2013–14 ISTAF SuperSeries

2013–14 ISS Series 2 Thailand
2013–14 ISS Series 2 Thailand
	Indira Gandhi Sports Stadium, the venue of the tournament.
Genre	Sport event
Begins	September 26, 2013
Ends	September 29, 2013
Venue	Fashion Island
Location(s)	Bangkok, Thailand
Participants	Men: 11 teams; Women: 8 teams;
Organised by	International Sepaktakraw Federation
Sponsor	Marathon (Thailand) Co., Ltd.; Warrix Sports;

2013–14 ISS Series 1 India
2013–14 ISS Series 1 India
	Indira Gandhi Sports Stadium, the venue of the tournament.
Genre	Sport event
Begins	August 29, 2013
Ends	September 1, 2013
Venue	Indira Gandhi Sports Stadium
Location(s)	New Delhi, India
Participants	Men: 10 teams; Women: 7 teams;
Organised by	International Sepaktakraw Federation
Sponsor	Marathon (Thailand) Co., Ltd.; Warrix Sports;

2013–14 ISTAF SuperSeries
2013–14 ISTAF SuperSeries
Venue	Indira Gandhi Sports Stadium; Fashion Island; Likas Sports Complex; Tittiwangsa Stadium;
Location	New Delhi, India; Bangkok, Thailand; Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;
Dates	29 August 2013 – 9 March 2014
Competitors	56 teams from 18 nations
Website	http://istafsuperseries.com
Champion
	Thailand
Men	Thailand
Women	Thailand

The 2013–14 ISTAF SuperSeries is the second season of an elite sepaktakraw international, ISTAF SuperSeries, organized by the International Sepaktakraw Federation (ISTAF). The top-ranking national teams to vie for ISTAF World ranking points over 4 SuperSeries tournaments. Building on the inaugural success of the 2011–12 ISTAF SuperSeries, the ISTAF is looking to expand the global appeal of sepaktakraw with this season.

The first series of the tournament opened on 29 August 2013 at Indira Gandhi Sports Stadium in New Delhi, the capital city of India, which was the first time that the tournament was conducted outside South East Asia. Followed by series 2 in Bangkok, and the third, in Kota Kinabalu of Malaysia, before concluding with the final series held in Kuala Lumpur.

The overall winner for the 2013–14 ISTAF SuperSeries for both Men's and Women's is Thailand. In the men's competition, ranking points were extremely tight with the first place being decided in the finals where Thailand played well under pressure and leaving Malaysia with second place. As Japan participated in all four legs of these tournaments, their accumulated points led to the third spot. For the women's competition, Thailand was the clear cut winner with a perfect 1000 points scored from their first placing in all 4 legs of the season. Vietnam took second place with Malaysia just 10 points behind to take third.

Tournament Summary

Series details

Series	Host	Men's event				Women's event
Series	Host	Team	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Team	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1	New Delhi	10	South Korea	Malaysia	Indonesia	7	Thailand	Indonesia	Vietnam
2	Bangkok	11	Thailand	Malaysia	USA	7	Thailand	South Korea	Vietnam
3	Kota Kinabalu	9	Thailand	Malaysia	Indonesia	5	Thailand	Vietnam	Indonesia
4	Kuala Lumpur	13	Thailand	Malaysia	South Korea	9	Thailand	Malaysia	Indonesia

Medals Tally

Men's event
Rank	Teams	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Thailand	3	-	-	3
2	South Korea	1	-	1	2
3	Malaysia	-	4	-	4
4	Indonesia	-	-	2	2
5	USA	-	-	1	1

Women's event
Rank	Teams	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Thailand	4	-	-	4
2	Vietnam	-	1	2	3
3	Indonesia	-	1	2	3
4	Malaysia	-	1	-	1
5	South Korea	-	1	-	1

ISS Series 1 India

The first leg of the ISTAF SuperSeries 2013/14 season kicked off in the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex in New Delhi, India from 29 August 2013 to 1 September 2013. This is the first ISTAF SuperSeries tournament held outside South East Asia, demonstrating ISTAF's vision of its global promotion of the sport.^[1]

ISTAF SuperSeries India 2013/14 was held over 4 days which brought 12 nations together and a total of 17 teams participating in this elite sepaktakraw tournament. The shocker in this ISS was the quarter-finals round between second placed Korea from Group C and first placed Thailand from Group A.

Korea knocked out Thailand in 3 straights sets to proceed on to the semi-finals stage, and unfortunately for Thailand who could only content with a fifth-placed finish.

Host India was given a pass into the quarter-finals where they defeated Iran but missed out on the making it to the finals after being edged out by Malaysia in the semi-finals stage.^[2] Malaysia then went on to meet with Korea, who proved to be worthy winners of the ISS India leg of the season despite losing their opening group match.

India Women's team faced a tougher route as they were seeded fourth and were edged out by Vietnam and Indonesia in the group stages. The Women's finals was contested by Thailand and Indonesia who topped their group in the earlier round robin matches, leaving Vietnam and Malaysia to fight for third.

