Liang faced eventual champion Ronnie O'Sullivan in the quarter-final, taking the first two frames with a break of 80 in the first, but O'Sullivan had levelled the match 4–4 by the end of the first session. O'Sullivan eased ahead in the second session and eventually won the match 13–7. Liang's run to the quarter-finals of the World Championship gained him 5000 ranking points, boosting his final ranking to number 40 in the world. This guaranteed that he would only have to win two qualifying matches to enter the main draw of the ranking tournaments the following season.