MARIBOR (EuroBasket Women 2015/FIBA U19 Women's World Championship) - When Dragana Stankovic was drafted to the WNBA, nobody was more thrilled than fellow Serbian rising star Aleksandra Crvendakic.

She was left delighted and is now being backed to follow in the footsteps of her club and country team-mate.

"When I heard the news about Dragana, I sent a message to her and she was so excited," Crvendakic revealed.

"She's my good friend and I'm so proud of her as she deserves it.

"Every player dreams to play in the best league in the world and so do I.

"I would like to go there eventually as it would be the peak of my club career, but first I want to leave something behind in Europe."

Crvendakic has already started that task with gusto, having impressed in EuroCup Women with UE Sopron, also landing the Hungarian Championship.

"My team-mates accepted me immediately, gave me the necessary support and indicated when I made mistakes.

"I'm really happy and it's really nice to play in a noisy gym and in front our fantastic fans."

It isn't the first time that the forward has shared success with Stankovic, since the pair won a medal at the U18 European Championship Women two years ago with her friend scoring a memorable buzzer-beater in the Third-Place Game.

"When someone says Vukovar 2013, a smile immediately comes upon my face," recalled Crvendakic with pride.

"I've some great memories of a great team and great fans.

"We played in front of supporters who gave us the power to not even think about the option of losing - it was incredible.

"The middle part of the tournament was played in Vinkovci where we didn't have our fans, so only one thought was in our minds was heading back to Vukovar.

"When we heard that we would play against Russia in the Quarter Finals, we weren't even thinking about playing against a really, really good team, we were just so happy because we would be in front of our supporters again.

"We then lost the game against France in the Semi Finals, which was such a hard thing for us and we played really badly in the Third-Place Game, but that's not important when it finished the way it did.

"That moment when Dragana took the last shot, that moment when ball touched the basket - for a brief second in that noisy gym, it was absolute quietness.

"She was my room-mate and I remember that we couldn't sleep all night afterwards. 

"This is definitely still my favourite ever Championship."

The duo deservedly found their way into the All-Tournament Team two in 2013 and Crvendakic has since earned a call-up to the senior side in what could be a very special EuroBasket Women 2015 debut - back in Hungary.

"It's always an honour to play for the national team," said the Loznica native.

"Even more so when a young player gets a chance for the senior team.

"For me that's means a lot, especially getting an opportunity to learn from our coach and from the older and more experience players - it would be a really great thing.

"This EuroBasket Women tournament offers a great chance to fulfil another dream of mine and that is to go to an Olympic Games."

It's likely that Crvendakic will also provide the main thrust for Serbia at the FIBA U19 Women's World Championship in Chekhov (Moscow region), Russia and build on last year's showing at the U18 European Championship Women.

"There are no bad teams at any World Championship level and our group is tough, but we will try our best to go as far as we can," stated the forward.

"In Portugal last year we took fourth place after losing in the Semi Finals again to France.

"We had opportunity to tie the game up in the last few minutes, but that didn't happen.

"Then we lost to Spain in the last second and missed out on another bronze.

"However, it was still a great result for this generation and especially when you look back to when we dropped down to Division B when we were all playing at U16 level."

The 19-year-old has also revealed she draws inspiration from other leading Serbian athletes and personalities - including a certain FIBA Youth Ambassador.

"Natasa [Kovacevic] is the strongest person I have ever met," stressed Crvendakic.

"She has that smile and positive energy, so that when you are around her, it feels like nothing ever happened to her.

"I also really like Sonja Petrovic and for sure I like her game and also admire Novak Djokovic.

"However, I have to say I have big support from my family and friends who are always encouraging me to go forward when I'm stuck.

"That's important because over time, I have started to love basketball more and more.

"Now, I really can't imagine my life without basketball."

FIBA