SPORTSTICKER FRENCH OPEN TENNIS REPORT PARIS (Ticker) -- Defending champion Carlos Moya and top seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov both struggled in their first-round matches today, but women's top seed Martina Hingis and sisters Venus and Serena Williams rolled on opening day at the $10.5 million French Open Tennis Championships. Moya, the fourth seed, gutted out a 3-6, 1-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 first-round win over Austria's Markus Hipfl. Kafelnikov began his bid for his second straight Grand Slam title by getting past American Michael Chang, 6-2, 5-7, 6-0, 7-6 (10-8), in a battle of former French Open winners. Also, No. 13 Andre Agassi of the United States, who has battled a shoulder injury over the past month, fought off Argentina's Franco Squillari, 3-6, 7-5, 7-5, 6-3, for his first win at Roland Garros since 1996. Hingis, of Switzerland, started her quest for her first title at Roland Garros in impressive fashion as she disposed of Dutchwoman Amanda Hopmans, 6-1, 6-4. Hingis' win sets up a rematch of this year's Australian Open final with Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo, who defeated American Tara Snyder, 6-3, 6-3. Hingis defeated Mauresmo, 6-2, 6-3, to win her third straight Australian Open title in January. But Mauresmo defeated Hingis in three sets one month later in Paris at the Open Gaz de France on the hard surface. The two have been at odds after Hingis was quoted in a magazine as being critical of Mauresmo's openly lesbian lifestyle. "I think it's still in my mind because you're (media) talking about it," said Mauresmo when asked about Hingis' comments. "It's going to be part of my motivation also, but not much more than that. I will be very pumped up and I think I can win." Fifth-seeded Venus Williams, expected to be Hingis' biggest obstacle to the title, defeated Frenchwoman Alexandra Fusai, 6-1, 6-1 in only 49 minutes. Serena Williams, the 10th seed, dumped Laurence Courtois of Belgium, 6-4, 6-0. Defending champion Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario of Spain, the seventh seed, also stormed into the second round with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Croatian teenager Mirjana Lucic. Moya found himself down two sets against the world's 85th-ranked player after only an hour, but the 21-year-old Hipfl's inexperience showed as the Spaniard slowly got back into the match and eventually forced the deciding fifth set. Moya broke Hipfl in the fifth game of the final set and closed out the match in just under three hours. "I'm satisfied because I won. I'm not happy about my game," Moya said. "It's obvious that I didn't play very well. It was tough at the beginning. I was a bit nervous. It took time to get into the match." The match featured six breaks of serve by each player and a total of 137 unforced errors, including 75 by Hipfl. Moya has not won a tournament since capturing his first Grand Slam title here last year. He held the No. 1 ranking for two weeks in March, but will not be able to reclaim the top spot after this event since he has too many ranking points to defend. After Kafelnikov breezed through the opening set, Chang rallied in the second to even the match. However the Russian took charge by storming through the third set in 23 minutes. Chang hung on in the fourth set, fighting off four match points before Kafelnikov, the 1996 champion, closed out the 1989 French Open champion on a forehand winner. Kafelnikov won his second career Grand Slam title at the Australian Open. After his early-season success, he suffered a seven-match losing streak, including four straight on clay, but claimed the No. 1 ranking for the first time on May 3. There are five players in contention for the top spot -- Pete Sampras, Patrick Rafter, Richard Krajicek, Tim Henman and Gustavo Kuerten -- depending on their showing at Roland Garros. Chang, who 10 years ago became the youngest French Open champion at age 17, suffered his earliest exit from Roland Garros in 11 appearances and lost in the first round of a Grand Slam for the first time since Wimbledon in 1997. Hingis needed exactly one hour to eliminate the 88th-ranked Hopmans. She broke her opponent five times and was successful on 67 percent of her first serves. A winner of four tournaments this season, including two claycourt titles, the 18-year-old Hingis lost to Iva Majoli in the 1997 French Open final and fell to Monica Seles in last year's semifinals. Agassi was successful on 70 percent of his first serves and broke Squillari's serve six times in improving to 32-10 lifetime at Roland Garros. "I'm feeling much better than I have in the past three years, that's for sure," Agassi said. "That's because I physically feel a lot stronger than I've been in a awhile. My eagerness is there for the necessary grinding that's required to tough out some of these matches. This was a great first step. I have high expectations for myself." A runner-up in 1990, Agassi missed the 1996 French Open due to injury and lost in the first round last year. Croatia's Goran Ivanisevic became the first men's seed to get knocked out as Moroccan Hicham Arazi bounced the slumping 15th seed, 6-4, 1-6, 6-3, 6-1. In other seeded play, Krajicek the fifth seed from the Netherlands, powered past American Jan-Michael Gambill, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 6-2; Henman, the seventh seed from Britain, won his first match in four French Open appearances by outlasting Karim Alami of Morocco, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4; ninth seed Marcelo Rios of Chile, fresh off winning his second claycourt title of the year last week in St. Polten, Austria, downed German qualifier Axel Pretzsch, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 and No. 12 Greg Rusedski of Britain got past Germany's David Prinosil, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, for his first win at Roland Garros since 1996. Also, former two-time champion Jim Courier of the United States dispatched Spain's Alex Calatrava, 6-1, 6-3, 7-5, but Austria's Thomas Muster, the 1995 champion, was eliminated by Australian Open semifinalist Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, 7-6 (7-4). For the women, reigning Wimbledon champion Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic, the fourth seed, beat Ludmila Cervanova of Slovakia, 6-2, 7-6 (7-4), avenging a shocking first-round loss to the teenager last month in Budapest, Hungary. Also, No. 12 Sandrine Testud of France rallied past Sandra Nacuk of Yugoslavia, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, and No. 15 Barbara Schett of Austria crushed Henrieta Nagyova of Slovakia, 6-1, 6-2. No. 13 Dominique Van Roost of Belgium, who entered this tournament as a question mark with a strained hip flexor, became the first women's seed to get bounced from the tournament as Austria's Barbara Schwartz stormed to a 6-1, 6-0 victory.  