BEACH VOLLEYBALL : WOMEN PLAY IT `SERIOUS'.

Byline: Amy Shipley Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Gail Castro, a U.S. beach volleyball player from La Crescenta, stood in a shady corner of the Atlanta Beach arena after a match Tuesday with grainy sand particles stuck to her neck and shoulders and pasted under her chin, as well as lodged among strands of sun-streaked hair. She wore her USA uniform, which is red, white and blue - and a bikini.

A spokesperson for this new Olympic sport simply because she plays it, this bronze, sand-dusted athlete, waving her sunglasses for emphasis, had absolutely striking things to say.

``Yeah, I've had comments,'' said Castro, a former star at Crescenta Valley High School and Valley College. ``You get a lot of weird comments. One guy was bothering me when I was sitting in the stands before a match and it just got my blood boiling. I said, `Why don't you get your butt out there?'

``Seven or eight years ago, people didn't know we were professionals,'' Castro said. ``They thought we were still playing pickup games. Even now, they still come up to us on the beach and ask to borrow a ball. We're like, `Buy your own ball, buddy.'

``It is serious,'' she said. ``My time is valuable. I only have so much time to do my weightlifting, do my yoga, get my massage, drive to L.A. to pick up my partner, schedule two or three hours on the beach. And I also want to have a life on my own.''

This fact fast becomes clear: what takes place in Atlanta Beach during these Olympic Games might lack an ocean, but it won't lack salt and substance. Tuesday, the first day of the first-ever Olympic beach volleyball competition, a bunch of professionals stepped into a sunshine-soaked sandbox and they did not play around one bit.

Each of the United States' three two-person women's teams won after first-round byes and advanced to today's third round. During the day's matches, attended by a sellout crowd of more than 11,000, wind blew off a man-made lake adjacent to the venue, cooling the hot, white sand recently hauled in from Roberta, Ga.

The three U.S. men's teams had first-round byes and begin second-round play today. In the draw, both the men's and women's teams from Brazil drew the top seeds. United States teams - former UCLA stars Sinjin Smith and Carl Henkel for the men, and Nancy Reno and ex-Bruin Holly McPeak for the women - drew the second seeds.

The U.S. women, after their work of winning Tuesday was completed, moved by turn into the interview room and played ambassador for their sport. They only, however, smiled so much.

Deb Richardson, who along with Castro defeated a team from the Netherlands, leaned back in her chair with a scowl when a question was raised about a perception of the sport as a laid-back, day-at-the-beach event.