TENNIS ISN'T TOPS ON AGASSI'S LIST : IT RANKS BEHIND GOD, FAMILY AND BROOKE.

Byline: Ann Killion San Jose Mercury News

Pete Sampras won the Australian Open over the weekend.

Andre Agassi wasn't there.

Disrespect? Laziness? Too much passion for Brooke? Too little passion for tennis?

Or a 26-year-old guy who needed to regroup before starting another season?

With Agassi, you never know. His every move is subject to more criticism and suspicion than Hillary Rodham Clinton.

``No matter what he does, he's under the microscope,'' said Agassi's coach, former pro Brad Gilbert.

In fact, Agassi simply needed a break. He's coming off a forgettable year, in which he was bounced in the first round of Wimbledon and was frustrated constantly. The Australian Open, with its 115-degree heat and January scheduling, didn't seem like a wise idea.

``I want to focus on the big picture,'' Agassi said. ``That's why I didn't play in Australia. I wanted to work on the fundamentals that my game needs.''

So instead of sweating it out Down Under last week, Agassi was in rainy San Francisco for a news conference. He'll start his season by playing this week in a Davis Cup match in Brazil and make his 1997 tournament debut Feb. 11 at the Sybase Open at San Jose Arena.

Last year, he was ranked No. 1 before the Sybase. This year, he's No. 8.

``It's not so bad to be No. 8 in the world, but somehow it seems bad when I do it,'' he said.

A win at the Sybase would be a good omen. Agassi lost in the final last year, one of a string of 1996 losses. But he won the local tournament in 1995, when he had a terrific season. Agassi's great 1995 run, which actually began with a victory at the U.S. Open in September 1994, included winning the Australian, the No. 1 ranking and a 26-match winning streak.

But it all came to a crashing halt last year.

``He just wasn't there mentally, and that was it,'' Gilbert said.

But, as with everything Agassi, it seems more complicated. Maybe he has lapsed back into earlier form, when he consistently failed to meet expectations?

``One year is great, the next one not,'' Agassi said. ``You look at my years as a professional and it has a roller-coaster look to it. I'm not proud of it.''

His entire career has been mercurial. He has been such a staple of our sports diet for so long that it seems Agassi should be running out of time.

``People think he's like 35,'' Gilbert said. ``He's only 26. He's still got a lot left in him.''

But for years, Agassi has been larger than life and certainly larger than tennis.

``He's more to write about,'' Gilbert said. ``Like McEnroe or like Tiger Woods in golf. He's beyond tennis.''

Which is why we're interested. Sampras - who also will be in San Jose next month - is the most dominating male tennis player of our time, but he's not beyond tennis. He is tennis, and because of that - despite his athletic prowess - the public seems to find him boring.

It's one of sports' great hypocrisies. Athletes who are simply the best at their sports are called dull. But if they offer something beyond the court, we criticize them for being unfocused and trivial.

Agassi offers more and is labeled shallow. There's his fiancee, Brooke Shields, his past liaison with Barbra Streisand, his mega-exposure from Nike, his private jet, his HumVee, his hometown of Las Vegas, his rebellious fashion statements. When he whips out his cell phone - ``Wha'sup, Dog?'' he says - during interviews he seems to conform to every Agassi stereotype.

But there's another side to Agassi. He's ultra-sensitive, often serious and deeply emotional. When a reporter implied that Agassi was late, he checked his watch and said huffily: ``I was completely on time. If you were waiting, then you were early.''

When told that his public persona has been of a ``narcissistic and self-absorbed'' individual, Agassi seems stunned and hurt, even though his ``Image is Everything'' ad is seven years old.

In truth, there's more to Agassi than image. His Las Vegas foundation provides money for a variety of Nevada-based children's groups. It has clothed more than 2,000 kids, has helped build a Boys' and Girls' club complete with a recreation room, library and computer room, and gives money to Child Haven, which houses children whose parents are in jail or drug rehabilitation.

``These kids are just waiting for something to happen in their lives,'' he said.

Agassi, who nervously picks at his Bugs Bunny Band-Aid on his fingers while talking, says he wants his own kids and is sweetly vulnerable about his relationship with Shields.

``My relationship is very successful to me,'' he said, while listing his priorities (with tennis seeming to come in fourth, behind God, family and Brooke). ``I'm sure I'm going to spend the rest of my life with a beautiful woman. . . . But it hasn't happened yet, so I guess I shouldn't talk so much.''

And he's emotional. The saving grace of last year was his win at the Summer Olympics. Though the competition wasn't comparable to a Grand Slam, it didn't diminish the accomplishment to the second-generation Olympian and first-generation American. On the medal stand, he wept.

``There was no question to me in my mind,'' he said, ``if I could only have one success or one trophy, it would be the gold medal. When you talk about Wimbledon - it's the grandest tennis tournament. When you talk about the U.S. Open, it's the toughest tennis tournament. But the gold medal . . . there's no tennis about it.''

The gold medal is beyond tennis. Just like Agassi.

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Photo: Andre Agassi, coming off a mediocre year, skipped the Australian Open to ``focus on the big picture.''

Daily News File Photo