Rafael Nadal hopes to return to tennis, but he dismissed winning the Australian Open or Roland Garros as goals.
If there was one thing that Nadal was good at except playing tennis it's being humble. The Spaniard always remained relatively humble in speech and action despite basically becoming one of the best tennis players of all time.
He reminded us of his humility in a recent interview he did with Spanish TV Channel Movistar, where he talked about his comeback to tennis. In that talk, Nadal admitted that he will be back to competing, but winning Grand Slams seems unlikely.
I want to play again and be competitive. Hope is not to come back and win Australia and Roland Garros. That people don't get confused. At this stage of my life this seems very distant to me. It's not impossible, but a lot of things happen in tennis.
That's not just Nadal being as humble as ever; that's him basically admitting to the reality of the situation. He will be back in a few months as he's back to practice, but at that time, it will be about a year since he played any meaningful tennis.
You don't just pick up where you left off at his age. It will take multiple events and months to probably regain what he lost, and then he might challenge for titles. All of this is predicated on him staying healthy which isn't a certainty either.
Who's to say that he doesn't reinjure himself immediately? There is just far too much unknown for Nadal to make any sort of announcement. Even when people held out hope for his Roland Garros participation earlier this year; it was mostly other people who hyped it up.
Nadal remained silent because that's just not him. He just tries his best and lives with the result. If it's not the desired outcome he won't push it.