Shaun Murphy will be looking to kick-start his season in Guangzhou this week and go one better than the runners-up finish he recorded at the China Championship last year.

Murphy, who was crowned world champion back in 2005, lost out to the ‘Belgian Bullet’ Luca Brecel in the final last year, going down 10-5 at the Guangzhou Tianhe Sports Centre.

The Englishman had three further final losses that season – losing out at the UK Championship, Paul Hunter Classic and Players Championship – but he did manage to go all the way at the Champion of Champions.

Life has been a lot tougher for the 36-year-old so far in this campaign and he has failed to get past the second round in any tournament, whilst he lost in qualifying for the World Open and European Masters.

A return to China could be exactly what the eighth seed requires to get him back on track and he goes up against compatriot Liam Highfield in round one on Tuesday.

The latter is yet to win a trophy although he did demonstrate his quality last season when reaching the quarter-finals stage of the Indian Open, where he was knocked out by Scotland’s John Higgins.

Murphy has won the previous two meetings – both of which came last year – although the matches have been extremely tight and they were decided by a final-frame decider.

‘The Magician’ is the 1.30 favourite to move into the next round whilst Highfield is priced at 3.25 to cause an upset. Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s Marco Fu also gets his tournament underway on Tuesday when he takes on China’s Zhang Anda, who reached the quarter finals of the Paul Hunter Classic this season.

The more experienced Fu is the 1.33 favourite to win whilst his 26-year-old opponent is 3.10 to triumph.