Far from the shooting arenas, wrestling mats, and track and field, it is the arena with a curved table and a football that might deliver India’s first medal at the Asian Games.

The sport is Teqball, making its debut at the continental showpiece.

With Quimcy Dsouza in the women’s singles bronze medal match, and the pair of Quimcy and Md Anas in the mixed doubles bronze medal match, it is highly likely that India will open its medal count in Aichi-Nagoya with a Teqball medal.

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Started in 2012 in Budapest, Hungary, Teqball combines the skills of football with the typical exchange of racquet sports like table tennis. It is played on a curved table with a standard-size football, a rigid net across the middle, and a service line in play. As a sport it is barely a decade old, but it has made big splashes in recent years, entering the 2023 European Games as a medal event before arriving here in Nagoya.

Origins of sport

The sport traces its origin to Budapest, where former professional footballer Gábor Borsányi used to practise passing a football across ordinary concrete table-tennis tables when he couldn’t access a football pitch.

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“Honestly, if you look at it, Borsanyi converted a backyard activity into a full-fledged sport which is growing rapidly now,” Nihar Shah, technical director of Teqball India, told from Japan.

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As Borsányi developed the idea, he wanted to make the table curved to keep the bounce and return of the ball consistent. He was joined by computer scientist Viktor Huszár and investor György Gattyán, who helped develop the concept further. The first public video of Teqball was released on the opening day of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and as stars like Ronaldinho started playing it for fun, the sport began to draw attention.

Uncomplicated rules

Much of its growth traces back to how simple the rules are. “You have to think of it as table tennis with a football,” Nihar said. “The rules are very simple. There is a service line from where the athlete has to serve, and every athlete has two chances to serve, like tennis.”

Matches are played best of three sets, with 12 points needed to win a set. “The athletes have to use their head, legs and body, all the body parts used in football,” Nihar said.

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“Every athlete gets three touches to return the ball, and the third touch has to send it back, in both singles and doubles.” In doubles, the ball must be passed to a partner at least once, and players can’t use the same body part twice in a row to control or return it.

Growth in India

The sport’s spread hasn’t relied only on competition. Social media videos have helped, as has the fact that clubs like Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Arsenal now use it for recreation and sometimes training. Teqball India, the body responsible for growing the sport domestically, has been at it for seven years. “As Teqball India, we started back in 2019, but Covid-19 hit and we were sort of restricted in terms of growth,” Nihar said. “However, after 2022, the sport has grown steadily. The athletes have participated at the world level and are winning at events like world championships.”

The sport isn’t yet recognised by India’s Sports Ministry, and Nihar hopes a strong showing here changes that conversation. “If we win India’s first medal at the Asian Games, it will be a watershed moment for us,” he said.

India currently has a pool of 180 registered Teqball players. That the country’s first medal at these Games might come from a sport with no legacy and no real history behind it in India, none at all until seven years ago, feels less like an accident than something close to poetic.</p