Mark Selby seals the World Championship title with an 18-14 win over Ding Junhui

Leicester City fan has much to celebrate after saving best performance for final

Mark Selby swept to Crucible glory and gave Leicester a second trophy of the night as he fended off Ding Junhui in the Betfred World Championship final.

As parties erupted following Leicester City’s Premier League footballing success, another was about to begin 70 miles up the M1 as Foxes fan Selby powered to an 18-14 triumph.

“It’s fantastic. I’m just really happy to win,” Selby said. “I saved my best performance for the final.”

Selby took a month off the tour for personal reasons before heading to Sheffield, and at times that absence showed in his game.

But, come the final, he had brushed off the rust.

The 6-0 lead Selby established on Sunday was whittled down by Ding, but ultimately he could not overhaul the world number one.

China’s first finalist in snooker’s premier tournament clawed his way back to 10-9 and 11-10 yesterday afternoon, but going level proved beyond him each time.

Selby led from start to finish and was a worthy champion, collecting snooker’s biggest ever prize cheque of £330,000 to go with the silverware.

It was Ronnie O’Sullivan that Selby saw off in 2014, when he staged a terrific second-day fightback to scoop the title.

This time Selby was in charge and had to deal with that very different pressure, beginning the day 10-7 in front of a player whose dip in form over the past year meant he had to negotiate the qualifying rounds.

At times during the contest Ding rolled back time to when he was the world’s number one player, making three century breaks – 103 each time.

However, following Ding’s early nibble at his lead yesterday, Selby began to fire.

He had breaks of 126, 52, 68 and 55 in pulling 14-11 clear heading into the evening.

Ding fought back again to 16-14, but Selby kept his nerve.

Picture: Getty. Leicester City fan Mark Selby had much to celebrate at the Crucible last night, winning the World Snooker crown shortly after his football favourites secured the Premier League title.