PARIS, May 22 (AFP) - The French Open, which starts on the slow red clay of Roland Garros on Monday, is a tournament that poses a number of intriguing questions. Can a pure serve-and-volleyer finally win the men's title in Paris? Is Pete Sampras capable of ending his Roland Garros drought? Can one of the teen aces currently lighting up women's tennis break through for a first Grand Slam title? Is there an unseeded player capable of following in the footsteps of 1997 champion Gustavo Kuerten? All will be revealed after two weeks at what is regarded as the toughest Grand Slam of all to win. Attacking players have always struggled on the clay and that puts second-seeded Sampras, US Open champion Pat Rafter and fifth seed Richard Kraijicek at a huge disadvantage as they try to upset the claycourt form book. Sampras has won virtually every honour the game offers. He's been number one for a record six years and he's won 11 Grand Slam titles. The problem is, he has never won a French Open title. "It's my biggest challenge of my career at this stage," he admits. "I've won everything except for the French and it would be the ultimate in my career to win that." Rafter, the third seed and two-time US Open champion, believes he may be on the way to conquering clay. He made the final of the Italian Open earlier in the month - losing to Kuerten in the final - and enjoyed success at the World Team Cup in Dusseldorf, where he beat Sampras in straight sets on Friday. He will be aiming to end a 30-year drought for Australian men. Not since Rod Laver triumphed by beating compatriot Ken Rosewall in 1969 has an Australian won the men's singles title here. "Whatever surface I play on, I feel that if I'm hitting the ball well, moving well and playing well that I can win matches," Rafter said. Krajicek, a former Wimbledon champion, has been a semi-finalist at Roland Garros in 1993 and a quarter-finalist in 1996, but it is hard to see him making a breakthrough against a field that includes claycourt specialists like top-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov, defending champion Carlos Moya, last year's beaten finalist Alex Corretja, Italian Open champ Kuerten and ninth-seeded Chilean Marcelo Rios - the perennial under-achiever. Russian world number one Kafelnikov, the 1996 champion, faces a first-round meeting with 1989 champion Michael Chang of the United States, while Sampras opens against Juan Antonio Marin of Costa Rica, Rafter faces Swiss teen sensation Roger Federer and Moya opens his title defence against Austrian Markus Hipfl. Australian Open champion Kafelnikov's recent form has been decidedly spotty, but he consistently proclaims: "It's the Grand Slams that count", while Moya and Kuerten have also been plagued by inconsistency. Nonetheless, Moya sees his fellow Spaniards, along with Kuerten and Rios, as his main rivals. "If the title went elsewhere I'd be pretty surprised," he said. Only three unseeded men have ever won the title here, but players such as Spaniards Francisco Clavet and Albert Costa and South Americans Mariano Zabaleta of Argentina and Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador loom as dangerous floaters, as does fast-rising Australian Lleyton Hewitt. In the women's singles, top seeds Martina Hingis of Switzerland was handed a potentially threatening draw when the pairings were made on Friday. Hingis could face powerful French player Amelie Mauresmo - the player she beat at the Australian Open final earlier this year - in the second round. Mauresmo has already beaten Hingis this year - in the Paris Indoors. Hingis, aiming for her first French Open title, will face Amanda Hopmans of the Netherlands in her first-round match in the second Grand Slam tournament of the year, while unseeded Mauresmo opens against unseeded American Tara Snyder. Hingis is drawn in the same quarter as rising American star Venus Williams, winner of the German and Italian Open titles on clay. The pair would meet in the quarter-finals if both make it that far. Mauresmo, the Williams sisters Venus and Serena and Russian starlet Anna Kournikova are all part of the new wave in women's tennis aiming to end the domination of the generation of Steffi Graf, Monica Seles and defending champion Arantxa Sanchez-Viacrio, who have won the title 11 times between them. Five-time champion Graf of Germany, seeded sixth, opens against Maggie Maleeva of Bulgaria, while second-seeded Lindsay Davenport of the United States is in a relatively easy-looking quarter and opens up against fellow American Jane Chi. Serena Williams, the younger sister of Venus and the 10th seed here, could face a fourth-round meeting with Sanchez-Vicario if she wins her opening three matches. Seles, seeded third, faces a first-round match against China's Fang Li while fourth-seeded Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic opens against Ludmila Cervanova of Slovakia. The top half of the women's draw is clearly the stronger, with Hingis, Mauresmo, the Williams sisters, Sanchez-Vicario and Novotna all in the same bracket. A surprise winner is most unlikely. Only three times in the history of the tournament has the women's singles champion come from a player outside the top six seeds. The tournament continues through June 6.  