Rafael Nadal has not hit a tennis ball on the circuit since suffering a shock defeat to Lukas Rosol in the second round of Wimbledon, but the Spaniard is slowly but surely making progress, recovering from his knee injury.
The Spaniard accepted the chances of him participating in the ATP World Tour Finals as well as the Davis Cup final next month were remote, but typical of his fighting nature shown umpteen times on the court, he refused to rule it out entirely.
"Impossible, no. But difficult, yes," said Nadal, who has dropped to number 4 in the world rankings, during a conference call to promote an exhibition game against Juan Martin Del Potro in March next year. "I want to go day-by-day, I go every day to the gym, the swimming pool to continue with my recovery. I am trying not to think that far."
The season-ending World tour finals, where the top eight tennis players in the world take part, is scheduled from Nov. 5 in London, while Spain's Davis Cup final against Czech Republic takes place from Nov. 16-18.
Nadal said the knee injury had left him extremely frustrated. "I am working very hard every day to recover as quickly as possible," he added. "I am feeling a little bit better the last couple of weeks.
"It's been very tough for me the first two months because I felt I wasn't improving as much as I wanted. I can feel something now that I did not before. I am working very hard to come back to practice in a tennis court in not a very long time."
Nadal, however, admitted he will only know how his knee will respond once he gets back to the courts and starts playing some tennis. "That is something I will know when my I feel my knee completely without pain when I start to practice," he said.
"I didn't have in the past this long period of time outside of the tennis court, outside of the competition.
"I can imagine when I come back I will need time to practice and practice more and more every day, maybe that will take one month and a half.
"The most important thing is to continue with the treatment ... when I don't feel nothing, hopefully that will happen soon, I will come back on the tennis court."