FRENCH OPEN : Chang and Agassi Restore Order a Day After Top Seeds Hit the Rocks

Michael Chang survived a tough assault on his French Open title today after Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi stopped the purge of the top seeds.

Chang wore down 6-foot-5 Marc Rosset of Switzerland, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, to reach the third round of a tournament still shuddering from the biggest twin-killing in tennis history. Things steadied, however, as all seeds in action won.

A day after No. 1 seed Stefan Edberg and No. 2 seed Boris Becker were beaten, Agassi, the highest-seeded man still playing, overcame a sluggish start to win in straight sets and Graf, the women’s top seed, breezed despite sinus problems.

Fourth-seeded Gabriela Sabatini also won, although she blew two match points in the second set before advancing to the third round.

Chang, who became the youngest men’s winner of the clay-court Grand Slam event last year, had to struggle at first with Rosset, 19, who has a strong all-around game, including a mighty forehand.

After blowing two break points in the ninth game of the opening set, Rosset looked strong in winning the second, relying on pounding ground strokes and booming serves to keep Chang back. But in the third set he appeared to tire, changing tactics to lobs and drop shots, and Chang raced him around the court until he was ready to drop.

The match turned in the first game of the third set. Rosset had double-break point but Chang, seeded 11th, held for a 1-0 lead. After Rosset broke for 4-3, Chang won the last three games of the set, then broke in the fourth and eighth games of the fourth set and served out the match.

Agassi, seeded third, took his pink-and-black tennis outfit and screaming shots to center court, where he beat Canadian qualifier Todd Woodbridge, 7-5, 6-1, 6-3.

The American struggled early, losing a 4-0 first-set lead and holding off five set points. He turned it around just as quickly, allowing Woodbridge just four games the rest of the way, and said that the fate that befell Edberg and Becker helped him dig in.

“I went out today with the feeling, ‘The first two seeds got beat.’ Boris and Stefan getting beat helped me in that respect. You can’t take anything for granted,” Agassi said.

There was none of the surliness that marked Agassi’s first-round victory. In fact, he was cheered wildly by thousands of children at the tournament on a school holiday, and did some showboating at the end, hitting the ball into the stands after match point and jumping over the net.

Graf beat Jennifer Santrock, 6-1, 6-2, and said afterward that she was troubled by sinus and ear problems that may be the result of an allergy to “something in Paris--the clay, the air or something.” She has had similar medical problems at past French Opens.

“I was wondering why I was always getting it here,” Graf said. “The doctor says I will be all right in two, three days.”

Graf said she did “not feel good at all.” But no one would have guessed it by the way she played.

The world’s top women’s player, out to regain the French Open title, breezed through the first set and broke in the fifth game of the second set, wrapping up the victory in just 51 minutes.

Also among the winners on the third day were eighth-seeded Andrei Chesnokov of the Soviet Union, who beat Jean-Philippe Fleurian of France, 7-6, 6-2, 6-0; 13th-seeded Jim Courier of the United States, who beat Milan Sjreber of Czechoslovakia, 7-6, 6-1, 2-6, 6-2; 15th-seeded Guillermo Perez-Roldan, who beat Andrei Cherkasov of the Soviet Union, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3; and 1988 runner-up Henri Leconte, a 6-4, 6-2, 6-1 winner over Bruno Oresar of Yugoslavia.