Dipika pallikal karthik parents
Dipika Pallikal
Indian squash player
| Full&#;name | Dipika Rebecca Pallikal Karthik [1] |
|---|---|
| Country | &#;India |
| Born | Dipika Pallikal () 21 September (age&#;33)[2] Kottayam, Kerala, India |
| Spouse | |
| Height | &#;cm (5&#;ft 5&#;in) |
| Weight | 69&#;kg (&#;lb) |
| Turned&#;pro | |
| Retired | Active |
| Plays | Right-handed |
| Coached&#;by | Sarah Fitz-Gerald |
| Racquet&#;used | Tecnifibre |
| Highest&#;ranking | No. 10 (December ) |
| Current&#;ranking | No. 19 (August ) |
| Title(s) | 11 |
| World Open | QF () |
| PSA profile | |
| Updated on 13 April | |
Dipika Pallikal (born 21 September ) is an Indian professional squash player. She was the first Indian player to break into the top 10 in the world rankings.[3]
Early life
Dipika Pallikal was born in Kottayam into a Malayali family.[4] She is the daughter of Sanjiv Pallikal and Susan Pallikal.[5][6] Her mother played international cricket for the Indian women's team, including India's inaugural women's Test match, in [7][8]
Career
Deepika turned professional in ,[9] but her career was filled with ups and downs initially. She became more consistent and started notching up winning performances after her brief training stint in Egypt in the beginning of [9]
She clinched the first of her three WISPA titles for in September by winning the Orange County Open in Irvine, California.[10] She notched up her second in the United States with another WISPA tour event victory.[10] The third came in Hong Kong in the Crocodile Challenge Cup in December and that took her to number 17 in world rankings.[10] However, it was her performance in the World Open, where she was beaten in the quarterfinals, that led to her claiming a ranking of 14 as a result of these victories in February , surpassing the earlier best world ranking by an Indian – 27th by former national champion Misha Grewal in [11]
In January , she became the first Indian ever to reach the summit clash of a Silver event when she reached the final of the Tournament of Champions squash meet in New York.[12] In August the same year, she went one step further when she reached the semi-finals of a gold event, the Australian Open, another first for any Indian.[13]
Deepika Pallikal was an integral part of the Indian squash team that finished fifth in the Women's World Team Squash Championships.[14] India, seeded tenth in the event, defeated higher ranked Netherlands and Ireland in the process.[15] She defeated players like Madeline Perry in the tournament.[16]Joshna Chinappa was another key player in the Indian line-up. In February , she won the sixth WSA title of her career after outplaying Joey Chan of Hong Kong 11–9, 11–7, 11–4 in the final of the Meadowood Pharmacy Open in the Canadian city of Winnipeg.[17]
In December , she achieved a career best of ranking of World No. [3] She became the first female squash player to be conferred with the Arjuna Award, India's second highest sporting award, in [18] In February she was back at number 10 in the Women's Squash Association (WSA) rankings despite enduring a tough start to the year.[19] At the Commonwealth Games she along with Joshna Chinappa won the squash women's doubles gold medal, making it India's first ever Commonwealth Games medal in the sport.[20] Pallikal picked up her 10th Tour title in January after triumphing at the Winter Club Open.
Pallikal refused to participate in the National Championship between and due to the inequality in prize money where the women's championship winner was awarded only 40% of the prize money of the men's championship winner.[21] Equal prize money was agreed for the championships where she defeated Joshna Chinappa 4–11, 11–6, 11–2, 11–8, thus winning the title for the second time.[22]
At the February South Asian Games, she was part of the gold medal-winning Indian Women's team [23][24][25] She was then defeated in the first round of the PSA Women's World Championship in April.[26] In May she was part of the silver medal-winning Indian Women's team at the Asian Team Championship in Taipei, where India were beaten 2–0 in the finals by Malaysia.[27]
Pallikal Karthik competed under her maiden name (Pallikal) until , adding her married name for the PSA Season commencing August [28] Following her second Indian national Title (see below) she continued her good form winning the Australian Open, her 11th PSA title in August [29]
Titles
Following are the highlights of Dipika's WSA tour career.[10]
Awards
Personal life
Pallikal studied at Ethiraj College for Women, majoring in English from On 15 November , she got engaged to Indian cricketer Dinesh Karthik.[32][33] They married in the traditional Christian wedding style on 18 August and the Hindu wedding style and 20 August [34] The couple became parents to twin boys, Kabir and Zian, on 18 October [35]