Summers well spent – Monika Potokar’s way

Ljubljana, Slovenia. Monika Potokar is a long-time Slovenia’s national team player who has always responded to any calls to represent her home country internationally. However, anytime she is free during the summer months, she enjoys playing Beach Volleyball.

Despite karate being her first sport, she has a very interesting story to share when it comes to how she switched to Volleyball. “My father was a professional handball player and in Grosuplje, where I come from, there was just a men’s handball club. He said that he did not wish for his daughters to play handball because it is too aggressive a sport. So he decided to establish a Volleyball club, Grosuplje, and there my sister and I started practicing,” says Monika.

She started her professional career in 2007, when she signed for Slovenian club HIT Nova Gorica. From that time, she has been playing in many clubs around Europe – Italy, Poland, Romania, and for five years in Greece. In the last season, she wore the shirt of the elite Volleyball club PAOK Thessaloniki. Her favourite experience abroad came in Italy, while she was playing in Chieri, near Torino, in the season 2012/2013, alongside legendary Francesca Piccinini and Martina Guiggi: “I will never forget that. I think I would like to return there, but now my level of playing is not as high as it was back then.”

The 32-year-old admits that she also likes to travel: “Yes I really enjoy wandering around the world, but I would love to travel more like a ‘tourist’, to see the world, not just because of Volleyball. However, we need to take advantage of every opportunity, as much as possible.”

While she was travelling around, she had the opportunity to learn many different languages: “I am quite well equipped with languages – I understand Italian and Spanish, I speak Greek, English, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, and a little bit of Romanian. Although I am the most proud I speak Greek, because I believe it is the most difficult one. It is completely different from all other languages, but I have been in Greece for five years and I have learned a lot,” she reveals. 

Although Monika is primarily an indoor Volleyball player, and she has been a member of the national team for a long time, including at EuroVolley 2019, when the Slovenians competed in Poland, she has achieved many successes on the sand as well. In 2015, she competed with Erika Fabjan at the inaugural Ljubljana Beach Volleyball tournament, and one year later, they won the Slovenian championship. After four years, she is now back on the sand. 

Potokar and her current partner Tjaša Kotnik are not just the reigning national champions, but they have also made it to the quarterfinals of the Ljubljana World Tour 1-Star event, what makes them the best home team in the women’s competition. “Four years have passed since my last Beach Volleyball appearance, and yes, that is quite a lot of time. I think we delivered our best performance. Of course, we are a little bit sad with the result but we just could not do anything more,” she commented about the tournament.

Nevertheless, for the future, she believes that she will continue to play indoors: “I see myself in indoor Volleyball, for at least a few years more, I do not know how many but I am still in a good physical shape. But it is true that I like Beach Volleyball tournaments and maybe you will find me there as well,” Potokar concluded. 

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Source:
CEV – European Volleyball