TENNIS NO LONGER RACE AGAINST TIME; GIMELSTOB WORKS TO REALIZE POTENTIAL.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Justin Gimelstob used to feel time was moving as fast as the 124-mile-per-hour serve he blistered past poor Vince Spadea on Thursday. He couldn't get a piece of his racket on his goals, much less pierce the sweet spot.

He already was older than fellow American Michael Chang when Chang became the youngest player to win a main-draw match at the U.S. Open. He wasn't that much younger than American Pete Sampras when Sampras won his first professional singles title.

When chair umpires chimed, ``Time,'' at the end of changeovers, Gimelstob took it personally, as if they were passing judgment on his career.

Imagine being barely old enough to drive and feeling as if you've fallen two sets behind in the match that is your life.

``At that point the big fad was being a great pro when you were 16,'' Gimelstob said after beating Spadea to advance to a quarterfinal match today against top-seeded Patrick Rafter in the Mercedes-Benz Cup at the Los Angeles Tennis Center. ``All those guys like Sampras and Chang were playing great. It put a lot of excess pressure on kids. It did for me. When I look back on it, it was ridiculous.''

These days Gimelstob, 21, has a better angle on success. The third-year pro out of UCLA isn't trying so hard any more to be the next coming of Sampras or Chang or Andre Agassi. After going through more identities the past few years than rackets, from The Next Great American Hope to top-ranked player Martina Hingis' boyfriend, Gimelstob has gone back to the one that served him so well as a junior:

The hardest-working player in tennis.

Well, one of the hardest-working, anyway. Spadea, Gimelstob's second-round opponent, retired in the 44th minute of their match at high noon after dropping the first set, falling behind 3-0 in the second and drawing a conduct warning for getting coached from the stands. Afterward, the world's 44th-ranked player said a stepped-up training regimen aimed at cracking the elite ranks has left him physically and emotionally exhausted.

``I should not have even started the match,'' said Spadea, 24, who splayed balls all over the court in the second set, when he bothered to chase them down at all. ``My training regimen has been, like, 24 hours a day. Every day it's a tormenting feeling for me.''

Spadea looked so miserable before, during and after the match, it begged the question: Why bother?

``It's the price you have to pay to try to make it to the elite group,'' said a clearly weary Spadea, the youngest American to finish 1994 and 1995 ranked in the top 100 globally.

Growing up, the 98th-ranked Gimelstob never pinched any minutes when it came to training. He gave every single waking second he had to tennis. When he turned pro, after two stellar years at UCLA, his focus was diffused by the myriad distractions that are part of pro tennis' traveling circus.

``When I first came out on the tour, I was the only (USTA pet project) out there and there was a lot of pressure on me,'' Gimelstob said. ``I started losing a lot, which I wasn't used to. I got frustrated and I started getting away from the work ethic and focus that had made me special as a younger player.''

It didn't help that his family, which always had rallied around him, was bowing under the weight of a terrible tragedy. The same year Gimelstob turned pro, his older brother Josh, then a junior on the tennis team at Tulane, killed a man in a hit-and-run accident. He pleaded guilty and spent six months in jail.

``You sometimes don't even realize how much something distracts you until it's behind you,'' said Gimelstob, who had followed his older brother into tennis as a child. ``That was a tough time. It was brutal.''

By comparison, the back injury that sidelined Gimelstob for two months earlier this year seemed benign. His game benefited from the time off, as Gimelstob returned to the circuit having re-dedicated himself to tennis.

``You have a certain period of your life to do this as well as you can,'' Gimelstob said. ``So you've got to put all your energy and focus on tennis while you can, even if it means you have to miss out on little things, like having a relationship or going out and drinking beer with friends.''

As for his most famous friend, Gimelstob said of Hingis, ``I liked her. She liked me a lot. It didn't work out. It was a hard situation because tennis is a very selfish sport. You have to be that way, you have to be completely focused on what you want to do.''

Gimelstob is so clear on what he wants to accomplish here that he proceeded to the practice court after his abbreviated match with Spadea and hit balls for another hour with former UCLA player and fellow pro Pat Galbraith.

If anything, the gregarious Gimelstob was more animated there than he had been against Spadea on the Stadium Court.

``All week I've been getting here at 8:30 in the morning so I can be the first one on the court,'' Gimelstob said. ``I'm not comfortable to win just a couple of matches like I was last year. I'm looking to have that breakthrough tournament. I think I'm close.''

Closer than five years ago, for sure.

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Photo: (Color) Former UCLA player Justin Gimelstob no longer feels pushed to be the next Michael Chang or Pete Sampras.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News