Serbian midfielder Milan Nikolic fired the hosts ahead after just six minutes but the home side were unable to add to their tally during an evenly-balanced encounter.

And after the visitors slowly found their feet, Al Ittihad were rewarded with a potentially crucial away goal as Al Saqri equalised with 19 minutes remaining following a fortunate deflection to leave the tie finely balanced ahead of next week’s second leg.

Stanislav Andreev fired straight at Al Ittihad goalkeeper Mabrouk Zaid after just two minutes as the home side made a bright start to the contest at Pakhtakor Stadium.

And the encouraging opening resulted in Nikolic taking advantage of hesitation in the visiting defence to break through on the edge of the area and beat Zaid with a cool finish despite strong appeals for off-side from Al Ittihad.

Al Saqri drifted a long range shot wide for Al Ittihad midway through the first-half of a slow-paced contest as the visitors began to recover from the early blow and started to have impact with a solid spell of possession.

Pakhtakor almost grabbed a second with a quick counter-attack after 25 minutes but Zaid was quickly off his line to cut out Odil Ahmedov’s clever chipped through ball with Nikolic chasing hard.

The tight nature of the game was highlighted just before half-time when tensions briefly boiled over between Pakhtakor striker Alexander Geynrikh and Al Ittihad defender Hamad Al Montashari as both side’s continued to cancel each other out.

Al Ittihad started the second-half well but Hicham Aboucherouane and Tunisian striker Amine Chermiti were unable to covert half chances before a thunderous long range free-kick from the Moroccan midfielder rattled the Pakhtakor crossbar just before the hour mark.

Aboucherouane should have done better moments later but after being slipped in behind the Pakhtakor defence by Chermiti, sent a weak shot into the arms of goalkeeper Temur Juraev.

But the visitors equalised with 19 minutes remaining as Anzur Ismailov’s attempted clearance hit Al Montashari in the face on the edge of the area and fortunately broke for Al Saqri and the defender blasted high past Juraev from a tight angle via the underside of the crossbar.

Pakhtakor captain Ahmedov could have snatched a winner in stoppage time but opted for placement over power and only succeeded in hitting a tame shot from the edge of the area straight at Zaid.