Daily Blog
Wednesday, 16 December 2009 12:12
Written by Phil Boyle

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And takes home his body weight in pies!

Chinese snooker player Ding Junhui won his second UK Masters Snooker title on Sunday. Still only 22, 'Pot Noodle' as he is affectionately called by the UK fans, beat John Higgins 10-8 to take home not only UKP 70,000 (RMB 770,000) but his own body weight in pies. What more could you want?

It's the first year that the game's second biggest event, after the World Championships in May, has been sponsored by England's premier piemakers Pukka Pies, so they figured they'd give the players an extra incentive. And the sponsors went home happy after Ding's victory as Ding weighed in at 69kg in the official weigh-in, that's 276 steak and kidney, chicken and mushroom and beef and onion pies. If Higgins had gone on to victory he would have 320 pies for his 80kg weight.

Ding said: "We were all excited about the chance of winning our body weight in pies. We all made sure we were wearing a few extra layers of clothes for the weigh-in and I wanted to put a few snooker balls in my pocket but I wasn't allowed!"

Comedy gold there from the Jiangsu Province man.

Ding has now donated all the pies to a Sheffield voluntary group who look after the homeless at Christmas called 'Homeless and Rootless at Christmas'. Get in there Dingo.

The victory pushes Ding to sixth in the world rankings, and pushes snooker's profile in China even higher. In the match at the World Championships earlier this year, when Ding played Chinese number two Liang Wenbo, over 100 million people tuned in to watch in China in what is the most watched snooker match in the world ever. Sunday's TV figures are yet to be released, but expect them to be the same.

We had our own pie challenge a couple of months back. Check that out here. 

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