

A Kazakh volleyball player is facing a tough time from her team-mates because her mesmerising good looks are distracting fans from the game.

Sabina Altynbekova was just another 18-year-old girl before she turned up in the Taiwanese capital Taipei to compete for Kazakhstan in the Asian Under-19 Championships.

Now local media that would normally only write a couple of lines about the competition are devoting 10 page picture features about her and artists are turning out anime fantasies about her.

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Beautiful: Sabina Altynbekova warms up for a volleyball match. Thousands of fans have begun following the 18-year-old since she turned up as part of Kazakhstan's Under-19 volleyball team for the Asian Championships

Social media pictures of Miss Altynbekova: Every picture of the teenager is attracting thousands of online comments from fans, mostly young men from China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and other South East Asian nations

Another social media picture of Miss Altynbekova, blowing a kiss to the camera: She has said that she's flattered by the attention but she asked fans to stop setting up social media pages in her honour

But her sudden move to centre stage has left members of her own team slightly miffed, and now media in her homeland have slammed the obsession with her.

'Fans just stare at her and they are not following the championship any more,' reported Vesti, a respected Kazakh daily paper.

Even her coach on Kazakhstan's Under-19 national team has complained about it. Nurlan Sadikov told Tengrin News: 'It is impossible to work like this.

'The crowd behaves like there is only one player at the championship.'

Obsession: An anime-style picture of Miss Altynbekova made by one of her millions of fans

Their complaints have had absolutely no effect on South East Asia's obsession with Miss Altynbekova.

Every photo of her attracts huge numbers of comments and Facebook pages claiming to represent her are attracting tens of thousands followers, mostly from China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines.

I was flattered at first but it's all getting a little bit much...

She has said she is very flattered by the attention, but she appealed for fans to stop setting up social media pages in her honour and instead focus on the volleyball..