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Rafael Nadal didn’t let the much-hyped potential future star of Australian tennis stop him in his quest for a fourth consecutive major title.

Overcoming a mostly parochial crowd of 15,000 at Rod Laver Arena, the top-ranked Nadal had a 6-2, 7-5, 6-3 win over 18-year-old wild card Bernard Tomic in an Australian Open third-round match Saturday. Nadal advanced to a fourth-round match against Marin Cilic, and a continuing date with destiny.

A title at Melbourne Park would make the Spanish star the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four Grand Slam trophies at once, although Laver achieved the true Grand Slam by winning all four in a calendar year.

“I think I started playing well, but he’s the kind of player who can make you play bad,” Nadal said of Tomic. “I have to play a bit better if I want to get to the quarterfinals.”

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It wasn’t always easy — Nadal trailed 4-0 in the second set before giving Tomic a clinic in comeback tennis. At 5-5, he broke Tomic’s service, then held in the next game to clinch the set.

“I thought it was over at 4-love and that’s when he came back,” Tomic said. “You can’t afford to lose concentration. Physically-wise, he is a machine, he wears you down.”

He said Nadal gave him some words of encouragement at the end of the match.

“He said ‘You are a very good player, keep working hard for the future,’” Tomic said.

Tomic, who upset Fernando Lopez in the second round and is being touted as a replacement for Lleyton Hewitt in the lean tennis fortunes Down Under, tried his best but ultimately was no match for the polished and experienced Nadal.

Earlier Saturday, it was the first game of Andy Murray’s match against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, and the 2010 finalist was doing his best to get into the feel of the third-round match.

Hitting a high lob to the back of the court, he watched as Garcia-Lopez ran it down and, facing the back of the court, hit a between-the-legs shot that passed Murray for a winner.

“It was the first time someone passed me on a through-the-legs shot on the tour,” Murray said. “It was a very close one on the line.”

Instead of marveling too long at one of the more unusual shots in tennis — like Roger Federer’s similar crosscourt winner against Novak Djokovic at the 2009 U.S. Open — Murray broke the Spanish player’s serve and went on to beat Garcia-Lopez 6-1, 6-1, 6-2.

Garcia-Lopez might have had the most flamboyant shot of the match, but Murray had more of the most effective ones, putting him closer to his second straight Australian Open final.

“The first game doesn’t always dictate the way the match is going to go, but it definitely helped today,” said Murray, who lost the 2010 final to Federer. He’s only dropped 17 games through three rounds.

In other men’s results, No. 4 Robin Soderling advanced, as did Marin Cilic, who beat American John Isner in five sets.

U.S. Open champion Kim Clijsters, meanwhile, beat Alize Cornet 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 of France, getting closer to win her second Grand Slam in a row.

Cornet, trying to celebrate her 21st birthday, provided a tougher challenge for Clijsters, who had only conceded four games in her first two rounds. The French player was presented with a birthday bouquet of flowers after the match, a small consolation for losing to one of the tournament favorites.

“It was tough. She’s a tricky player,” Clijsters said. “During the match I felt like I was playing two different persons. I had to constantly move my feet, and work harder.”

Cornet had trouble enough playing one.

“She plays great … she’s always fighting from the first point until the end, and she’s very consistent, very powerful,” Cornet said. “For me, she’s just the favorite of the tournament.”

Second-seeded Vera Zvonareva kept alive her bid for a third consecutive Grand Slam final with a 6-3, 7-6 (11-9) win over Lucie Safarova.

Zvonareva, who lost the U.S. Open final to Clijsters, served for the match twice against Safarova but was extended to the tiebreaker. Safarova led 4-2 and 5-3 in the tiebreaker before Zvonareva finally sealed it on her fourth match point.

Zvonareva has a chance to move into the No. 1 ranking her by winning the title. Her priority now is getting past a fourth-round match against Iveta Benesova, who beat No. 16 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3, 1-6, 7-5.

French Open finalist Sam Stosur lost 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 to No. 25 Petra Kvitova, ending Australia’s hopes in the women’s draw.

No. 12 Agnieszka Radwanska beat Simona Halep 6-1, 6-2 and will next play China’s Peng Shuai, who had a 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 win over Japan’s Ayumi Morita. Peng, who saved seven break points in the seventh game of the deciding set, will make her first appearance in the fourth round of a Grand Slam.

No. 10 Shahar Peer was ousted, losing 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 to No. 22 Flavia Pennetta.

