The event, which will be held at the Budapest Olympic Hall and marks the first stop on the 2019 ITTF World Tour, comes just over four weeks after Fan suffered a shock quarter-final exit at the hands of Brazil's Hugo Calderano at the 2018 ITTF World Tour Grand Finals in Incheon in South Korea.

It was one of only three losses he experienced throughout last year with the others coming against fellow countrymen.

Fan was beaten in the penultimate round of November's Austrian Open in Linz by Liang Jingkun, while in early June he lost the China Open final in Shenzhen to Ma Long.

Olympic singles champion Ma will not be competing in Budapest but Calderano and Liang both feature in the field.

Calderano is the number four seed, behind China's Xu Xin and Lin Gaoyuan, and Liang will start his journey in the qualification tournament.

Having defeated Fan in Linz and progressed to secure the men's singles title by overcoming Xu, Liang is considered a major contender for honours.

He is one of a group of Chinese players on duty in the preliminary stage who could well cause upsets and reach the later rounds.

At last year's Hungarian Open, Wang Chuqin commenced play in the qualification tournament and ended as the runner-up.

He went onto claim the gold medal at the Buenos Aires 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games in October.

Similar to Liang, compatriots Fang Bo, Yan An, Yu Ziyang and Zheng Peifeng have all won ITTF World Tour men's singles titles.

Notably, Yan won in Budapest in 2017.

In the women's singles event, China's Wang Manyu will be vying to retain her crown.

She is the number three seed in a competition where fellow countrywomen Zhu Yuling and Chen Meng occupy the respective top two positions.

Another Chinese player, Liu Shiwen, is the number four seed.

Zhu, Chen and Liu are all players who have won the women's singles title at the ITTF World Tour Grand Finals, as has the next name on the Budapest list, Singapore's Feng Tianwei.

But Wang was the only player to gain the distinction of winning three ITTF World Tour women's singles titles in 2018 and could take some stopping in Hungary's capital.

Budapest will be hosting the ITTF Hungarian Open for the sixth time. 

It will serve as a precursor to the city staging the 2019 World Championships, scheduled to take place at the Hungexpo from April 21 to 28.

The main event is due to take place from Thursday (January 17) to Sunday (January 20) and will be preceded by a two-day qualification tournament.