Liang faced Northern Ireland's Joe Swail in the last 16 of the tournament. In a humorous incident, Liang fluked a red after scattering the balls, but failed to notice and went back to his seat. To the amusement of the spectators, Swail pointed out the mistake and the referee called Liang back to the table. In the 23rd frame, with a 12–10 lead, Liang prematurely celebrated winning the match after potting "match ball", only to then lose the frame due to a snooker; Swail came back to level the match at 12–12. In the final frame, Liang made early breaks of 34 and 30. He missed the final yellow but snookered Swail, leaving the cue ball in the jaws of the pocket. Liang followed up with a safety shot but Swail snookered him behind the blue; Liang failed to hit the yellow ball so Swail had the white replaced. In his second attempt, Liang hit the yellow directly and went on to win the frame 74–34, and thus the match, 13–12.