Andre Agassi of the United States and world No. 1 Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil headline the men's action and Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati and Serena Williams will play their first matches.

Agassi will meet American Taylor Dent, who advanced with a 6-2, 7-6 (7-2) triumph over Dutchman Sjeng Schalken.

Kuerten, last year's runner-up, found out he will play Hicham Arazi of Morocco in the second round after Arazi got past Switzerland's Marc Rosset, 6-3, 7-6 (11-9).

Former champion Michael Chang moved into the second round with a 6-2, 6-3 trumph over Spain's Albert Portas on Thursday. The 1992 winner will face 16th seed Mark Philippoussis of Australia in the second round.

Temperamental Croatian Goran Ivanisevic, a finalist in 1996, advanced to the second round earlier Thursday as he downed Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic, 6-3, 6-4.

Another hard-serving lefthander who has had early success in 2001 reached the second round as Britain's Greg Rusedski dumped Nicolas Massu of Chile, 6-4, 6-1.

Rusedski defeated Agassi to win the Sybase Open in San Jose, California three weeks ago and defeated Kuerten at the Australian Open in January.

Davenport, the second seed, will take on Daja Bedanova of the Czech Republic, who defeated Rossana De Los Rios of Paraguay, 6-4, 6-4, on Thursday.

Capriati, the Australian Open champion and a resident of Florida, is seeded fourth and will meet fellow American Jennifer Hopkins, a 6-3, 6-3 winner over Gisella Dulko of Argentina.

Williams, fresh off capturing the Indian Wells title on Sunday, is the fifth seed and will face Pavlina Nola of Bulgaria in the second round. Nola beat Sarah Pitkowski of France, 7-5, 6-0.

In Thursday's action involving American women, Mashona Washington defeated Adriana Gersi of the Czech Republic, 7-5, 6-1; Lilia Osterloh got past Emilie Loit of France, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2; and Alexandra Stevenson outlasted Mariaan de Swardt of South Africa, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4.

Switzerland's Martina Hingis is the top seed and defending champion on the women's side.

Two-time champion Venus Williams, the third seed, apparently will test her injured knee after her sudden and controversial withdrawal from her semifinal encounter with sister Serena last week at Indian Wells.

Just before the Williams sisters were to take the court, Venus withdrew with right knee tendinitis. The bitterness from the crowd carried over to the women's final on Saturday, when Serena Williams received a chorus of boos throughout her three-set win over Belgium's Kim Clijsters.

For the men, Russia's Marat Safin is seeded second behind Kuerten, with Agassi, three-time champion Pete Sampras and Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov rounding out the top five seeds.

The top 32 seeds for both the men and women received byes into the second round.