Paris ? Order was restored at the French Open on Wednesday:

Andre Agassi, Jennifer Capriati and the Williams sisters overwhelmed their opponents. Gustavo Kuerten outlasted his, then celebrated with adoring fans.

Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt barked at themselves. Marat Safin threw rackets. Anna Kournikova lost.

And the rain finally let up, as the sun allowed for busy courts across Roland Garros after two days of delays.

Even the pair of second-round losses by highly ranked men No. 5 Yevgeny Kafelnikov and No. 9 Thomas Johansson wasn’t all that shocking.

Kafelnikov, eliminated 7-6 (4), 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (4) by Mariano Zabaleta, hasn’t won a tournament on clay since the 1996 French Open and his only victory in seven tour matches before this week came when an opponent quit.

And Johansson’s 7-6 (4), 6-1, 6-3 defeat against Arnaud Clement of France was perhaps simply a case of a one-hit wonder returning to form. Before winning the Australian Open in January, Johansson had reached only two quarterfinals in 24 Grand Slam events; he’s never been past the second round in Paris.

The match with the most twists was 13th-seeded Roddick’s 4-6, 7-6 (14), 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 first-round loss to Wayne Arthurs, a serve-and-volleying Australian who delivered 25 aces.

In second-round action, No. 1 Hewitt, inspired in part by “Rocky IV,” beat Andrei Stoliarov 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-0, 7-5; while No. 7 Kuerten, a three-time French Open champion, came back to stop Davide Sanguinetti 6-7 (0), 6-2, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, then slapped fans’ hands on a victory lap filled with the same sort of mutual admiration as when he drew a heart in the clay last year.

“Everybody loves him,” Sanguinetti said. “He’s the King of the French Open.”

No. 2 Venus Williams lost just one game against Wynne Prakusya of Indonesia and reached the women’s third round, along with No. 4 Kim Clijsters, No. 6 Monica Seles, No. 11 Daniela Hantuchova and No. 13 Elena Dementieva.

Roddick, as usual, was rather animated, particularly when he wasted three set points and saved six during that 30-point tiebreaker.

He argued a call at length early, prodded himself aloud often, and during some changeovers put his head down and shook it from side to side. All in a day’s work against Arthurs, who entered with just five match wins in 2002.

“I didn’t go out of my head, which is what my coach says sometimes,” the 19-year-old Roddick said. “My game took me so far, but now to crack into the upper echelon … a lot of it’s between the ears, and I’m just going to have to bear down.”

Center Court action started in colorful fashion, with No. 3 Serena Williams wearing a bright green dress with yellow trim, sneakers to match, and yellow soccer socks pulled to her knees in what she said was a tribute to Cameroon’s World Cup team. She breezed into the second round with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Martina Sucha of Slovakia.

Defending champion Capriati finished off Marissa Irvin 6-3, 6-4 in a first-round match that started a night earlier, while Kournikova had a bleeding finger bandaged after a second-set fall and was bounced 6-4, 6-3 by Christina Wheeler, who’s ranked 192nd and hadn’t won a tour-level match in 2002.

Kournikova has lost eight of her last 11 outings.