Shaun Murphy faces tough debut against Zhao Xintong at British Championship

Shaun Murphy faces one of the toughest starts possible if he is to realize his ambition of joining an exclusive club of multiple “triple crown” title winners when the British Snooker Championship begins in York on Saturday.

The Sheffield player, 42, has won each of the three biggest tournaments during his career, but admitted he would feel like he had failed to fulfill his potential if he finished without managing to add to that tally .

Murphy was drawn against former winner Zhao Xintong, who swept four qualifying rounds as an amateur guest and recently returned from a two-year suspension for his indirect involvement in a match-fixing scandal.

Their clash caps off a mouth-watering Saturday afternoon session which also sees eight-time defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan in action against former world finalist Barry Hawkins.

Murphy said: “I think if I end my career with just one from each of these three tournaments I will be slightly disappointed.

“I think maybe I should have more to show for things at this point. I still have a lot of years left, but you’ll want to win a few of these events soon.

“I think there is a special place in sports history for the multiple winners of these tournaments. This is another opportunity for me to join this club and I will do my best.

Murphy will have to break an alarming run of form at York, having lost in the first round four of the last six years, and will come up against an opponent who has seized his second chance to make an impression in the sport.

Zhao, who won the title as a shock underdog in 2021, secured his place in qualifying after winning two Q Tour titles in Manchester and Sweden, achieving two maximum breaks in the process, as he seeks to regain his full-time tour card.

Another player looking to improve his list of ‘triple crown’ titles is world champion Kyren Wilson, who heads to York having built on his Crucible success by winning two ranking titles already this season.

But like Murphy, Wilson will have to do it the hard way when he kicks off his campaign on Monday as he also prepares to meet a former winner in 2004, champion Stephen Maguire.

“I think there’s always a bit of extra pressure with the ‘Triple Crown’ events because obviously they’re once a year and they’re so prestigious, everyone wants to make them count, so everything the world tries a little harder and deep down wants to earn them a little more than the rest,” Wilson said.

“I think it’s about patience and resilience. Sometimes you need to go back to basics a little and just relax.

“I don’t really take things to heart and I believe in the process today. Maybe in the past I might have said I believed I could do this or win that and maybe there was a nagging doubt in the back of my mind.

“But now that I’ve won this world title and continued to beat the best and perform at a consistently high level, all of that has completely gone away and I really believe in some of the statements I make.”