India's Teqball Campaign Ends at Asian Games 2026 as Gonsalves-Beg Lose Both Group Matches

India's campaign at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, got underway on Thursday in an unfamiliar discipline, and it ended almost as quickly as it began. Men's doubles teqball pair Declan Marshall Gonsalves and Mohamed Anas Imran Beg were India's only athletes in action on the opening day, with the sport making its debut at the Asiad this edition, but the duo were eliminated after losing both their group-stage matches.

How the day unfolded

Gonsalves and Beg first went down 12-10, 12-8 to Vietnam's Ba Truong Giang and Le Anh Quang, before suffering a heavier 12-4, 12-7 defeat to South Korea's Lee Junsuk and Lee Taehyun in their second group match. The two losses were enough to end India's involvement in the men's doubles event, with the pair failing to progress to either the quarter-finals or the repechage round that offers a second chance to some eliminated teams.

The result will sting given the pair's credentials. Gonsalves and Beg arrived in Japan as reigning World Championship medallists, having claimed a bronze in men's doubles at the 2024 edition in Vietnam, which remains India's first and only medal in the sport at that level. Teqball, a hybrid of football and table tennis played over a curved table, is contesting five medal events at these Games between September 17 and 20, and India's early exit means the country will not feature in the remainder of the competition in this discipline.

What comes next for India

With the teqball campaign over almost as soon as it started, attention now shifts to India's other scheduled events at the Games. The next assignment on the calendar is in women's cricket, where India are set to face hosts Japan in a quarter-final on September 18, a fixture that carries considerably more weight given cricket's growing profile at multi-sport Asian events and India's traditional strength in the format.

Context for the broader campaign

The teqball result is a reminder of the unevenness that often marks the early days of a large multi-sport Games, where contingents fielding athletes in newer or smaller disciplines can face early exits even with strong individual pedigree, while medal hopes in more established Indian strongholds such as athletics, shooting, wrestling and badminton are still to come later in the schedule. India's overall campaign at Aichi-Nagoya will be judged less on days like Thursday and more on performances across the fuller spread of events still to unfold over the coming fortnight, but the early elimination nonetheless means one less shot at a medal from a discipline where India had, until Thursday, an existing world-stage podium finish to build on.

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