After splitting with Andre Loyola, the world champion decided to return to a former partner

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Evandro an Vitor won the Berlin tournament of the World Tour in their first stint together (Photocredit: FIVB)

Bruno Schmidt and Pedro Solberg won’t be the only old partners to join forces again after most of the top men’s beach volleyball teams of Brazil shuffled in the last 24 hours.

Left by Andre Loyola, who decided to pair with Olympic champion Alison Cerutti, 2017 world champion Evandro Goncalves will resume his partnership with Vitor Felipe in the remainder of the 2018 season.

“Honestly, I was a little bit scared about how everything changed so quickly in just one day,” Vitor admitted. “But I’m very excited to play with Evandro again and this new partnership is a big motivation for both of us.”

Vitor was sharing the courts with Guto Carvalhaes since last August and parting ways with the talented defender was not an easy decision. In nine months together, they finished second in the Brazilian Tour, winning four national medals on the way, and reached the semifinals of the four-star event in Itapema last weekend.

“Evandro reached out to me, I talked to Guto and I decided that the best option for me was joining him,” Vitor told beachmajorseries.com. “It wasn’t an easy decision as Guto and I not only we were getting good results but we also became good friends. It’s tough, but I think it’s going to be the best for both of us.”

Evandro and Vitor have played in 20 World Tour events together between 2013 and 2014 (Photocredit: FIVB)

When Evandro and Vitor first played together, in 2013 and 2014, they were both 22. They competed in 20 World Tour events together and won a single medal, a golden one in Berlin, Germany, in their first season, and also won one tournament in the Brazilian Tour.

At the time, Evandro left Vitor to play with Pedro, with who he competed in the Rio 2016 Olympics, while Vitor returned to his former partner Alvaro Filho, his partner in the 2015 Pan-American Games. The experiences acquired in four years with different partners will be helpful as they share the same side of the court again.

“We’re definitely going to be a stronger team now,” Vitor remarked. “All the experiences we went through during these years when we weren’t together will make us a better team now.”

Evandro’s option for Vitor is also explained by the fact that with the 2015 Pan-American Games silver medalist has played as a blocker for most of his career, despite of being just 1.92m-tall. The plan is that both of them split their times in blocking and defense, a strategy Evandro successfully used with Pedro and Andre in recent years.

“We will split block, yes,” Vitor confirmed. “That’s good for me because sometimes it was really hard to go against much-taller players in the net all the time. When we first played together I was a full-time defender, but I’m excited for this change and we will work very hard to make the team work.”