Lendl Hits a New Low in First Round : French Open: The three-time champion loses to 22-year-old French qualifier Huet, who gets his first tour victory.

Ivan Lendl, who once ruled the kingdom of red clay from a throne at the baseline, fell hard Tuesday at the French Open, losing to a 22-year-old French qualifier ranked No. 297 in the world.

For Lendl, a three-time French Open champion and twice a runner-up, losing to Stephane Huet was a thoroughly deflating experience. The score was 3-6, 7-5, 6-0, 7-6 (7-2), but there are probably more important numbers for Lendl to consider.

It was the first match Huet has won on the ATP Tour. Lendl has won 1,027. It was Huet’s first match in a Grand Slam event. Lendl has played in 51.

Lendl, at 33 and in his 14th French Open, suffered his first opening-round loss at Roland Garros Stadium since 1978, when he made his debut.

But Lendl also lost in the first round of the last tournament he played, the Italian Open, and now counts three first-round defeats and three second-round defeats in 12 tournaments this year.

Lendl was brief in his comments.

“You can’t just give up after one day,” he said. “There’s no reason why I can’t have more good days than bad.”

Huet, a left-hander who plays a two-handed backhand, watched in stunned disbelief when Lendl floated a slice backhand long on match point to end it.

Huet raised both arms in triumph, then celebrated with his friends in the first row of the stands while Lendl swiftly stowed his rackets in his bag, slung it over a shoulder and strode off the court.

The French Tennis Federation ranks Huet as the 23rd-best player in France, which surprised many who didn’t know the rankings went that low. He twice failed to qualify for the French Open.

Lendl, winner of eight Grand Slam events, has been ranked in the top 10 in the world for 13 years.

The French press was so hazy about Huet’s background, they needed to ask him what club he played for in his post-match interview.

“I was so nervous,” said Huet, who fought off cramps, which he blamed on a jittery stomach.

The defeat was the worst of Lendl’s career. In 1981 at Wimbledon, he lost to Charlie Fancutt, who was ranked 199th.

But that was on unfriendly grass, where Lendl’s fortunes wither annually, not on the brick-red clay of Roland Garros, which has always treated Lendl so royally.

There was one other surprise. It’s pretty clear, for instance, that Brad Gilbert and clay don’t mix. They get along like Lendl and Wimbledon, Murphy Brown and Dan Quayle, the roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote.

The last time Gilbert won a match at the French Open was 1987, so what happened Tuesday was definitely not according to form. He won. It took five sets--3 hours 52 minutes--and it wasn’t pretty.

In fact, it was downright ugly, which not only is something of a Gilbert trademark, but also the name of his forthcoming book, “Winning Ugly.”

Gilbert finished defeating Bryan Shelton, 5-7, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, 10-8, in a match that had been stopped in the fifth set Monday because of darkness. Gilbert and Shelton shared 87 unforced errors, which left Gilbert shaking his head in disbelief.

“It was a chapter out of my book,” he said. “Unequivocally ugly.”

Up until now, the lasting image of Gilbert has been of a junkball-spraying overachiever and the guy who is asked to play Davis Cup only when no one else wants to. After his smashing success Tuesday, is it OK to mention Brad Gilbert and clay in the same sentence?

Uh, not exactly.

“My brain gets a pain just seeing a clay court,” Gilbert said. “I forgot what it was like to win a match here. I just came over here to get in shape for the grass courts.”

Otherwise, it was a pretty nice day for the favorites, a potent group that included Pete Sampras, Goran Ivanisevic, Michael Chang and Michael Stich.

The top-seeded Sampras steamrollered Andrei Cherkasov, who had beaten him in five sets at the Barcelona Olympics, and offered this assessment of his 6-1, 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 decision afterward:

“It was a good match to get over with.”

Many of his peers felt the same, especially Chang, Ivanisevic and Stich, who won in straight sets.

Chang’s 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 victory over French qualifier Frederic Vitoux, ranked No. 395, moved the 1989 champion a step closer to achieving something he hasn’t done since he last won here--the quarterfinals of a clay-court event.

Ivanisevic’s 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Franco Davin illustrated this lesson: How to win despite illness. Ivanisevic threw up on the court in the first set but said he felt a lot better the rest of the way.

And while Stich cast favorable light on his chances with a 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, 6-1 victory over Jaime Yzaga, Ivan Lendl’s prospects were in total eclipse.