Balaji, ranked 324, was trailing his opponent, ranked more than 700 places below him in the world, 1-4 before clawing his way into the match to post a hard-fought 7-5 6-4 victory in ten minutes under two hours to enter round two.
Also through to the singles second round was sixth seed and national champion Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and the runner-up Arjun Kadhe along with Australian Nicolas Reissig.
Jeevan, ranked 395, ousted wild card P C Vignesh while Kadhe got past fellow wild card Kunal Anand.
Reissig, ranked 515 and seeded 10th, ousted Indian rival Ajai Selvaraj (1131) with all matches decided in straight sets.
Results: Singles (1st round): WC-Arjun Khade (IND) bt WC-Kunal Anand (IND) 6-3 6-0; Nicolas Reissig (AUT) bt Ajai Selvaraj (IND) 6-3 6-3; 6-Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (IND) bt Vignesh Peranamallur (IND) 6-2 6-3; 3-N Sriram Balaji (IND) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) 7-5 6-4.
Singles Qualifying (3rd round): Lakshit Sood (IND) bt Abhijeet Tiwari (IND) 4-6 6-3 6-2; William Kendal (USA) bt Darshan Srinivasa (IND) 6-2 6-0; Rakshay Thakkar (IND) bt Ronak Manjula (IND) 6-3 6-7(5) 6-3; Neeraj Elangovan (IND) bt Anvit Bendre (IND) 6-3 6-2; Jui-Chen Hung (TPE) bt Ting Yu Chuang (TPE) 7-6(1) 5-7 7-5; Peng Chih Hsueh (TPE) bt Akash Wagh (IND) 6-2 6-3; Sebestian Ofner (AUT) bt Rajat Maheshwari (IND) 6-4 6-2; Jatin Dahiya (IND) bt Sagar Manjanna (IND) 7-6(11) 6-3.
Doubles (1st round): 1-Saket Myneni/Purav Raja (IND) bt Anvit Bendre/Tejas Chaukulkar (IND) 6-0 6-4.