TENNIS : UCLA'S PHEBUS JOINS OJAI NO-SHOWS ON THE SIDELINES.

Byline: Joe Jares Daily News Staff Writer

There was missing in action and missing in inaction Thursday at the 96th Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament.

The Pac-10 individual championships, the feature attraction of The Ojai, is only one day old, but already four stars are out. One was upset and three didn't bother to put themselves in the draw at all:

UCLA No. 1 Justin Gimelstob, who has a good shot at being NCAA champ as a sophomore, stayed in Westwood. ``He needed a break,'' said coach Billy Martin.

Stanford's two best women, Ania Bleszynski of Thousand Oaks and Katie Schlukebir, stayed at school. Something about studies and big tests.

UCLA's Keri Phebus, defending NCAA champion, got her ouster the Smith-Barney way - she earned it. She was beaten by an obscure freshman from Mexico, Arizona No. 4 Karen Goldstein 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.

Phebus, a senior noted for her concentration and composure, double faulted frequently, most disastrously in the third set with match point against her.

``She's so level,'' said an elated Goldstein, ``you can't give her one point, because she'll come back. She's like so intense the whole time. She's hard to play because you never have a moment you can say, `I've got this one.' ''

Until that last double fault in the 90-plus-degree heat at the Ojai Valley Inn. Then Goldstein had it.

It was a considerable feat for a young woman who grew up in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico, where her parents own a scuba-diving shop on the Sea of Cortez and her principal tennis opponent was a ball machine.

``Keri's probably had a little senioritis,'' said her coach, Bill Zaima, before the upset. ``But I mean, she's changed rackets twice (she's using a Chang, which is 1-1/2 inches longer than normal), and she still doesn't hit the ball as hard as she did with a wide-body racket.

``Unfortunately, the timing of this tournament is now getting very difficult for college players,'' added Zaima, ``because we've just finished a grueling month of April - Cal, Stanford and SC back to back to back on weekends.

``So it comes on a difficult weekend, more so than maybe in the past because everybody has a lot of other tournaments they're playing, too. Someone like Gimelstob especially.''

Play in the juniors went pretty much to form, but in the boys' interscholastic singles, Dylan Mann of Taft High in Woodland Hills lost in the second round to Brett Hankey of Huntington Beach 6-3, 6-3.

Connors wins: Top-seeded Jimmy Connors needed only 65 minutes to eliminate Peter Fleming of England 6-1, 6-4 in a quarterfinal match of the $150,000 over-35 men's Champions Tour at the Riviera Country Club.

Second-seeded Andres Gomez of Ecuador defeated Tim Wilkison 7-6 (7-5) 6-1 in another quarterfinal match.