For the first time, Sepaktakraw was broadcast to over 1.4 billion television audiences throughout the Indian sub-continent through a landmark partnership between Asia Sports Ventures and Doordarshan.^[3]

Team Allocation

The group stage of men's events, saw 10 men's teams dividing into 2 groups of 3 and 2 groups of 2. Meanwhile, in the group stage of women's events, saw 7 teams were divided into 2 groups, one group having 3 teams and the other having 4. Each team competed in a round-robin match format where groups with 3-4 teams played all other teams once and groups with 2 teams played each other twice.

The group stage result is based on points accumulated, the top 2 teams from each group advanced to the quarter-finals or playoff stage while the host nation, India, advances automatically to the playoff round.

Participating Countries

Men's event
Host	India
Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D
Thailand	Malaysia	Indonesia	India
Japan	Iran	South Korea	Singapore
—	USA	Brunei	—

Women's event
Host	India
Group A	Group B
Indonesia	Thailand
Vietnam	Malaysia
South Korea	Japan
India	—

Men's results

Group A (Men)

Group A
Rank	Country	Games played	Win	Lost	Pts
1	Thailand	2	2	0	6
2	Japan	2	0	2	0


Thailand	3-0	Japan
Japan	0-3	Thailand

Group B (Men)

Group B
Rank	Country	Games played	Win	Lost	Pts
1	Malaysia	2	2	0	6
2	Iran	2	1	1	3
3	USA	2	0	2	1


Malaysia	3-0	USA
USA	1-3	Iran
Iran	0-3	Malaysia

Group C (Men)

Group C
Rank	Country	Games played	Win	Lost	Pts
1	Indonesia	2	2	0	6
2	South Korea	2	1	1	4
3	Brunei	2	0	2	0


South Korea	3-0	Brunei
Brunei	0-3	Indonesia
Indonesia	3-1	South Korea

Group D (Men)

Group D
Rank	Country	Games played	Win	Lost	Pts
1	India	2	2	0	6
2	Singapore	2	0	2	2


India	3-2	Singapore
Singapore	0-3	India

Knock-out Rounds (Men)

Quarter-finals		Semi-finals		Final

31 Aug

Singapore	0
		31 Aug
Myanmar	3
		Malaysia	3
31 Aug
		India	1
Iran	1
				1 Sep
India	3
				Malaysia	0
31 Aug
				South Korea	3
Japan	0
		31 Aug
Indonesia	3
		Indonesia	0
31 Aug
		South Korea	3	Third place
South Korea	3
				1 Sep
Thailand	0
				India	0

				Indonesia	3

Women's results

Group A (Women)

Group A
Rank	Country	Games played	Win	Lost	Pts
1	Indonesia	3	3	0	9
2	Vietnam	3	2	1	6
3	South Korea	3	1	2	3
4	India	3	10	3	0


Indonesia	3-0	South Korea
India	0-3	Indonesia
Vietnam	3-0	South Korea
India	0-3	Vietnam
Vietnam	0-3	Indonesia
South Korea	3-0	India

Group B (Women)

Group B
Rank	Country	Games played	Win	Lost	Pts
1	Thailand	2	2	0	6
2	Malaysia	2	1	1	3
3	Japan	2	0	2	1


Japan	0-3	Thailand
Thailand	3-0	Malaysia
Malaysia	3-1	Japan

Knock-out Rounds (Women)

Semi-finals		Final

31 Aug

Indonesia	3
		1 Sep
Malaysia	0
		Thailand	3
31 Aug
		Indonesia	1
Thailand	3

Vietnam	0
		Third place

		1 Sep

		Malaysia	0

		Vietnam	3

ISS Series 2 Thailand

The series 2 of the 2013–14 ISTAF SuperSeries was staged at Fashion Island (Bangkok) in Bangkok, Thailand from 26 to 29 September 2013.^[4] It was the third time that ISTAF SuperSeries has returned to Thailand, since hosting the inaugural tournament in 2011 and the final series of the 2011-2012 season. In this series, a change was made to the group stage matches where teams played to a best of three sets instead of the usual 5 sets, up to 15 points. This decision was made to benefit teams who have to play more matches on the same day to prevent wearing out the players.

With South Korea creating an upset over Thailand in the previous leg, Thailand is eager to draw blood on their home ground and displayed full dominance as they put up a flawless team performance to beat Iran in less than 20 minutes for their opening group match.^[5] They then pushed through their way to the finals without dropping a single set. Malaysia was close behind, finishing second, after an incredibly tight match against South Korea in the semi-finals.

The Thailand women's team also cruised to a victory over South Korea in the finals while Vietnam outlasted Malaysia in a classic ranking match between the two beaten semi-finalists.^[6] In the 5th t0 7th placing matches, China defeated both India and Japan to secure extra World ranking points while India finally recorded their first win over Japan in series.

The 2013–14 ISS Series 2 Thailand was televised on Thailand's leading network Channel 3.^[7] Sports fans in the region got to enjoy almost eight hours of live TV coverage, as well as selected matches featuring the Thai men's and women's teams.

Team Allocation

The group stage of the men's event saw 11 teams dividing into 3 groups of 3 and 1 group of 2, while the first round of the women's race, saw 8 women's teams equally divided into 2 groups. Each team competed in a round-robin match format where groups with 3-4 teams played all other teams once and groups with 2 teams played each other twice. The group stage result is based on points accumulated, the top 2 teams from each group advanced to the quarter-finals or playoff stage.