Roger Federer has given his fans hope that he will compete in the upcoming French Open championship after hitting the practice court shortly after arriving from Switzerland on Tuesday.
Federer, seeded no.3 in the clay-court Grand Slam, was spotted hitting balls on court no.1 Wednesday morning, a sighting that somehow squashed reports of Swiss publication about Federer's plan to withdraw from the tournament due to a back injury.
Still, Federer's participation at Roland Garros will heavily hinge on his condition during his training. After coming off a two-month off to rehab his surgically-repaired knee (an injury he suffered a day after his Australian Open campaign), Federer's progress hit a wall due to a recurring back injury.
In 2013, the Swiss had the worst season in his legendary tennis career as a bad back limited his movement throughout the entire year. Federer won just one title that season and bombed out early at Wimbledon (2nd round) and US Open championships (4th round) - tournaments he usually performed well when healthy.
The Swiss Master is facing the prospect of succumbing to the injury anew if his condition continues to regress. After putting up an impressive campaign last year, Federer set the bar a bit higher for this season by winning at least one of the four Grand Slam tournaments and snagging perhaps the elusive gold medal in men's singles at Rio Olympics.
But the series of injuries Federer has to endure so far cast a dark cloud on his mission of achieving any of his goals. After losing to Dominic Thiem in the third round of Rome Masters, the Swiss address his back issue once more and even hinted on the possibility of skipping the French Open championship if it doesn't improve in time for Roland Garros.
Indeed, there's hope for Federer to still compete on the red dirt of Paris but then again nothing is certain between now and May 22 - Day 1 of Roland Garros.