Chinese women's national basketball team came back home from Serbia on Sunday. The team's original plan was to go to Croatia for further training but the outbreak of the new coronavirus in the country changed the plan.

At the beginning of February, China achieved three consecutive wins in the FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournaments in Belgrade, securing a spot in Tokyo. The team chose to stay and train in Serbia after the tournament because of the spreading of the virus back home.

"We trained for three hours every day at the home court of the Crvena Zvezda Kombank Women, two hours for skills and one hour for physical strength. We tried to improve the passing, cutting, penetrating, footwork and other skills of our players so we can fix some of the problems revealed in the previous games," said head coach Xu Limin.

Besides physical practice, Xu also had his players watch the clips of their games so they could seek and find problems by themselves. He even arranged book-reading and movie-watching sessions for mental improvement. Chinese players also went to watch two games between local teams – Crvena Zvezda Kombank vs. CSKA Moscow and Serbia vs. Feorgia – a good opportunity to learn more about the European style.

The hotel China stayed in was decent but local cuisine didn't really work for the team. Fortunately, the players found Chinese restaurants in Belgrade downtown and would enjoy square meals from time to time.

The team went to Beijing Sport University for quarantine after they returned to China. When the quarantine is over, they will continue to prepare for the 2020 Summer Olympics. Previously coach Xu said China's goal in Tokyo was to make the quarterfinals. The incredible performance in the qualifier tournament raised fans' expectations – some now hope that China can compete for a medal at the Olympics.