Tegwen Malik

Tegwen Malik
Country	Wales
Born	21 January 1975; London, England
Residence	Swansea, Wales
Turned pro	1994
Plays	Right Handed
Coached by	Chris Robertson & Adrian Davies
Racquet used	Grays & Karakal
Women's singles
Highest ranking	World No. 16 Welsh No. 1 (January 2000 (World ranking for the second time) Welsh Ladies Champion in 1992 (Youngest ever))
	Updated on December 2021.

Tegwen Malik (born 21 January 1975, in London) is a professional squash player who represented Wales. At 17, she was the youngest ever winner of the Welsh Senior Closed.^[1] She reached a career-high world ranking of World No. 16 in January 2000.^[2]^[3] She often competed in the top men's leagues in Wales and as the number one player in the Professional Bundelsleague in Germany. She was a well-respected player on the professional tour and was often admired for her athletic abilities on the court.

During her career as an Elite Cymru Athlete she suffered a serious illness that many thought would end her professional career as an athlete. However, after nearly three years off the professional squash circuit she made an amazing recovery and clawed her world ranking back from last in the women’s world squash rankings to world number 16. Tegwen’s first tournament back on the professional circuit was the Washington Open (that was played in Seattle). Due to a long period off the squash circuit, she had to come through qualifying rounds to reach the main draw. She amazed those who thought it not possible to play at such a world level after being so unwell by winning the tournament final in straight sets to Latasha Khan (who reached a career high of world ranked 18). Tegwen subsequently went on to compete in the well respected Monte Carlo Classic, beating several top world ranked players to reach the semi-finals.^[4]^[5]

Tegwen was winner of several professional tournaments such as the Savcour Finnish Open^[6] (2004) in Mikkeli, Finland where Tegwen beat the second seed in the semis (Dominique Lloyd Walker) and in the final overcoming the top seed, Annelize Naude from the Netherlands, in straight games (9/2, 9/5, 9/6); the Washington Open (2002) in Seattle where she won the final in straight sets (3-0); the Toulouse Open, Welsh Open and Iceland Open(1999). She was Runner-up of the Oslo Open in Norway (1999) losing to New Zealand’s Shelley Kitchen in the final 3-1

She was semi finalist of a number of professional tournaments too: Monte Carlo Classic (2002) coming through qualifying to lose to second seed Rebecca Macree (9/7 3/9 9/2 9/4 in 47m) in the semis after beating two top seeds Pamela Nimmo (the No 4 seed) in the quarters and annelize naude (6th seed) in first round; Semi finalist of the Southport Open, Connecticut (2002); Semi finalist of the Forbes Women’s Southport Squash Open (2003) in Connecticut, losing to Natalie Grinham (who was the top seed) in five after being two sets up. During this tournament Tegwen came through qualifying rounds, beating two main draw seeds to reach the semis and overcoming the fourth seed New Zealander Shelley Kitchen in straight games in the quarterfinals; Semi finalist of the finish open (2003) losing to Salma Shabana, the fourth seed from Egypt (9-5, 9-5, 9-5); the KC Premeir Centenary Cup Hong Kong (2004); the Malaysia Airlines KL Open Squash Championships (2004) losing to world number 1 Nicol David 9-5 in the fifth and beating a number of seeds enroute, namely the number 4 seed (Rebecca Chui who was the reigning Asian Games champion at the time) and number 6 seed (Sharon Wee); Irish open (2005) losing to Annelize Naude (4th seed); the Monte Carlo classic (2006) having been unseeded

Tegwen was Quarter-finalist of a number of WISPA tournaments too like: the Squashworks Open (2004) in Salt Lake City beating eighth-seeded Malaysian Sharon Wee (9-6 9-3 9-2); the Women's Hurghada International (2006) quarter finalist losing to the number two seed Omneya Abdel Kawy from Egypt.

For two year Tegwen played fro Devon and Exeter in the SRA National Leagues as their top female player in the squad. During her glittering squash career she also represented Wales at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne^[7] (singles and doubles), at world and European Team championships, home internationals and during different test series such as Wales verses South Africa. Tegwen often paired with Gavin Jones for mixed doubles events, with the duo winning a test series against the National Irish team in Belfast before going out to compete in the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth games where they narrowly lost in the quarter-finals to the Australian mixed doubles pair (Natalie Grinham and Joseph Kneipp) who went on to win the gold.^[8] Tegwen was also selected for the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games but had to withdraw from the competition due to injury.

Off the squash court, Tegwen studied physics at Bristol University (where she was awarded the prestigious Bristol Red for her sporting achievements) and went on to work in the field of medical physics as a researcher before doing her PhD in biomimicry. She has published several articles [9, 10] in peer reviewed journals in this field and was invited to give a guest talk on this research at MIT. Tegwen subsequently went on to work for Lifescaped, a company specialising in the field of biomimicry before taking up a permanent position, lecturing at Swansea University in the areas on operations, strategy, analytics and international standards. During this time, Tegwen has co-authored a book on International Standards 11 and brings this content into her teaching around ISO and BSI standards.