Brazil will have at least four new men’s teams competing on the 2023 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour after a number of players have announced new partnerships as they prepare for the upcoming season.

The two teams that took the country to the podium of the 2022 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship, Renato Lima/Vitor Felipe and Andre Loyola/George Wanderley were the only ones to extend their partnerships into the new year.

Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2022 Olympian Evandro Goncalves is set to play with his 11^th different international partner as the 32-year-old blocker will now pair with 26-year-old Arthur Lanci.

“I’m very happy to have Arthur as my partner,” Evandro said. “He’s been proving his value for quite some time now on both the Beach Pro Tour and the Brazilian Tour, and his skill set gives our team the ability to play in a few different ways. I’m excited to play with him. Of course, there will be several challenges, but we’re determined to work hard and have a successful partnership.”

A 2017 world champion, Evandro played with fellow Olympian Alvaro Filho and Vinicius Freitas during the inaugural Beach Pro Tour season. The 2.10m-tall Brazilian competed in ten different events and had three fifth-place finishes as his best results for the year.

Arthur, on the other hand, had the best international season of his career to date, winning silver at the Uberlandia Elite16 and bronze at the Dubai Challenge, with Brazilian veteran Pedro Solberg.

“I strongly believe in our ability to form a very strong team,” Arthur added. “I’m very happy to be playing with Evandro and to see that we’re both willing to make big sacrifices and invest in our team. This will be a very important season and I’m confident that with our hard work, good results will come.”

Arthur’s previous partner Pedro has already found a new teammate too as the 36-year-old blocker, who paired with Evandro to finish ninth at the Rio 2016 Games, will play alongside 32-year-old Alvaro Filho in 2023.

The two had a brief union in 2014, when they played in a pair of FIVB World Tour events at the end of the season and won gold in State Jablonski. Alvaro, who split with Evandro last July, rejoined Tokyo Olympics partner Alison Cerutti in the second half of 2022, but the two players only competed nationally.

Guto Carvalhaes, who played with Alison in the first half of the past season, is set to bring a new face to international beach volleyball as the 29-year-old defender will pair with 22-year-old Heitor Benito, one of the revelations of the Brazilian national tour last year.

“Next season will be another restart for me,” Guto told Volleyball World. “We’re starting from the bottom and I’ll have a very young partner, but I believe in the work we’re doing. The Beach Pro Tour system allows for a lot of movement in the rankings, so we’ll have every possibility of moving up if we get good results. We’ll have to work hard and invest in our team, but I believe that the high-quality work we’re doing will take us where we want.”

A fourth confirmed new Brazilian team will feature Evandro’s former partner Vinicius, who is 27, and 29-year-old Saymon Barbosa, who had veteran Bruno Schmidt by his side in 2022, and made a semifinal appearance at the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Gstaad with the Rio 2016 Olympic champion.

Vinicius and Saymon will be the first to debut their new team as they are set to compete in the opening event of the 2023 South American Beach Volleyball Tour, which will take place from January 20-22 in Roncagua, Chile.

Olympic champions Alison, who recently turned 37, and Bruno, 36, are yet to announce their plans for the 2023 international season.