New beach force from Brazil
Veterans stars Carol and Rebecca kindle partnership with great promise for the international tour
Two Brazilian Olympians with deep resumes — Carol Salgado and Rebecca Cavalcanti — have joined forces in 2025 and seem poised to make an impact on the international beach-volleyball landscape.
Both made changes after the 2024 season. Carol, 37, dropped Barbara Seixas, her partner for the last four years. They went out in a blaze of glory, winning the gold medal in the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 in Rio de Janeiro in early November. Carol and Barbara represented Brazil in the 2024 Paris Olympics, were seeded fifth, took all three of their pool-play matches but were eliminated in the first knockout round. The 5-foot-10 Carol has 10 career world-tour victories, seven while playing with Barbara.
Rebecca, 31, went partner-hunting after Agatha Bednarczuk retired. They played together internationally for the last two years. The 5-foot-9 Rebecca was a Brazilian Olympian in the 2021 Tokyo Games with Ana Patricia and finished ninth, bounced in the initial knockout round.
Expectations are high for this potent partnership right off the bat. Carol and Rebecca are the top-seeded pair in the first significant world tour event, a second-tier Challenge in Yucatan, Mexico, on the Playa de Progreso that starts with a qualifier on Wednesday. Seeded second are collegians and Spanish Olympians Daniella Alvarez and Tania Moreno, who are in their NCAA season with TCU.
American pairs seeded in the women’s main draw are Toni Rodriguez-Kylie Deberg (sixth), Kimberly Hildreth-Teegan Van Gunst (11th), Julia Scoles-Lexy Denaburg (13th), Maddie Anderson-Brook Baeur (21st) and Corrine Quiggle-Chloe Loreen (22nd).
“We have a long road ahead of us,” Rebecca told the media. “Starting in Mexico is great for us because it’s much like Brazil in terms of weather and time difference, but it won’t be easy. It will be the first tournament for many teams, but everybody wants to start on the right foot. We want to get a good result but also to keep growing as a team, so the more we play, the better.”
Carol tried to tap the brakes on too much, too soon in her comments.
“We always want to win,” she told the media. “But the level is very high and each year the (Beach Pro Tour) gets more competitive, with new teams coming up and others remaining on top. Our goal is to be among the best and bring medals back home, but never lose sight that challenges will come and that we’ll need to be patient to deal with them.”
The new partnership got off to a roaring start when Carol and Rebecca — after training for three weeks — won the season-opening event on their domestic Brazilian series.
“Winning never gets old,” Rebecca told the media. “It was our first tournament together and, as important as winning, was to have the opportunity to know each other a little bit better. We’ve been training, but there are things that you only get to experience in a match. It was great for us to understand how each other works on the court and how much we can help one another in difficult moments. Playing in Brazil before starting our journey on the (world tour) was very helpful and winning was even better as it gave us more confidence to keep working.”
On the men’s side in Yucatan, three American duos are seeded in the main draw: Olympians Chase Budinger-Miles Evans (sixth), Chaim Schalk-James Shaw (14th) and Tri Bourne-Evan Cory (19th). Seeded first are Cubans Diaz and Alayo (Noslen Diaz Amaro and Jorge Luis Alayo Moliner).
The Challenge event will carry prize money of $125,000 and main draws with 32 teams in each gender. More American women’s and men’s pairs might emerge from the qualifiers to fill the eight spots left open in both.
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