The white sandy beaches of Rottnest Island and blue skies above greeted athletes on Sunday as they prepared to compete in the first ever Wadjemup Cup also known as Rotto Cup. In support of the Island’s NAIDOC week, our presentation included a heartfelt Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony on the beach by Neville Collard.

The location for our beach volleyball community was very popular with places filling in just 3 days. The Rotto Cup was run as a King and Queen of the Court style Social Volley competition. The format was fast and highly entertaining for the many spectators who lined the courts and surrounds. It is best described as something like the school yard game of four square. Players initially challenging to rein supreme in their pool and then go on to a finals series for the chance to be crowned eventual winners of either the Men’s or Women’s competition.

Teams came from all codes of the sport, beach, indoor and indoor beach, a couple of teams travelled from regional WA and we had youth and senior players involved. The event had a real sense of fun with a mini-Olympics held before the final series which included spectators with prizes kindly donated by Rottnest Fast Ferries.

On the Queen’s court, the winners were Big Digs Energy and runners up Simba’s Crew. And on the King’s side, Rott-Hoes were the winners and runners up Top Gun.

Volleyball WA would like to thank event sponsors, the Rottnest Island Authority for their support of beach volleyball and for helping us bring the sport to the island. Our thanks also to Rottnest Fast Ferries who not only helped get our athletes to the island but transported our event equipment as well.

Players are now looking forward to the 2023 event.