Sepak Takraw Is Becoming a More and More Popular Sport

Sepak Takraw, or kick volleyball is a spectacular ball game played mostly in the Southern part of Asia.

Sepak Takraw is a very attractive sport and is popular in South Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. The game is also called “kick volleyball” because the rules are similar but instead of using their hand, the players have to kick the ball over the net.

• It’s an ancient Malay sport
• ISTAF organizes prestigious tournaments
• Each team has 3 players

Playing Sepak Takraw well requires a lot of agility and athleticism as striking the ball with a bicycle kick is more powerful and harder to defend against. Malay gambling news report that the sport is getting more and more attention in Europe as well.

The old history of Sepak Takraw

Sepak Takraw is one of the most ancient Malay sports as the first proof of this sport being played was more than 500 years ago in Malaysia. In the 16th century, it went on its conquering journey to become popular in Indonesia as well. Sepak Takraw slowly became decisive sport in certain Asian countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia or the Philippines.

In the latter one, Sepak Takraw grow to become the national sport by now. It is expected from primary and high school students in the country to play kick volleyball. However, it has not always been introduced as something that people should compete in by organising tournaments. This means that online betting sites have only adding Sepak Takrae to their repertoire more recently.

The official rules to Sepak Takraw – and its official name – was eventually presented in the 1940s. It was because by then the game was known in most countries of the South-eastern part of Asia. In addition, International Sepaktakraw Federation (ISTAF) was founded in 1992 with the pure purpose of making the Asian sport more popular in the entire world. In order to achieve that, ISTAF organized different prestigious international tournaments among the best teams of Sepak Takraw.

The first World Cup of the popular sport took place in Malaysia in July 2011. The men’s runner up was Malaysia, while the second place was taken by Vietnamese women’s team. Thailand’s man and women also resulted to be the best Sepak Takraw team. The next World Cup will be held in Bangkok in May 2015. Online gambling sites in Thailand report that they believe their national team will prove to be good enough to defend their title in the next tournament too.

The rules of Sepak Takraw are pretty easy

The basic rule of Sepak Takraw is that players can touch the ball with anything but their hands. It is not allowed to touch the ball on the opposite’s field and also touching the ball 3 times in a row is a fault. The ball cannot even touch the arm and of course it cannot be hold between legs or arms during the game.

A Sepak Takraw match consists of two opponent teams and each sides has 3 players. One player stays in the back, that one is called the “Tekong”, while the two teammates are in front on the sides – they are the Left Inside and the Right Inside. The game starts with a service which happens in a way that one of the insides throw the ball and the Tekong has to kick it.

Services alternate after every 3 points, disregarding from who wins the points. One match lasts for the best of 3 sets, so if one team wins 2 sets, the team wins. One set goes on for 21 points. The teams can collect points by the opponent’s mistakes, for example if they commit a fault or if the ball touches their floor and they fail to reach the ball and kick it back.

Even though a regular set is played up to 21 points, in case that two games were not won consecutively by one of the teams, then the third set, the so-called tie-break, is played up to 15 points. In addition, if the score is for example 20-20, or 14-14 in the tie-break, then the first team who leads by 2 points wins the set. When this happens, the game becomes more of a mind game among the players as the most will depend on how composed the players can remain in these tight situations, according to online gambling news in Thailand.