Former world champion Shaun Murphy will miss this week’s Shanghai Masters for personal reasons, it has been confirmed.

Murphy was due to play Stuart Bingham at snooker’s richest ever invitational event, after the latter won his first-round match against Fan Zhengyi 6-0. However, Bingham will now receive a bye.

The 24-man invitational event features a first prize of £200,000 – ensuring it is the richest invitational event ever played. Former world champion Bingham got his bid off to a majestic start against local wildcard Fan Zhengyi with a 140 total clearance in the opening frame of their first round encounter.

Bingham was in sparkling form, compiling further breaks of 78, 83 and 92 in an impressive display. He will now have a few days to ready himself for round three – the quarter-finals – where he could face Ronnie O’Sullivan, following news of Murphy’s withdrawal.

Scotland’s Stephen Maguire had no such luxury when he also faced a qualifier Pu QingSong in round one. World-ranked number 14, Maguire found himself three frames down in their best-of-11 encounter, with QingSong notching a pair of half-century breaks.

Maguire responded with break of 50 and 79 to cut his arrears but the home crowd were sensing an upset when QingSong fired an 88 break to lead the match 4-2. A much-needed century break got Maguire to within a frame once more and he would go on to win all three remaining frames, including a scrappy final frame 61-30, to move into round two. Maguire will face Barry Hawkins in the last-16 of the Shanghai Masters.