SINGAPORE — The day after winning the long format crown at this year’s World Billiards Championship in Leeds, Peter Edward Gilchrist was a busy man at his parents’ home in Middlesbrough.

At ’Boro, where he lived for the first 35 years of his life, the 45-year-old was fielding calls from Singapore, his home for the past decade, as various media outlets rang up keen to speak to the latest world champion.

The attention was a welcome change for Gilchrist, who arrived in Singapore in late 2002 under the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme as a two-time world billiards champion (1994 and 2001) while competing for England.

Since becoming a Singapore citizen in 2006, Gilchrist would make the occasional headline — he set a world record of 1,346 for the highest break at the 2007 New Zealand Open; he also won singles gold for English Biliards at the 2009 and 2011 South-east Asian (SEA) Games.

At the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds on Wednesday (yesterday morning, Singapore time), Gilchrist made the most of his return to a world championship final — this was the seventh time he was contesting a world final, and his first since 2002 — by beating fellow Yorkshireman David Causier in the race to 1,500 points to lift the title.

Causier won the short format world crown the previous week and was denied the double by a sparkling display from Gilchrist, who took an early lead and never relinquished it, completing eight century breaks along the way.

What made the victory all the more special for Gilchrist, apart from the fact it was the first for him as a Singaporean, was that he had some 30 family members and friends supporting him from the sidelines, including his mother Margaret and father Frank, two of his sisters, a brother-in-law and his nephew and niece.

“It’s nice to have all of them here watching me,” Gilchrist told TODAY in a phone interview. “My mom and dad never got to see me win the previous two world championships as they were held in India.

“This time around, I spent a lot of time at their home in ’Boro, which is about 160km from Leeds, and on the eve of the final, I actually checked out of the hotel and drove home to spend the night there. I think it helped.”

As a teenager, Gilchrist honed his craft at the fire station where his father Frank was a fire officer. “My dad used to tell the other guys to leave me alone as I spent hours at the table learning my craft,” said Gilchrist. “He was really happy to see me win.”

In Singapore, Gilchrist, who is single, spends his day at the Cuesports Singapore headquarters at Pasir Panjang where he is coaching former 9-ball pool player Chan Keng Kwang, who has taken up English Billiards.

The duo will represent Singapore at December’s SEA Games in Myanmar where there will be four medals up for grabs in English Billiards — team, Scotch, doubles and singles.

“I can’t wait to get home to check on how KK is doing,” said Gilchrist who has been away from Singapore for nearly a month. “He’s progressing well as a newcomer to billiards and I think the two of us will have a shot at delivering some medals come the games in Myanmar.”