India knocked out of Asian Games Teqball medal race after two group losses

India’s Declan Marshall Gonsalves and Mohamed Anas Imran Beg were eliminated from the men’s doubles Teqball medal race at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games after losing both their Group B matches on Thursday.

The Indian pair began their campaign with a 10-12, 8-12 defeat to Vietnam’s Truong Giang Ba and Anh Khoa Le. They then suffered another 0-2 loss, going down 4-12, 7-12 against South Korea’s Junsuk Lee and Taebeen Lee.

Teqball is among six sports making their Asian Games debut at the Aichi-Nagoya edition, alongside Mixed Martial Arts, Padel, Surfing, BMX Freestyle and Virtual Taekwondo.

The sport combines elements of football and table tennis. It was developed in Hungary in 2014 by football enthusiasts Gabor Borsanyi, Gyorgy Gattyan and Viktor Huszar. The inaugural official Teqball World Championships were held in Budapest in 2017.

Players compete using most parts of the body except their hands and arms, attempting to return a standard size-five football over a transparent divider placed on a specially designed curved table.

with inputs from PTI