After winning the Itapema Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour last week, Andre Stein & George Wanderley finally pushed up from the number four position in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking they had been occupying since November and gained two positions to return to number two.

The Brazilian pair reigned on top of the chart for about four months in the summer of 2022, but then dropped sharply until now. As the World Ranking updated after Itapema, Andre & George climbed back up to number two, the position they last held about 11 months ago, just before rising to the number one spot. They netted 340 of the 800 points that came with the Itapema gold as their ninth best score of 460 points from the Hamburg Elite16 tournament last year had to be dropped. With a new total of 7,240 points, they are now 200 points clear of third-ranked Alexander Brouwer & Robert Meeuwsen of the Netherlands, but still as many as 1,980 points short of ranking leaders Anders Mol & Christian Sorum of Norway.

While no other movements within the top 10 of the men’s ranking occurred, Itapema silver medallists Youssef Krou & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat of France netted 300 points to rise from number 18 to number 16 on a total of 5,320, while bronze medallists Mathias Berntsen & Hendrik Mol of Norway gained 190 points to shift up from number 15 to number 14 on a total of 5,440.

Semifinalists Noslen Diaz & Jorge Alayo of Cuba jumped 11 spots up from 44th to 33rd, while the highest leap among those whose Itapema campaign was stopped at the quarterfinals was made by United States’ Chaim Schalk & Tri Bourne, who rocketed 56 positions up from number 169 to number 113 with 1,360 points from their first three appearances on the Beach Pro Tour as a pair.

Italians Andrea Abbiati & Tiziano Andreatta, who won last week’s Futures event in Tahiti, netted most of the 400 points that came with their trophy in French Polynesia and also made a solid leap of 41 positions up to number 131 on 1,092 points.

The newly reunited Chinese pair of Xue Chen & Xia Xinyi, who topped the women’s podium in Itapema, added 800 points to the 40 they had from winning an Australian national tour event in March and entered the top two hundred of the World Ranking into position 155.

The other Itapema finalists Barbara Seixas & Carol Solberg of Brazil earned 760 points, but did not gain in terms of total as they also lost the 760 points from their Paris Elite16 quarterfinal in September. So the former ranking leaders stayed in number three on 7,220 points, 1,680 below number one Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) & Ana Patricia Ramos of Brazil and 60 below number two Taliqua Clancy & Mariafe Artacho Del Solar of Australia.

Bronze medallists Terese Cannon & Sarah Sponcil of the United States, however, shifted up a spot into number eight on 5,900 points, overtaking Germany’s Cinja Tillmann & Svenja Muller by 40 points.

All remaining women’s teams within the top eight of the Itapema final standings also ascended in the World Ranking. Semifinalists Esmee Bobner & Zoe Verge-Depre of Switzerland surged from 26th to 24th. Japan’s Miki Ishii & Sayaka Mizoe climbed from 15th to 13th, Finland’s Taru Lahti-Liukkonen & Niina Ahtiainen rose from 23rd to 20th, USA’s Betsi Flint & Julia Scoles improved from 61st to 51st, while Dutch duo Emi van Driel & Brecht Piersma made it up to position 134.

**FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking – Women**

**FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking – Men**

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