India’s 18-year-old Rounak Chouhan stunned world No. 6 Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei in the second round of the US Open 2026 badminton tournament at the Titan Gym in California on Thursday.
Rounak Chouhan, 80th in the badminton rankings, beat top seed Chou Tien Chen 21-17, 26-24 in a hard-fought second-round men’s singles match which lasted 49 minutes.
The Indian badminton player, who made it to the main draw through the qualifiers, was trailing the opening game 17-15 before picking up six unanswered points to take the surprise lead.
Rounak mounted a comeback again in the second game, as he clawed away at a 12-8 deficit before drawing level at 20-all. He then saved four game points to pocket the match.
The Indian teenager made his BWF World Tour debut only last week at the Macau Open and reached the pre-quarters there despite starting from the qualifiers. Rounak Chouhan has already done one better in his second outing and will face Israel’s Misha Zilberman in the quarters on Friday.
Meanwhile, the 33-year-old Kidambi Srikanth also joined his young compatriot in the top eight after beating Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia, the Paris 2024 Olympics bronze medal winner, in his second round outing.
Former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth beat Lee Zii Jia 21-14, 21-13 in 28 minutes and set up a quarter-final match against Chinese Taipei’s Liao Jhuo-Fu.
Meanwhile, in women’s singles, fifth seed Tanvi Sharma beat Chinese Taipei’s Tung Ciou-Tong 21-12, 21-19 to advance while Rakshitha Ramraj overcame another Chinese Taipei shuttler, Chen Su Yu, 21-4, 21-19 to make the quarters.
Devika Sihag also won 21-17, 21-19 against Thailand’s Tonrug Saeheng to cap off a perfect day for Indian singles players at the BWF Super 300 tournament.
However, India’s doubles challenge at the US Open ended in the second round with Commonwealth Games medallist Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand losing 21-19, 21-8 to Japan’s Sumire Nakade and Miyu Takahashi in the women’s draw.
Dhruv Rawat and Maneesha K also bowed out from mixed doubles after losing 24-22, 23-25, 15-21 against Denmark’s Kristoffer Kolding and Mette Werge in an hour-long marathon.
READ MORE: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/us-open-2026-badminton-day-3-india-report
