Japanese sepak takraw players said Tuesday it has become very apparent at the Asian Games that there is a massive talent deficit between them and the world's best.

Japan finished the women's team regu event at the games in Indonesia winless in its four-match round-robin campaign, a 3-0 loss to Myanmar on Tuesday the final humiliation.

"Other Asian teams seem close, but they are still so far away," said Sawa Aoki, a veteran who is playing in her fifth Asian Games."

"The teams we played against had space for us to attack but maybe the difference is that we lack the fundamentals."

Aoki emphasized that players in some Asian countries, particularly in Southeast Asia where the sport is huge, begin playing at an early age.

The sport, a kind of foot volleyball that sees players contorting in spectacular ways to thump a hard rattan cane ball over a 1.52-meter high net, has significant cultural importance in countries like Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia.

But in Japan, where sepak takraw has not yet gained a foothold, players usually take it up much later.

"We have to start from the basics to improve. Another problem is that we are not really used to winning," she said.

(Indonesia vs Japan)

Since sepak takraw is a non-Olympic sport, the Asian Games, the biggest multisport tournament after the Olympics, is considered the pinnacle. Japanese players have won eight Asian Games bronze medals but have never stood on either of the podium's top-two steps.

The sport, also known as kick volleyball, is said to have originated around the ninth century. The objective of the sport is for one team to send the ball over the net and ground it in the opponent's half.

But in sepak takraw, players are not allowed to use their hands. They pass and shoot by leaping high in the air, inverting their bodies to slam the ball with great velocity.

At these games, the Japan women were hammered by hosts Indonesia 3-0 on Sunday to open their campaign. They followed with a 2-1 defeat to Vietnam before a 3-0 loss to Malaysia on Monday.

"The best teams have remained the best, while some countries that weren't so good have been gaining strength rapidly in the past few years," Chiharu Yano, who is playing for Japan at her sixth Asian Games, said.

Japan's women team head coach Junya Yano suggested a hurdle to success is the lack of training time and experience competing internationally.

According to Yano, Japanese players work during the day and have to coordinate their schedule to fit training time, while players in other countries train full time.

Despite the Japanese women's futility so far, Yano said there are things that they can take away from the experience.

"All teams are so much stronger than us, so we were expecting a difficult campaign," he said. "We ended up losing all our matches but it made me think about how to prepare for the next tournament in four years' time."