Cilic had a 4-6, 6-2, 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-2), 9-7 win over No. 20 Isner in 4 hours, 33 minutes. It was the first five-set match Isner had played since his epic encounter against Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon last year which finished 70-68 in the fifth and was the longest tennis match in history measured by games and elapsed time.

Isner’s departure left Andy Roddick as the only American in the men’s or women’s draws.

Two former finalists also went out. Marcos Baghdatis, the 2006 runnerup, retired from his third-round match due to a finger injury when he was trailing No. 11 Jurgen Melzer 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 6-1, 4-3.

“I don’t think it’s broken because I could push the ball, but whenever I hit it, it felt like electricity on the joint,” said the 25-year-old Baghdatis.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the 2008 finalist, lost 3-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 to Alexandr Dolgopolov.

Milos Raonic, a 20-year-old Canadian qualifier with the fastest serve in the first two rounds of the tournament at 143 mph, fired 31 aces while beating No. 10 Mikhail Youzhny 6-4, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.

“I knew the chances were in his favor, but I knew I was prepared to fight for every point, however long it took,” said Raonic, who was born in Montenegro and moved to Canada in 1994. “I can’t say I would be shocked if I wasn’t here. But I’m not really shocked I am here.”

He’ll play No. 7 David Ferrer, a 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 winner over Richard Berankis, in the next round.

Soderling, who beat Jan Hernych 6-3, 6-1, 6-4 and next plays Dolgopolov, hasn’t dropped a set and is on an eight-match winning streak with his three at Melbourne Park after winning the tuneup tournament at Brisbane.

Soderling’s match was delayed for about 10 minutes in the third set when a bubble seemed to appear on the court surface at Hisense Arena. A similar bubble delayed the start of a match on the same court the previous night.

Tournament organizers said moisture from recent rains had gathered under the court’s Plexicushion layer in the unseasonably cool conditions and evaporated as temperatures rose, causing a pocket of vapor that lifted part of the surface. Stadium staff repaired the problem quickly both times.

There was some heated moments in men’s doubles, with match officials stepping in to calm a heated exchange at the net.

Spain’s Feliciano Lopez accused India’s Leander Paes of trying to provoke him and his partner Juan Monaco of Argentina during their second-round match. Paes and partner Mahesh Bhupathi won 7-6 (7-2), 6-4.

Television footage showed all four players arguing at the net, and Lopez claimed Paes had tried “to provoke us all the time.”

ROCK HILL, S.C. (AP) — Not too long ago, new NCAA President Mark Emmert met a college athlete who wondered why the governing body couldn’t fund an “Ultimate Frisbee” championship.

“You make money on every sport so why couldn’t you do that?” Emmert was asked.

And that’s a perception Emmert plans to change. The NCAA does not have a “tsunami of cash,” he said Friday, despite the organization’s new, 14-year, $10.6 billion deal with CBS and Turner Broadcasting for the men’s basketball tournament.

“There’s confusion about that because the numbers look big and people see a football stadium with 105,000 people at Michigan or somewhere and do the math in their head and say, ‘Well, this is all about money,’ ” Emmert said Friday.

But Michigan, Emmert pointed out, was among just 14 out of more than 1,100 NCAA member schools who made money on athletics last year. “The rest didn’t,” Emmert said.

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The NCAA’s new leader was at Winthrop University, the keynote speaker for a celebration of the Division I school’s greatest athletic teams.

Emmert has spent his tenure identifying issues the NCAA should tackle. One was what he called the distraction of commercialization.

People think the NCAA is a business group chasing money. “We hear that all the time,” he said. “All they care about is money. They shape everything around money.”

The revenue that does come in, Emmert says, goes largely back to the student athletes who play all NCAA sports, not just football and basketball. “That’s a good thing,” he said.

Emmert said 96% of the $700 million the NCAA will make from its new broadcast contract will go to member athletic departments in support of athletes.

The NCAA has started airing public service announcements centered on where the group’s money goes, Emmert said.

“We’ve got to bring attention to that so they know we’re the conduit from how the money flows,” he said

The NCAA puts on 88 championships, many in sports you’re not likely to see in prime time the first Monday in April. Men’s basketball, though, “is how we pay for those,” Emmert said.

The sustainability of member athletic departments is also a hot-button topic Emmert hopes to get his arms around. He remembers as University of Washington president cutting men’s and women’s swimming teams.

“I could make the argument right now there’s not enough money in college athletics,” he said.

That might be difficult for many to believe with rising ticket prices and fees to watch marquee sports at colleges across the country. Emmert understands, but says those funds are essential to departments offering a full complement of NCAA sports.

