KARACHI, Feb 27: Little known Javed Ansari pulled off a surprise on the opening day of main rounds of 14th Sindh Cup Snooker beating third seed Shakeel Bhatti 3-2 after an exciting contest at Snooker Zone Club on Monday.

Match was tied 2-all after four frames but Javed showing strong nerves and better potting to complete an interesting 64-60, 73-03, 39-75, 52-62, 73-49 victory.

Shakeel, who once played in the final of national ranking tournament losing to ex-world champion Muhammad Yousuf, but recently struggled on the national circuit and thus forced to play in the qualiers.

Another former Pakistan ranked player Mesam Zaidi made the highest break of 78 on the first day while outplaying Asif Motiwala 3-1.

Sixteen top cueists qualified for the main rounds and top eight will play in the National snooker championship to be held in Lahore from March 20.

The event carries Rs 35,000 in prize money with winner taking Rs 15000 and runner-up pick up Rs 10,000 and losing semifinalist Rs 2500.

Results: Irfan Rasheed Khan bt Qasim Kamani 3-1, Kashif Khan bt Raja Ilyas 3-0, Javed Ansari bt Shakeel Bhatti 3-2, Saqib Zia bt Hanif Raja 3-2, Bilal Ahmed bt Muhammad Baqar 3-1, Waqas Malik bt Furqan Hussain 3-1, Farrukh Usman bt Aamir Samdani 3-0, Vishan Gir bt Muhammad Riaz 3-1, Syed Mesam Zaidi bt Asif Motiwala 3-1, Muhammad Kashif bt Shadab Baig 3-1, Muhammad Moin bt Kamran Razzaq 3-2, Ghulam Mustufa bt Naseem Paracha 3-0, Saeed Khan bt Zahid Junejo 3-1, Danish Karim bt Ali Zaidi 3-2, Imran Khan bt Masood ahmed 3-0, Muhammad Jamshed bt Muhammad Akhlas 3-0.—APP