Gp Capt Achchyut Kumar

She could strike you with her racket game within the glass walls of a squash court just as she could knock you down with her looks outside. India’s top female squash player turned down an offer to act in a Tamil film where she would have had an opportunity to perform alongside a Tamil superstar. Yes, that’s because for the teenaged Dipika Rebecca Pallikal, for the present, her squash career takes precedence over everything else. India’s squash sensation is resolutely focused on achieving her dream of being the world number one squash player.

Dipika may as well be challenging Charles Darwin’s theory that ‘acquired characters are not inherited’. Born in Chennai on September 21, 1991, she hails from a family which has sports running through its blood. Her mother was an opening bowler for the Indian women’s cricket team and she can even draw some roots related to volleyball, basketball and athletics. However, in conclusion, Charles Darwin was right because Dipika has very little to boast of squash in her ancestry.

In fact, while India’s neighbour, Pakistan, has a long history of squash dominance in the men’s world, the Indian squash history is bereft of big names. In India, women’s squash has been dominated by Chennai, and even Joshna Chinappa, a slightly better-known name in India’s squash circles, hails from this capital city of Tamil Nadu.

Dipika took to squash as an eleven-year-old and has had a chequered career since then. She is only the second Indian woman player ever to break into the top 100 rankings of the WISPA. In May 2009 she stood as high as 48 in her ranking, though currently she stands at 56. She is also the first-ever Indian to be ranked No. 1 in the Under-15 European and Asian squash rankings.

Dipika Pallikal showed early promise when she won the Indian Junior National title in 2002 and followed it up by winning the Indian Junior Open at Pune, the following year. In 2004, she won the Little Masters at Mumbai and made her presence felt outside India by winning the German Open. Training at the ICL-TNSRA Academy in Chennai under Cyrus Poncha and Major S. Maniam, Dipika went on to win the Dutch Junior and Australian Junior Opens in 2005 and her moment of crowning glory followed the subsequent year when she won the Under-15 Asian gold medal.

Sponsored by the L.N. Mittal Trust, Dipika turned professional in 2006. Critics have blamed her for not being focused on her game and if her performance over the last couple of years is to be analysed, there seems to be a semblance of truth in the criticism. After a really glorious 2006, Dipika seems to be waning in her performances.

With more than half of the current year having gone past, Dipika has managed to produce her best performance as only of a finish at the second spot at the British Junior Open. In August, this year, she failed to move into the finals of the World Squash Championship at the Indian Squash Academy, in Chennai. However, Dipika was instrumental in the Indian team getting the better of the US team and finishing at the third place for the first time ever in the tournament; having finished at the fourth place in the last world championships at Cairo.

As Dipika Pallikal steps from a girls’ world into the more challenging women’s world, the future for this teenaged squash star of India depends on whether she wants to develop a beautiful game within the glassed walls or remain just a beauty within those glassed walls.