VASIC Sonja

General
FATHER'S INFLUENCE
She says that despite her father's basketball background, he was initially reluctant to let her and her older sister take up the sport. "Though we insisted to train, our dad was against it. He was really deep in the sport and he knew what went on behind closed doors. We had to convince him for a long time before he let us train. It wasn't until the second half of first grade, when we were around seven and a half, that he founded a basketball school of his own and gathered all the girls from our neighbourhood. That's how we started training with our friends. He was the one who built me as a player and later steered my career. I was lucky to have someone who knew how to make the best decisions for me, because in the moment I would've probably been too emotional to make them myself." (011info.com, 14 Jul 2019)

WNBA
She was selected in the second round, 26th overall pick, of the 2009 WNBA Draft by the San Antonio Stars. In 2012 she played for the Chicago Sky, and the Phoenix Mercury in the 2016 season. "The entire system is different from what we were taught, from the gameplay itself to the position of the coach to the relationships between the players. It's a bit harder to find your feet there but it should be experienced. I'd say if any young player gets the chance, she should go and see how they do things. The halls are full. In Phoenix the men and women's basketball teams are connected and we use everything [the men] do. It's only then that you realise how it all works and why it got so big. It's really different compared to everything in Europe, but I still prefer playing European basketball." (011info.com, 14 Jul 2019; basketball-reference.com, 01 Nov 2016)

OLYMPIC COUPLE
She met her husband, Serbian rower Milos Vasic, at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. They married In July 2019. "I can't say that it was love at first sight, because during the Olympic Games we were focused on our competitions. After Rio I went to the United States of America, where I played, so practically we got to know each other by phone calls. Few people were giving us a chance. We used every opportunity to see each other, even for a day. A long-distance relationship has advantages, because everything is more intensive and you decide on big steps faster. It's not only sport we have in common, because we also have similar hobbies." (hellomagazin.rs, 11 Aug 2019)

EARLY DAYS
She lived in Belgrade, Serbia, as a child during the late 1990s bombing of the city in the Kosovo War, but she says despite the experience, she has fond memories of growing up with her sister. "We had a great childhood. It doesn't feel like I had a typical Belgrade childhood because we had a big circle of friends and spent a lot of time outdoors. I remember the bombing too. For the first few days we were afraid of the sirens and after that we'd spend the entire day outdoors. We'd train basketball using a hoop mounted on one of the buildings across the street and play together. Jokingly, I always say I slept through the bombing of the MUP and the General Staff buildings, even though those were literally two streets away from me. My folks woke me up when it happened and it was only then that I saw the flames. This tragic and traumatic experience still brought some nice memories for the kids of that time. We spent entire days playing together back then." (011info.com, 14 Jul 2019)