“It’s like I used to say at the U of W or at LSU, ‘Look, if you like gymnastics, buy football tickets. If you like volleyball, buy football tickets. If you like crew, buy football tickets because that’s how we pay for those things,’” he said. “At the NCAA, it’s all about driving revenue around the basketball tournament.”

Emmert has seen his share of critics since October, especially after high-profile NCAA enforcement decisions regarding Auburn quarterback Cam Newton’s pay-for-play allegations and the Ohio State decision to suspend five football players, including quarterback Terrelle Pryor, next season instead of for the Sugar Bowl.

The new guy has taken it in stride so far, accustomed through 30 years as a college administrator to passionate fans not fully versed on all facets of the decision.

Emmert commented to his staff that the attention was better than the alternative.

“It could be a lot worse if we made a decision and everyone just shrugged their shoulders. The fact that people care and get emotional about it is not inherently a bad thing,” he said.

Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s uncle and trainer pleaded no contest Thursday to two misdemeanor battery charges in a plea deal that avoided a trial and jail time in a Las Vegas domestic battery case.

Roger Mayweather, 49, was sentenced to a year of probation, 24 weeks of domestic violence counseling, 50 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine for the Aug. 2, 2009, incident.

Clark County District Court Judge Valerie Adair accepted Mayweather’s pleas as an admission of guilt and warned the retired professional boxer to stay out of trouble for a year or face a year in county jail. A status check was scheduled July 21.

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“You know what you have to do?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” Mayweather responded.

Trial had been set to begin Monday on felony battery charges alleging Mayweather beat and choked a female boxer he used to train at a Las Vegas apartment that he owned. Mayweather could have faced up to 10 years if convicted of the battery-strangulation and battery causing substantial bodily harm charges.

Roger Mayweather helps train his nephew, who by a quirk of scheduling is due Monday in Las Vegas Justice Court for a preliminary hearing on unrelated coercion, grand larceny and robbery charges. That case stems from a September dispute between Floyd Mayweather Jr., his children and their mother at her home.

Prosecutor Dena Rinetti told Adair on Thursday that the alleged victim agreed to the plea deal in Roger Mayweather’s case. She was not in court.

In the hallway, Roger Mayweather declined comment. His lawyer, Jack Buchanan, called the plea deal a fair resolution to the case.

Details of the brawl between the former lightweight, super lightweight and welterweight boxer and a woman he once trained were made public in an evidentiary hearing a year ago.

She testified that Mayweather choked and punched her after he arrived to find her in an apartment he was renting to another man, and that she hit him with a lamp.

Police reported finding Mayweather with his arms around her during the struggle.

Mayweather didn’t testify. Buchanan said at the time he would show a jury at trial that the woman started the scuffle, gave conflicting accounts to boxing reporters afterward, and hoped to use the incident to gain a civil financial settlement.

Lance Armstrong says he will be vindicated by a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency investigation of claims raised by a report in Sports Illustrated.

Armstrong used Twitter on Friday to suggest that USADA may probe allegations published by the magazine this week in an article entitled “The Case Against Lance Armstrong.”

“Great to hear that USADA is investigating some of SI’s claims. I look forward to being vindicated,” the seven-time Tour de France winner said.

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Armstrong is currently competing in the Tour Down Under in South Australia and has refused to comment on the Sports Illustrated report, other than to say he has nothing to worry about “on any level” from its claims. He would not speak to reporters after the fourth stage on Friday and could not be contacted later in the evening.

No immediate confirmation was available Friday that USADA has launched an investigation into the report. The agency’s website contained no information about any pending investigation.

Sports Illustrated reported that when Italian authorities raided the home of Armstrong teammate Yaroslav Popovych last November in Italy, they found texts and e-mails linking their Radio Shack team with Dr. Michele Ferrari as recently as 2009.

Armstrong publicly severed his connection with Ferrari in 2004, amid accusations the doctor aided another rider in using performance-enhancing drugs. Ferrari was convicted and then later cleared of criminal charges on appeal.

Armstrong spokesman Mark Fabiani called the Sports Illustrated report “old news from the same old, discredited sources.”

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has been hearing evidence for months on cheating in professional cycling. The investigation turned toward Armstrong — and several of his associates have testified — since former teammate Floyd Landis accused him of systematic doping.

Armstrong won the Tour de France every year from 1999 to 2005. He is currently 85th overall and nearly 4 minutes behind the leader after four stages at the Tour Down Under, which he has said will be his final race outside the United States.