He lost to Peter Ebdon 5–2 and Ding Junhui 9–3 in the last 32 of both tournaments respectively, but his consistent performances have taken him up to number 36 in the 2008/2009 rankings.
"Ebdon's unforthcoming acceptance of the referee's replacement of the white has been called into question by his opponent despite the veracity of the location of the adjacent reds."
Two recent occasions on which he officiated during key matches were the World Championship finals between Stephen Hendry and Mark Williams in 1999 and the match between Peter Ebdon and Ronnie O'Sullivan in 2005 (the so-called "slow-play" match).
His 6-3 semi-final win over the Welsh veteran Mark Bennett (who had knocked out several of the game's big names - including Chris Small, Peter Ebdon, Steve Davis and Tony Drago en route to the semi-final stage) did see him take out that tournament's in-form player.
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This tournament, besides having two surprise semi-finalists in Henderson and Bennett, made headlines because many of the pre-tournament favourites (including the reigning world champion and world No.1 Stephen Hendry, Alan McManus, Peter Ebdon and Nigel Bond) were all knocked out in the first round.
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He came closest to doing this in the sixth event of the year, the Welsh Open, where he received a bye through round one and then beat James Wattana and Jack Lisowski, before being whitewashed 0–4 by former world champion Peter Ebdon in the final qualifying round.