Gonsalves and Beg eliminated from men's doubles teqball at Asian Games 2026

Declan Marshall Gonsalves and Mohamed Anas Imran Beg were eliminated in the group stage of the men's doubles teqball competition at the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya on Thursday. The Indian duo lost both of their Group B matches 0-2 and finished bottom of the group, ending their bid to reach the quarter-finals.

Placed in Group B, Gonsalves and Beg opened their campaign against Vietnam's Truong Giang Ba and Anh Khoa Le before meeting South Korea's Junsuk Lee and Taebeen Lee. The pair entered the tournament as World Championships medallists, having won India's first-ever teqball medal — bronze in the men's doubles — at the 2024 World Championships in Vietnam. Their group-stage exit therefore removed one of India's medal-contending pairs from the men's doubles draw.

Against the Vietnamese combination, the Indians were level at 10-10 in the opening game but lost it 10-12 and then conceded the second set 8-12. Those scores left them with no set wins from the match and put immediate pressure on their campaign in Group B. The loss to Vietnam was the first of two straight defeats for the pair.

In their second group match they faced Junsuk Lee and Taebeen Lee of South Korea, dropping the two sets 4-12 and 7-12. The straight-sets defeat confirmed their winless record in the group. With those results, Gonsalves and Beg were unable to advance to the knockout stage.

Teqball is one of six sports making its Asian Games debut at the Aichi-Nagoya Games, alongside mixed martial arts, padel, surfing, BMX freestyle and virtual taekwondo. The sport combines elements of football and table tennis and is played on a curved table with a standard-size five football. Players may use almost every part of their body except their hands and arms to return the ball across the net.

Teqball was invented in Hungary in 2014 by Gabor Borsanyi, Gyorgy Gattyan and Viktor Huszar, and the first official Teqball World Championships were held in Budapest in 2017. India's bronze in the 2024 World Championships remains the nation's only World Championships podium in the sport to date.

Gonsalves' Asian Games campaign has ended, while Beg remains in contention in the mixed doubles teqball competition. India will be looking to improve on their Hangzhou Asian Games medal haul of 107 medals, which comprised 28 gold, 38 silver and 41 bronze.