Rafael Nadal has given sometime practice partner Andy Murray some advice as the former No. 1 rehabs from hip surgery.
In the aftermath of his 6-0, 6-2 Monte-Carlo thrashing of Dominic Thiem, the top-ranked Nadal revealed he has talked to Murray though he wouldn't detail their discussions.
Watch: Nadal Thrashes Thiem
"I don't want to tell you about the things that we talked [about] because will not be fair for him, and I will not feel comfortable with it.” Nadal told the media in Monte-Carlo. "But, yes, I tell him the things that I think worked for me. Then, of course, he has his group and he will decide.
"I have been in that situation. I know how tough and frustrating is when you work every day and you don't see the light of how to improve. You don't see any improvements. But then one day trying things, trying treatments, one day things are going better, no?"
The 30-year-old Murray underwent surgery to correct a chronic right hip issue in January. Murray was given a guideline of 14 weeks of rehab before returning to action. He's aiming to launch his comeback during grass-court season.
Nadal said comebacks take time, but if Murray regains full fitness he can be a force again.
"Comebacks are not easy," Nadal said. "If Andy is healthy, he will come back. After a long period of time, maybe he will not be back and winning first week, but he will not forget how to play tennis. He knows that, and everybody knows that. If he is healthy, he will be back on a position to fight for the most important things."
This isn't the first time Murray has turned to Nadal for advice.
In an interview with Graham Bensinger, Murray said talking with the young Rafa convinced him he had to leave his native Scotland and move to Spain to pursue his dreams of a pro career.
"He didn't speak much English, I didn't speak much Spanish," Murray recalls of his initial meeting with Nadal. "But I just asked him about how he trains over in Spain and who he trains with. He was practicing for a few hours a day when he was there he was practicing with Carlos Moya, who is a former number one in the world and won the French Open. And I was practicing just a few hours a week with my brother.
"That was when I realized if I wanted to try to go to the next level and become a professional I was going to have to sort of change the environment I was training in. That's one of the reasons I moved to Spain."
Murray says the amount of training time a teenage Nadal committed made him realize he had to make a move to increase his own practice time realize his true potential.
"When you're very competitive, even at that age, that was when you start to realize I didn't have enough sort of opportunity in Scotland," Murray says. "I couldn't do it, the weather, not enough courts and obviously with school I couldn't play enough. He was by far the best player. He's one year older than me and he was a lot better than all the players there. One of the reasons for that was he was getting great practice with top players and enough hours on the court."