Former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth sailed into the second round of the men’s singles competition at the US Open 2026 badminton tournament on Wednesday.
Srikanth, 38th in the badminton rankings, beat fellow Indian shuttler Dayanand Saneeth to win his opening round match 21-14, 21-12 in just 30 minutes.
The 33-year-old Srikanth will face Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia, the Paris 2024 Olympics bronze medal winner, next.
With Lakshya Sen pulling out of the BWF Super 300 tournament late, fifth seed Srikanth is the top draw among the Indian singles players in California.
Meanwhile, Rounak Chouhan continued his good run and defeated compatriot Sankar Subramanian 23-21, 21-16 to advance in men’s singles. He had qualified for the main draw after winning two qualifying matches.
Rounak had also come through the qualifiers to make the quarter-finals at the Macau Open.
In women’s singles, Anmol Kharb bowed out after losing 21-15, 21-15 to Kaloyana Nalbantova of Bulgaria in the opening round. Aakarshi Kashyap, Tany Hemnath and Shriyanshi Valishetty were also knocked out after losing their respective matches.
However, Tanvi Sharma and Thailand Masters champion Devika Sihag registered comfortable wins to kick off their US Open campaign in style.
Tanvi defeated Yvonne Li of Germany, a two-time Olympian, 23-21, 21-16, while Devika beat Inés Castillo of Peru 21-14, 21-14 in the first round.
Also advancing to the next round of women’s singles was Rakshitha Ramraj, who defeated Tereza Svabikova of Czechia 21-15, 21-8.
Dhruv Rawat and Maneesha K needed just 26 minutes to get past Indonesia’s Wirawan Ihsan Adam and Serena Kani by a 21-15, 21-16 scoreline in mixed doubles.
Commonwealth Games medallist Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand had progressed to the second round of the US Open women’s doubles on Tuesday.
read more: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/us-open-2026-badminton-day-2-india-report
