SRB - Bogdanovic back in training

SINGAPORE (FIBA World Championship) - Serbia & Montenegro received a welcome boost to their FIBA World Championship preparations with the news Luka Bogdanovic has returned to training.

The Partizan Belgrade forward injured knee ligaments in a practice session last week but travelled with the rest of his team-mates to the Far East for the friendly Singapore Tournament.

He has now had an MRI scan which showed the problem has improved enough for doctors to sanction his return to action nine days before the side tip off the defence of their world title in Japan.

"That's very good news, as seven days ago we had seven injured players. Now we have all our guys available for the final phase of preparation," said head coach Dragan Sakota.

The Singapore Tournament sees Serbia & Montenegro take on Olympic champions Argentina on Friday before games with Spain and Slovenia.

They also face the Athens gold medalists in World Championship Group A, as well as France, Lebanon, Nigeria and Venezuela.

But Sakota believes winning this weekend's tournament will be a tougher task then qualifying from their World Championship group.

"This is the strongest tournament in the world this year, as the quality of teams in Singapore is bigger than the one in our preliminary group at the World Championship," he said.

"It will be a great challenge for us, but it will be hard to get good results against such strong rivals.

"We will use these games to do our best, but also to learn from our mistakes and our opponents' quality."

Asked about the Japan showpiece itself, where his team are looking for a third consecutive title, Sakota added: "It will be a very good championship, no doubt, but some teams are obvious favourites for medals.

"Among them are the United States, Argentina, Spain and Greece."

Serbia & Montenegro squad for Singapore Tournament: Darko Milicic, Kosta Perovic, Mile Ilic, Ognjen Askrabic, Miroslav Raicevic, Branko Jorovic, Luka Bogdanovic, Igor Rakocevic, Uros Tripkovic, Vule Avdalovic, Bojan Popovic and Marko Marinovic.

PA Sport