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Leicester toasts to world snooker champion

Sheffield - The city of Leicester wasn't just toasting its soccer team as one of its natives won the snooker World Championship on the same night.

Minutes after Leicester clinched the English Premier League title, top-ranked Mark Selby sealed an 18-14 win over Chinese player Ding Junhui at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, northern England, to win snooker's biggest prize for the second time.

Selby beat Ronnie O'Sullivan in the 2014 final, and became the 13th multiple world champion.

Asked about the unlikely triumph of Leicester's soccer team, Selby said: "Just a small city like ours, to be Premier League champions from where they were last year, is a fantastic achievement."

Ding was competing in his first world final and aiming to become snooker's first world champion from Asia. He was unable to recover from losing the first six frames of the final.

"I was a bit nervous as I hadn't been in a final before," Ding said.

Ding is one of China's biggest sports stars and said before the final that he predicted about 100 million people back home would be watching him against Selby.

"With the amount of pressure Ding is under, just from China alone, to play like that - I can't imagine how he could do that," Selby said.

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