USCfan, Hewitt is actually a fast court player, not Nadal, the fact that they are both baseliners doesn't mean at all that they have the same style of play, Hewitt's worst surface is clay, while Nadal's best surface is Clay.
Here are the reasons why Nadal can't be compared to Hewitt on fast courts : Hewitt is a counterpuncher who needs and uses the speed of the ball producted by his opponant to do something with the ball and find his way to win the point, he is a way better volleyer than Nadal, and can take the ball earlier on fast courts, Nadal needs more time than Hewitt to set up his groundstrokes due to his extremely loopy swing, and his loopy ball trajectories don't help him to optimaly benefit from the speed of the courts, Nadal extreme FH grip is a weakness against low skidding bounce balls producted on fast surfaces, Nadal learnt tennis on a slow suface, while Hewitt learnt tennis on grass and hardcourts.
I would add that Hewitt won his slam during a transition era, when the great players of the past where old and slightly less good than in their prime, and when Federer the true great player of the current era, was not yet at his best level, but now to win a slam on fast courts you have to play better than Federer at the level where he is now, and you also have to be able to defeat on fast courts players like Roddick with his monster serve, who was far from his best due to his young age and lack of experience when Hewitt won his slams, but now Roddick reached his potential, other players are also very dangerous on fast courts : Joachim Johanson with his monster serve and Forehand, and Safin whith his great talent when he is decided to give his best, so it is way harder now to win a slam on fastcourts than it was 3 years ago.
That is why it is not accurate to use Hewitt's records on hardcourts to guess the chances of Nadal on Fast courts, of course Nadal as a great player and fighter and with his give it all attitude will usually go pretty far on fast courts, often in the 1/4 or 1/2 or even sometimes finals, except on grass where he could reach the second week only with the help of a very lucky draw, but on hard courts he will always find a specialist to beat him, like Sampras or becker, or Edberg, or Mac Enroe always found a red clay specialist to defeat them in the French Open.
Of course, as this thread is related to the present time, I mainly talk about this years with nadal's current game, for the future years, it all depends on how he will improve his game, and nobody knows the answer.
I don't think it would be much different if he played mostly 3 set matches, with a day to recover.
