In Bangkok’s Sports Science Centre, Jutatip Kuntatong is airborne, executing a gravity-defying bicycle kick that slams the ball on to the curved table with a force that echoes throughout the gym.

She is preparing to represent Thailand at the Asian Games, which start on Saturday, but six years ago she had never even heard of teqball, the sport of which she is now the world champion.

“I had no idea at all what sport is this,” the 28-year-old says on the sidelines of the team’s training session. “I just said yes.”

After taking out the singles and doubles titles at the most recent world championships in Transylvania in December, she is now the No 1-ranked woman in the world in the nascent sport.

“It feels like a dream because everything happened so fast,” Jutatip says. However, it is not just her 151cm stature which helps her achieve the acrobatic feats that have powered her success. Many of her signature moves come from a centuries-old south-east Asian sport that has given the Thai team its edge: Sepak takraw, often called “foot volleyball”, which has long been popular in south-east Asia

Teqball was invented a little over a decade ago in Hungary, when two friends started playing football on a ping pong table, before going on to create the signature curved table the game is played on.

The new sport is quickly entering the mainstream. This weekend it will debut at the Asian Games in Japan, after its historic inclusion at the European and African games, with ambitions to be an Olympic sport by 2032.

Teams from 16 nations will be competing at the competition, which will also debut padel and virtual taekwondo, a non-contact sport using virtual reality headsets.

Teqball is scored like ping pong – with matches made up of singles or doubles games. Players may hit a standard soccer ball with any part of their body except their hands. They are allowed a maximum of three touches before returning the ball to the opponent, with no player allowed to use the same body part consecutively.

The rule banning use of the same body part makes the sport “very intricate”, says László Vajda, the secretary general of the International Teqball Federation.

Vajda says that of the 147 national federations around the world, Thailand is the strongest nation at the moment.

The Hungarian inventors of teqball introduced it as a mix of table tennis and football, but Thai audiences see in the game an entirely different sport.

“We reckon that it’s not football – the skills and the way you use the moves is more like sepak takraw, says association secretariat of the Teqball Association of Thailand major general Piyapat Jarunpong.

Like teqball, sepak takraw is played without the use of hands or arms – relying heavily on leg strength and controlling the ball through kicks.

So when Thailand decided to take up the new sport, they called upon players like Jutatip who had been training for years in sepak takraw.

Somsak “Joe” Duangmuang, the national Teqball team’s coach, was a sepak takraw coach for over 20 years, and a former national sepak takraw team player himself.

“It’s quite exciting for me, that I see an opportunity to bring a new challenge to our athletes. It’s expanded a new area of training with the skills that we have,” Somsak says.

Like most sports, different styles are emerging based on national features, László Vajda says.

“In Brazil, it’s a lot of chest and head.
In central Europe – especially Romania, Hungary, Poland – because of local sports, it’s a lot of side smashes,” he says.

“In Asia, especially south-east Asia, because of sepak takraw, you have a lot of bicycle kick when they jump up backwards, and they smash with their feet up.

“Africa and the Middle East it’s very athletic – amazing jumps and very technical, very football-ish.

“It’s quite amazing to see when for example there is a Brazil/Thailand, or a Serbia/Thailand game very, very different styles clash,” Vajda says.

The Thai association hopes the Asian Games will present an opportunity for more people in the region to learn about the sport, which will aid the association’s goal to get recruit more younger players.

Piyapat says: “It’s quite a big step forward. It’s a huge leap, to be honest.”