PARIS — When the Williams sisters put down their rackets, they leave their tennis rivalry behind them.

        “As long as we're on the court, we're extremely competitive,” Serena said. “We don't even talk about tennis off the court. Never.”

        “Ten years from now, this will all be over,” said the 20-year-old Serena. “We would have hopefully made history. I think we're making history now.”

        Last year, the Williams sisters took their sibling rivalry somewhere it had never been before — the U.S. Open final. It was the first time in more than 100 years that sisters played for a Grand Slam tournament.

        The 21-year-old Venus won that match, as she usually does. The sisters had seven sibling matchups and Venus has won five of them, including both previous Grand Slam encounters — the 2000 Wimbledon semifinal and the opening round at the 1998 Australian Open.

        But Serena could be on a roll, having defeated Venus in March at their most recent match.

        Could she beat her again?

        “Yeah, I could,” said Serena, who has played both her early matches in a green-and-yellow dress with knee-high yellow socks.

        “I've been thinking about retiring the dress until the final,” she said.

        So far, both No. 2 Venus and No. 3 Serena have cruised through to the French Open's third round. On opposite halves of the draw, the only place they could meet is in the final.

        ———

        HARVARD HEARTTHROB: When James Blake steps onto the court, people take note.

        “I guess there's been attention,” said Blake, who played tennis at Harvard and signed last year with a modeling agency, IMG Models. “But I was hoping it was because of my tennis.”

        The 22-year-old Blake is considered one of the hottest prospects in American tennis along with Andy Roddick.

        He exited his French Open debut Thursday, after losing a second-round match against No. 10 Sebastien Grosjean, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 7-5.

        Blake, 6-foot-1 and 170 pounds, said when his looks draw attention, he tries to ignore it. Or at least respond politely.

        “Anytime I've been complimented on my looks, I usually say, 'You should probably compliment my parents because I had nothing to do with it,”' he said.

        At a tournament in San Jose, Calif., a stream of fans toting programs asked him to sign a photo. He complied — until he noticed it actually was a photo of Yannick Noah, the last Frenchman to win the French Open.

        ———

        SORE LOSER: When Juan Carlos Ferrero sprained his ankle in practice this week, word was he'd have to pull out of the French Open.

        But a doctor treated the ankle, and Ferrero won a rigorous second-round match against Nicolas Coutelot 6-2, 5-7, 1-6, 6-2, 6-0.

        And Coutelot was not amused.

        “He really tricked me,” the Frenchman said. “We saw today he's not injured.”

        Coutelot said he and his coach revised their strategy for the match when they heard the 11th-seeded Ferrero was hurt.

        “My coach was telling me, 'Make him run, play drop shots,”' Coutelot said. “It was the wrong tactic because he wasn't injured.”

        Ferrero told the tournament that he turned his ankle during practice Wednesday with fellow Spaniard Tommy Robredo. Ferrero, a two-time French Open semifinalist, also advised that he might have to withdraw from Thursday's match.

        To Coutelot's dismay, he didn't.

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