Lleyton Hewitt is out of the French Open after becoming the latest victim of a seemingly unstoppable Rafael Nadal in the fourth round.

Hewitt managed to take a set off the Spaniard, but lost 6-2 5-7 6-4 6-2, with Nadal extending his extraordinary clay-court record to 57 successive wins.

Nadal, favourite to defend his Roland Garros crown, will next meet the winner of the match between French rising star Gael Monfils and Serb Novak Djokovic.

Hewitt went into the match with three wins from three against Nadal - all on hardcourt - but the change of surface and the added physical and mental maturity of the defending champ proved the difference.

After three breaks to start the match, Nadal was the first to hold in game four and went on to take the first set in a relatively quick 42 minutes.

The crowd, caught out by the early finish of the preceding match, was late to arrive but by midway through the second set the 15,000 capacity centre court was near enough to full for a wonderful struggle.

Nadal broke to love in the seventh game and was only two holds away from a two-set advantage that would have all but sealed the match.

But Hewitt rallied to immediately break back, with the crowd - eager for a contest - urging him on, and the Australian broke in the final game of the set to level the match.

Games proceeded on serve in the third set, with neither of the fierce competitors giving an inch, and it took a stroke of Nadal genius to seize the advantage, as he played a drop shot from the baseline to break in the ninth game, and then served out the third set.

At last year's Australian Open, also in the round of 16, Hewitt came from two sets to one down to beat Nadal, so there was still hope of a comeback.

That hope faded when, after a series of breaks in the fourth set, Nadal consolidated with a hold to go up 4-2.

One more break and he was able to serve out the match in three hours and 17 minutes.

The statistics showed Nadal had 29 groundstroke winners to Hewitt's 12, and nine passing shots winners to Hewitt's none.

Nadal had conceded just one passing shot winner in the previous match, a testament to his extraordinary court-coverage and wingspan.

Hewitt's unforced error count was 59 to 35, his first serve percentage was just 51, while Nadal won an impressive 61 per cent of points on his second serve.

Meanwhile in the women's doubles, top seeds Samantha Stosur and American Lisa Raymond won through over Dinara Safina and Roberta Vinci, while Rennae Stubbs and Cara Black also progressed by beating Russians Elena Likhovtseva and Anastasia Myskina.

Both are now in the quarter-finals.

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