Indian squash queen Dipika Pallikal has started the new PSA season with a bang! The World No. 19 booked her place in the final of the PSA $15, 000 Australian Open with a comeback victory over the 18-year-old Egyptian qualifier Hana Ramadan in Melbourne on Thursday. After losing the first game, the top seed put up a brilliant display to notch up a 6-11, 11-6, 11-7, 11-4 victory in the semi-final.
In Friday’s summit clash, the former World No. 10 will meet the eighth-seeded Mayar Hany, who is ranked 46th in the latest PSA rankings. The 19-year-old showed amazing maturity and temperament to upset the second seed Donna Urquhart, 11-4, 5-11, 13-11, 14-12 in the other semi-final.
Ad
Trending
Pallikal has been in fantastic form of late and captured her second National Squash Championships title in July, beating the 14-time champion Joshna Chinappa. Last week, she made it to the final of the PSA Victorian Open where she lost in a nail-biting five-game thriller to World No. 44 Millie Tomlinson.
The Chennai girl has a shot at redemption this week at the Australian Open.
Pallikal is the lone Indian remaining
The other Indians playing in this tournament suffered early exits. Harinderpal Sandhu was the one to progress the farthest, reaching the quarter-finals.
Sandeep Ramachandran and Ravi Dixit bowed out in Round 1 and Round 2 respectively. 20-year-old Kush Kumar, unfortunately, had to retire in his second-round match owing to an ankle injury.
×
Feedback
Why did you not like this content?
Was this article helpful?
Thank You for feedback
About the author
Sudeshna Banerjee
Sudeshna is a veteran Indian Sports and International Tennis journalist as well as editor at Sportskeeda. She has an overall experience of over 10 years with top publications like The Bridge, Fox Sports Asia, and gained a keen interest in Indian sports since the 2002 Commonwealth and Asian Games when she was in school.
Sudeshna holds a Master's degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. She attends tournaments regularly and being a highly experienced journalist, she ensures she only contacts the correct people from her network for the most authentic information to be put in her articles.
Sudeshna’s favorite Indian athlete is PV Sindhu owing to her big-tournament performances. She also admires Tennis legend Rafael Nadal for his resilience and has witnessed the Spaniard in action at the French Open, due to which, Roland Garros is her all-time favorite Grand Slam tournament.
Neeraj Chopra’s gold medal win at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics made a lasting impact on Sudeshna. She has also interviewed him along with Badminton star Chirag Shetty and several other sports personalities. She has done on-ground reporting on multiple ITF tournaments along with the Premier Badminton League, Asian Boxing Championships and the Davis Cup.
When not using her skills and years of experience in crafting compelling content, Sudeshna likes to read, watch movies and travel.
Trending
