There have been some interesting stories at the French Open this year, but one that certainly deserves to be told is that of Rossana de los Rios, the qualifier from Paraguay who, as I write these lines, is impressively into the third round.

If the name Rossana de los Rios sounds vaguely familiar, it should. Back in 1992, the now 24-year-old from Paraguay was then the world's top junior, notably winning the girls' French Open tournament and reaching the Wimbledon junior final. Her pro career got off to a fine start, as in 1993 she cracked the top 100 in her first full year on the circuit.

However, she was torn between her devotion to tennis and her desire to be with her new husband. The love of her life was Gustavo Neffa, a Parguayan international football star, and the travel demands of their respective sports meant that they saw each other far too rarely. De los Rios made the difficult decision of giving up her sport to be with her man, and three years ago gave birth to a daughter.

Last year the couple decided to switch roles, and de los Rios went back onto the tour, traveling with her husband and daughter. Her talent did not take long to assert itself. Working the Futures and Challenger events with great success, she was in the top 300 by the end of 1999, and her current 151 ranking allowed her to enter qualifying at the Roland Garros.

Rossana de los Rios has been superb in Paris, steaming through three qualifying matches and two more in the main draw without dropping a set. Her splendid run may surely end as soon as today, as she next plays her first seeded opponent, Amanda Coetzer.

While playing a Challenger event in Sarasota earlier this year, de los Rios told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, "I want to play for five years. This year, I want to finish in the top 100." Remarkably, it looks like she might shoot back to the top 100 as early as next week, and has once again become a tough opponent for anyone.

One of the wackier scenes in the first week of the French Open involved Vince Spadea's unsuccessful attempts to be let into the Roland Garoos washrooms.

During Spadea's first round loss first round loss to Tim Henman, Vince decided to opt for a bathroom break and headed off with an escort to relieve himself. Henman patiently waited as the break went on and on, with Spadea only returning more than five minutes later. Let Spadea tell the story himself, as related in The Independent:

"No one knew where the bathroom was. I'm not from here, and I expected something convenient. I tried to get in the locker room, but I didn't have a badge and the person escorting me didn't speak French. So we ended up going to Court One. It was unbelievable. They acted like I was just part of the public."

This is something akin to adding insult to injury for Spadea, who was in the process of losing his 19th match in a row. This is a rather astonishing slump for the 25-year-old Floridian, who has been ranked as high as 19th in his career and posts two career wins over the man who once labelled him a "classic journeyman", Andre Agassi.

Spadea's personal and professional crisis was laid out rather cruelly for all to see in a very blunt article that appeared in the Palm Beach Post during the Delray Beach tournament earlier this year. In this article some of Spadea's acquaintances suggested that Vince's career could only advance if he took some distance from his overbearing, cabaret-singing father Vince Sr., who has been an omnipresent feature of his son's career. Spadea promptly and mysteriously withdrew from the tournament citin g an injury, but some speculated that his embarrassment and anger at the article might have been the cause.

In an attempt to get his career back on the rails, Spadea has hired Pat Cash, who recently severed connections with Mark Philippoussis, to coach him through the grass court season. We'll see if Cash inspires Vince to break that horrible streak of losses.

Ageless Nathalie Tauziat, ousted in the third round of the French Open, can take some solace in the heavy interest in her memoirs, "Les dessous du tennis féminin", published last month in France. Her criticisms of the WTA's excessive marketing of glamour ? quite justified criticisms in my view ? have been widely quoted.

But what is less widely quoted are the pot shots Tauziat takes at some of her fellow French players in her book. According to the French daily Le Parisien, she critiques Julie Halard's husband/coach: "He lives through his wife's success and holds the door when she goes to take a pee." She also implies that Sandrine Testud claims injuries when it suits her to do so, and paints Mary Pierce as a prima donna who looks down her nose at the other French players. There may have been some frosty encoun ters in the women's locker room this week!