In accordance with an embodiment, described herein are systems and methods for providing direct access to a sharded database. A shard director provides access by software client applications to database shards. A connection pool (e.g., a Universal Connection Pool, UCP) and database driver (e.g., a Java Database Connectivity, JDBC, component) can be configured to allow a client application to provide a shard key, either during connection checkout or at a later time; recognize shard keys specified by the client application; and enable connection by the client application to a particular shard or chunk. The approach enables efficient re-use of connection resources, and faster access to appropriate shards.