PARIS -- It was hard to believe you were at one of the world's leading tennis tournaments, the French Open.

"What's the score?" passers-by would ask the taller fans who flocked around the shopping stalls equipped with televisions in the alleys of Roland Garros.

"Nil-nil," was the nervous answer.

Hardly a tennis scoreline.

Walls of television monitors showing the action on the 18 courts at Roland Garros were left unattended.

World No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt's tense third-round match against Sjeng Schalken on center court was watched only by a hundred die-hard Australian tennis fans.

The Bjorn Borg lookalikes who usually stroll around Roland Garros during the French Open have been replaced by versions of soccer players like Zinedine Zidane or Thierry Henry.

Twenty minutes after the start of France's World Cup opener against Senegal on Friday -- as Gustavo Kuerten and Fernando Gonzalez were battling it out on court Suzanne Lenglen -- chants of "Allez les Bleus" erupted in the French stronghold of tennis.

Fearing unfair competition from soccer's grandest showpiece occasion, French Open organizers decided not to show the opening game of the 2002 World Cup finals in South Korea.

But the score of the match in Seoul was added to the boards displaying the tennis scorelines outside courts.

A strange silence fell over the Parisian arena when Senegal's Pape Bouba Diop scored the World Cup's first goal against the defending champions.

When the final whistle blew to confirm France's embarrassing 1-0 defeat, the tennis courts once more began to fill up.

On center court, fans tried to earn some consolation by cheering France's Nathalie Dechy against Argentine Paola Suarez. But the magic had gone.

It was hard even to find a working journalist in the media center. Most were seated in the press bar, where two television sets were showing soccer.

"What's Hewitt's score?" asked a naive American reporter on entering the bar.

The question was met by boos from his European colleagues.

Outside Roland Garros stadium, touts were struggling to find a taker for cheap tickets.

One of them was doing even less business than his colleagues. He was wrapped in a yellow, red and green Senegalese flag.