KARACHI, Dec 26: Najam-ur-Rehman pulled off the major shock when he toppled fancied Ahmed Bawany to reach the last 16 stage in Sindh Cup Snooker Championship at Aly’s Parlour Thursday.

Najam of Sindhbad Club produced excellent potting and positional play to down international Ahmed Bawany 4-3 in fully stretched contest.

Bawany took the opening frame but Najam dipping the multicolored ball smartly gained 3-1 with a break of 60 in third frame. Bawany draw level, but Najam keeping his nerves in control took the decider to complete surprise result.

Three-time finalist Mesam Zaidi also suffered defeat despite making tournament’s highest break of 90 in the fourth frame against talented Salman Shaikh.

Defending champion Muhammad Akhlas survived a scare before moving into the pre-quarterfinal.

In another surprise result former Sindh champion Faisal Fateh Ali went down against Saqib in fully extended seven frames contest.

Following are fifth round results:

Najam-ur-Rehman bt Ahmed Bawany 4-3 0-1, Bilal Siddiqui bt Nadeem Azhar 4-1, Kashif Khan bt Majeed Bakhsh 4-2, Salman Shaikh bt Mesam Zaidi 4-2, Farooq Usman bt Shahid Nazir Minhas 3 4-2, Asad Azeem bt Rehan Saleem 4-1, Muhammad Baqar bt Shakir Rafiq 4-2, Mukhtar Khan bt Raheel Bashir 4-0, Jamal Ahmed bt Danish Haroon 4-2, Aamir Samdani bt Anwar Saeed 4-1, Masood Ahmed bt Yousuf Rafiq Bakhsh 4-3, Muhammad Akhlas bt Sohail Shahzad 4-3, Farhan Idrees bt Areeb Shaikh 4-0, Saqib Zia bt Faisal Fateh Ali 4-3, Zahid Junejo bt Kashif Zubair 4-1.—APP