“Hey, do you want to jump on the trampoline?” a young man asks Dipika Pallikal on a rather pleasant but sunny Wednesday afternoon in Mumbai. “No, I don’t want to injure my ankle”, said the 24-year-old. Dipika was in the city, as part of an event organised by Adidas.
Having suffered some serious injuries in 2016, Pallikal is now eager to get back into her zone this year. “It was a very tough year, I was down with a lot of injuries, starting with my shoulder and then the ankle injury. But the end of 2016 was really sweet”, she said.
Dipika didn’t play as many tournaments as she would have liked in 2016. As a result, her ranking dropped. She is now ranked 22nd in the world. Fellow compatriot, Joshna Chinappa occupies the 14th spot.
Pallikal though does have the opportunity to better her position in a weeks’ time when she’ll be playing the Windy City Open in Chicago. And after that, she has the British Open, The Asian Seniors and the World Open to look forward to.
Concentrating on enjoying the game
“Each and every tournament plays an important role in my rankings. I didn’t play much last year. I am only concentrating on staying injury free and enjoying my game”, said Pallikal.
Recently Narayana Ramachandran, President of WSF (World Squash Federation) announced that Indian Squash players would be granted a travelling coach. It’s hard to imagine that most of India’s top players had to make do without one till date. Pallikal who originally took this matter up with the organisation was extremely satisfied with the decision.
“I’ve always wanted coaches to travel with the team. I had Sarah (coach) travel with me for two years but it got very expensive for her to travel with me for a lot of tournaments. Since Ashraf has come in (Egyptian coach), he has set up a programme and a lot of us have benefited from it.”
Most of the international teams come with two coaches and a physio. “It really makes a difference. When you’re having a hard point, just looking back to your corner, knowing that someone’s there for you. So getting my letter accepted was really great,” said Pallikal.
Team to travel without a physio
For now, Dipika is content with having a coach travel with her. However, the team will travel without a physio. “If I had requested for a physio in my letter, that too would have been accepted. Yes, they definitely play an important role but I feel right now, a coach will benefit us more.”
“There are physios on sight during the tournaments. We do have to pay them, though,” she said. The Government reimburses this amount to the players. Sometimes they don’t.
Dipika is solely concentrating on winning the big matches in 2017 and it doesn’t get bigger than the Egyptians. 4 out of the top 10 players in the world come from the nation of the great pyramids.
“For them, squash is a huge sport. It’s like cricket in India, wherever you look there’s a club and people are playing squash. They’re 16-year-olds and top 10 in the world. We don’t know what they’re drinking and eating but they’re obviously doing something right.”
And now with an Egyptian coach by her side (Ashraf El Karargui), Pallikal possesses the right ammunition to fire on all cylinders in 2017.
