Former national champion Alok Kumar of Punjab shocked ex-world champion Pankaj Advani by 4-1 frames to storm into the semi-finals of the PCL-Manisha Invitational Snooker Championship in Pune on Saturday.

Despite conceding the first frame easily in the best-of-seven frames match, Alok made a break of 61 in the third frame to wrap up the proceedings 46-58, 77-39, 74(61)-35, 99-11 and 69-52 against an off-colour Advani.

Earlier, Pankaj had defeated Omer Balsar 4-1 and Alok Kumar had scored an identical 4-1 win over Kamal Chawla in their quarter-final rounds.

The semi-finals and finals of the invitational cup will be played on Sunday.