared to 55 for Hewitt.

Yugoslavia's Jelena Dokic breezed through her opening match, shutting out Czech player Adriana Gersi 6-0, 6-0.

Opening women's play on centre court, the hard-hitting Dokic took just 40 minutes to advance to the second round.

"It was a good match for me to start. I played quite well," said Dokic, the 15th-seeded player. "I feel like I have a good rhythm."

Dokic, 18, won her first tour title earlier this month at the Italian Open. She beat one of the favorites at Roland Garros, France's Amelie Mauresmo, in the final at Rome.

Fellow teenager Justine Henin had another easy start, beating Japan's Shinobu Asagoe 6-3, 6-2. Henin, from Belgium, is seeded 14th.

Countrywoman Kim Clijsters, seeded 12th, beat Argentine qualifier Maria-Emilia Salerni in straight sets.

Iva Majoli, who won the French in 1997, squandered a first-set lead and lost 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 to Italy's Rita Grande.

Her defeat means 11th-seeded Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario is the only former French Open champion remaining in the women's draw.

Third-seeded Andre Agassi has a tough start today. The 1999 Roland Garros champion will open against Swede Thomas Johansson and could face two-time French Open quarter-finalist Albert Costa of Spain in the second round.

Pete Sampras, chasing his first title at Roland Garros, has an easier opener today against French qualifier Cedric Kauffmann.

In the women's draw, Martina Hingis will be gunning for her first Grand Slam win since taking the Australian Open in 1999, and her first title at Roland Garros.

Meanwhile home favourite and fifth seed Amelie Mauresmo suffered a shock French Open exit when she lost 7-5, 7-5 to unseeded German Jana Kandarr in the first round.

Mauresmo, winner of four tournaments this season and one of the favourites for the title, was booed off the Centre Court by the crowd after squandering a 5-1 lead in the second set to become the first seed knocked out of the tournament.

Mauresmo had won in Paris, Nice, Amelia Island and Berlin this year and reached the Italian Open final a week ago, but she was never in control against the world number 56.

"At 1-5 I thought I've got nothing to lose so why not win this set?" said the 24-year-old Kandarr, who had won their only previous encounter, at the 1998 Italian Open, also in straight sets.

"What helped was I had beaten her before, she made lots of unforced errors and wasn't playing her best tennis." The German had only once been past the first round at Roland Garros but she took the initiative against Mauresmo from the start.

After an exchange of breaks early in the first set Kandarr forced four break points at 5-4 but failed to convert any of them.

Mauresmo, though, couldn't impose her power game and, serving at 5-6, she failed to handle a dipping return from Kandarr at the net to lose the set.

The crowd, hoping for another home success after Mary Pierce's triumph at Roland Garros last year, tried to lift Mauresmo and she responded by securing two successive breaks at the start of the second set on the way to a 5-1 lead.

The 21-year-old suddenly fell apart, though, twice losing serve following backhand errors and Kandarr, serving beautifully, led 6-5.

Mauresmo slumped to 0-40 on serve as she desperately tried to stay in the match and drove yet another backhand long to complete a humiliating defeat.