Dipika Pallikal Wiki, Career and Championship
Dipika Pallikal Karthik is an Indian professional squash player. Her mother’s maiden name was Pallikal, and she was born on September 21, 1991. In the history of the women’s PSA rankings, she is the first player of Indian descent to crack the top ten.
Dipika Pallikal was born in Kottayam into a Malayali Christian family. She was born to Sanjiv and Susan Pallikal, who are her parents. Her mother was a member of the Indian women’s squad and competed in international cricket.
In 2006, Deepika made the transition from amateur to professional acting, although the early stages of her career were fraught with challenges. After a short period of time spent in Egypt for training at the beginning of 2011, she returned to the United States more reliable and began racking up winning performances.
WISPA titles
In September, she triumphed at the Orange County Open held in Irvine, California, to earn the first of her three WISPA titles for the 2011 season. She won yet another competition on the WISPA tour, giving her a total of two victories in the United States. She moved up to number 17 in the world rankings as a result of her third-place finish at the Crocodile Challenge Cup, which took place in Hong Kong in December of 2011.
However, it was her performance in the World Open that brought her to the forefront of the public’s attention. She came in seventh out of eight competitors. As a result of these victories in February of 2012, she was awarded a ranking of 14, exceeding the previous greatest world ranking achieved by an Indian, which was 27th and held by former national champion Misha Grewal in 1995.
When she competed in the final round of the Tournament of Champions squash competition in New York in January 2012, she made history by becoming the first Indian athlete in history to reach the championship match of a Silver event.
She went on to achieve another first for an Indian when, in August of the same year, she competed in the gold-level competition of 2012 Australian Open and made it to the semifinals of the competition.
Deepika Pallikal was an essential member of the Indian squash squad that competed in the Women’s World Team Squash Championships in 2012 and ended in fifth place overall.
In the course of the competition, India, which was seeded tenth, achieved victories over the Netherlands and Ireland, both of which were rated higher. In the tournament, she was victorious over opponents such as Madeline Perry. Another important player for India was Joshna Chinappa, who played second doubles.
She defeated Joey Chan of Hong Kong 11–9, 11–7, and 11–4 in the championship match of the Meadowood Pharmacy Open, which took place in the city of Winnipeg in the country Canada in February of 2013. This victory earned her the sixth World Squash Association title of her career.
Dipika Pallikal’s Career
She achieved a career-best ranking of 10 in December 2012, which allowed her to enter the top 10 for the first time. In the year 2012, she made history by becoming the first female squash player in the world to be honored with India’s Arjuna Award, which is the country’s second-highest sporting honor.
Despite having a challenging beginning to the year, she managed to climb back up to the number 10 spot in the Women’s Squash Association (WSA) rankings in February of 2014.
In the women’s squash doubles competition at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, she and her partner Joshna Chinappa won the gold medal, which was India’s first-ever medal at the Commonwealth Games for any event. In January of 2015, Pallikal won the Winter Club Open, which resulted in her earning her tenth victory on the Tour.
At the South Asian Games that took place in February 2016, she was a member of the Indian Women’s team that ended up winning the gold medal.
The next month in April, she competed in the first round of the PSA Women’s World Championship but was ultimately unsuccessful. At the Asian Team Championship held in Taiwan in May, she was a member of the Indian Women’s team that ended up winning the silver medal.
Up until 2016, Pallikal Karthik competed using her maiden name, which was Pallikal. Beginning with the 2016-17 PSA Season, which began in August 2016, she began using her marital name.
The National Championship was skipped, and a resounding victory was achieved.
Because of the disparity in prize money between the men’s and women’s championships, Pallikal Karthik chose not to compete in the National Championship Squash from 2012 until 2015. This was due to the fact that the winner of the women’s championship received only forty percent of the prize money awarded to the winner of the men’s championship.
In the 2016 championships, equal prize money was finally agreed upon, and Deepika Pallikal Karthik defeated Joshna Chinappa to win the title for a second time. Deepika Pallikal Karthik won the match 4-11, 11-6, 11-2, 11-8.
Dipika Pallikal’s Personal life
Ethiraj College for Women was Pallikal Karthik’s alma mater, and she majored in English there (IIIrd year-2012-2013). She became engaged to the Indian cricketer Dinesh Karthik on November 15, 2013, and they went ahead and tied the knot on August 18, 2015, and August 20, 2015, respectively, with a regular Christian wedding ceremony and a Hindu wedding ceremony.
On October 18th, 2021, the couple welcomed identical sons into the world whom they named Kabir and Zian.
Read More: Dinesh Karthik Cricket stats, Personal information, Salary, and Brand Endorsement