Paris 2024 Olympian N Sriram Balaji and his American partner Evan King advanced to the second round of the US Open 2026 tennis men’s doubles event in New York on Friday.
Balaji and King saved six match points across the second and third sets as they rallied to beat the Netherlands duo Sander Arends and David Pel 3-6, 7(9)-6(7), 7(12)-6(10) in two hours and 56 minutes.
The 36-year-old Balaji, 54th in the ATP doubles rankings, and world No. 53 Evan King, 34, struggled to make inroads against the Dutch pair’s serve early in the match.
They were broken once in the eighth game as Sander Arends and David Pel – quarter-finalists at the French Open earlier this year – won the first set.
The second set went to a tie-break, where Balaji and King saved two match points before edging it 9-7 to force a decider.
The Indo-American pair were on the brink again at 5-6 in the third set but saved another three match points to stay alive.
In the deciding tie-break, they fended off a sixth match point before prevailing 12-10 to complete a remarkable comeback.
Balaji had also reached the second round of the US Open in 2024, when he partnered Argentina’s Guido Andreozzi, before bowing out.
He entered the final Grand Slam of 2026 after winning the Cancun Country Open ATP Challenger 125 doubles title alongside compatriot Anirudh Chandrasekar last month.
Balaji and King will face Monaco’s Hugo Nys and France’s Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the second round.
Hugo Nys is a former Australian Open men’s doubles finalist, while Edouard Roger-Vasselin won the French Open doubles title in 2014.
Meanwhile, Niki Poonacha, ranked world No. 81 in doubles, bowed out in the opening round alongside Ecuador’s Gonzalo Escobar.
Poonacha and Escobar lost to Czechia’s Petr Nouza and Austria’s Neil Oberleitner 7(7)-6(3), 6(4)-7(7), 6-2 in two hours and 24 minutes.
Yuki Bhambri, India’s highest-ranked doubles tennis player at world No. 32, will begin his US Open campaign alongside New Zealand’s Michael Venus on Saturday.
Bhambri and Venus will face American pair Ryan Seggerman and Patrik Trhac in the opening round. The Indian-New Zealand combination reached the US Open semi-finals last year.
India has no representation in singles at the ongoing US Open 2026.
