Sepak takraw.
Sepaktakraw’s rules are similar to volleyball; the main difference is that participants can use any part of their body, except their hands and arms. Matches are played on courts similar in proportion to those of badminton, but with a grapefruit-sized ball that comes down with ferocious speeds of over 120 km/h (75 mph). Traditionally, hand-woven rattan balls – ‘takraw’ in Thai – were used, but the sport has adopted synthetic plastic in modern times, under the remit of various regional and international organisations. The ‘horse-kick’ serve and ‘sunback spike’, originating from Thailand, and the ‘cartwheel serve’, developed in Vietnam, are just three of the many spectacular moves that players use to smash the ball over the five-foot high net (1.5 metres).
