Valiyaveetil Diju Biography
Valiyaveetil Diju is an Indian sportsman competing in the game of badminton. He has won the national mixed doubles championship with Jwala Gutta and this pair has the 7th rank in the world according to the Badminton World Federation.
Diju was born on 4th January 1981 in Ramanattukara in Kozhikode in Kerala. His father’s name is Karunakaran and his mother’s name is Lalitha. He studied at Government Model Boys School at Thrissur and then joined Farook College at Calicut to complete his higher studies. He has one elder brother named Dinu. Diju is employed at ONGC at Chennai as human resource manager. He married Dr. Soumya.
Diju started his career in badminton when he was at his college. He represented Calicut University at the All India University Championships. He partnered with Sanave Thoman and won the National Badminton Doubles Championships held at Lucknow in 2002. Then he joined Jwala Gutta to win Bitburger Open Championship in Germany and got the honor of being the first mixed doubles from India to win Grand Prix. The same pair ended up as runner up at the Indian Open held at Hyderabad in 2009.
In August 2009, he entered the quarterfinals of the World Badminton Championship in the mixed doubles event. They became the first Indian mixed doubles pair to win the Grand Prix Gold title on 30th August 2009 when they won at the Chinese Taipei Open. He reached the finals of the World Super Series Masters in December 2009. He represented India in the 2012 London Olympics in the mixed doubles event with Jwala Gutta but lost in their opening match itself.
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Updated: December 30, 2012