Dipika Pallikal

Dipika Pallikal Karthik

Deepika during a match
Full name	Dipika Rebecca Pallikal Karthik
Country	India
Born	(1991-09-21) 21 September 1991 (age 25) Chennai, India
Height	171 cm (5 ft 7 1⁄2 in)
Weight	69 kg (152 lb; 10.9 st)
Turned Pro	2006
Retired	active
Plays	Right handed
Coached by	Sarah Fitz-Gerald
Racquet used	Technifibre
Highest ranking	No. 10 (December 2012)
Current ranking	No. 19 (August 2016)
Title(s)	11
World Open	QF (2011)
Last updated on: 13 August 2016.

Dipika Pallikal Karthik (née Pallikal; born 21 September 1991) is an Indian squash player. She is the first Indian to break into the top 10 in the PSA Women's rankings.

Dipika came to prominence in 2011, when she won three WISPA tour titles to attain a career-best ranking of 13th. She broke into the top 10 in December 2012.

Dipika Pallikal was born in Chennai to a Malayali family. She is the daughter of Sanjiv and Susan Pallikal (née Itticheria), both Syrian Christians originally from the state of Kerala. Her mother played international cricket for the Indian women's team. Pallikal Karthik played her first international tournament in London when she was in her sixth grade, and won several tournaments on the European Junior Squash Circuit.

Pallikal Karthik turned professional in 2006, 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 2011.

She clinched her first of three WISPA titles for 2011 in September by winning the Orange County Open in Irvine, California. She notched up her second in the United States with another WISPA tour event victory. The third came in Hong Kong in the Crocodile Challenge Cup in December 2011 and that took her to number 17 in world rankings. However it was her performance in the World Open that shot her into the limelight. She finished in the top eight. She claimed a ranking of 14 as a result of these victories in February 2012, surpassing the earlier best world ranking by an Indian – 27th by former national champion Misha Grewal in 1995.

In January 2012, 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. In August same year, she went one step further when she reached the semi-finals of a gold event, the 2012 Australian Open, another first for an Indian.

Pallikal Karthik was an integral part of the Indian squash team that finished fifth in the 2012 Women's World Team Squash Championships. India, seeded tenth in the event, defeated higher ranked Netherlands and Ireland in the process. She defeated players like Madeline Perry in the tournament.Joshna Chinappa was another key player in the Indian line-up. In February 2013, She won her 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.