Phnom Penh, Cambodia – As teqball continues its quick development with its debut on the Southeast Asian Games, the younger sport has drawn resentful glances from comparable sports activities within the area that really feel it’s treading on their turf.
Invented in Hungary in 2012, teqball is a nonmedal exhibition sport at this yr’s SEA Games in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, being performed over three days with the finals on Monday. It can be on the schedule for the European Games in Poland in June and July.
Teqball already has greater than 140 nationwide federations, main its backers to name it ‘the fastest-growing sport on the planet.’
Top worldwide soccer groups, together with Spain and Portugal, bond over video games of teqball throughout downtime, and stars comparable to Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho have grow to be ambassadors for the sport.
Played on a curved desk, teqball melds parts of soccer, volleyball and ping-pong. Players – alone or in pairs – commerce photographs with out utilizing their arms. The catch is they can’t use the identical physique half twice consecutively.
‘In Europe, North America, South America, it is extra developed than in Asia,’ mentioned Marton Keresztury, from governing physique Fiteq. ‘So right here, it is simply beginning slowly.’
Thailand’s Jutatip Kuntatong (C) competes with teammate Suphawadi Wongkhamchan (L) of their ladies’s doubles group stage teqball match towards Cambodia on the thirty second Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) in Phnom Penh on May 6, 2023.
On Sunday, the much-fancied Thai males’s doubles workforce ruthlessly noticed off their Cambodian opposition, the affront to their hosts compounded by Phakpong Dejaroen’s acrobatic profitable photographs repeatedly bouncing up and scudding into the house followers.
That set the Thais up for a remaining on Monday towards one other Cambodian duo.
In the ladies’s doubles, the Thai duo of Suphawadi Wongkhamchan and Jutatip Kuntatong additionally swatted away the opposition on their technique to the ultimate.
One cause Thailand excels on the sport is a pre-existing love for the sport of sepak takraw, an analogous sport in style across the area, performed on one thing extra resembling a volleyball courtroom.
Vietnam’s Tran Thi Ngoc Yen (R) defends as Thailand’s Sasiwimol Jhanthansit kicks the ball within the ladies’s sepak takraw remaining between Vietnam and Thailand throughout final yr’s Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) in Hanoi on May 21, 2022.
Fahrish Khan, of the Singapore males’s doubles workforce that beat Brunei of their final group recreation, however didn’t progress, famous the overlap.
‘We play soccer. So, in the event you see a variety of them are sepak takraw gamers. It’s very completely different,’ mentioned the 27-year-old.
‘The distinction is that they know methods to kill,’ he mentioned, referring to the bouncing winners that the Thai workforce reeled off with elan.
Keresztury mentioned teqball had extra tournaments coming in Asia quickly, in China, Thailand, ‘and possibly Indonesia.’
He famous that the game risked butting heads with sepak takraw.
Vietnam’s Duong Thi Xuyen kicks the ball within the ladies’s sepak takraw remaining between Vietnam and Thailand throughout final yr’s Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) in Hanoi on May 21, 2022.
‘The gamers who’re right here, they arrive from (sepak takraw). Sometimes you have got clashes with sepak takraw federations as a result of they do not need to let their gamers play teqball. That’s why it is growing slowly in Asia,” Keresztury mentioned. ‘I feel 80% of the gamers come from sepak takraw, from all nations.’
But, he added: ‘It’s simple to get some abilities from sepak takraw, however if you wish to have all the abilities it’s important to play extra teqball.’