Cope began the 2011–12 season with a first round loss in the Australian Goldfields Open and a second round defeat in the Shanghai Masters, resulting in him losing his place in the top 16 after the first rankings cut-off in October, as he was placed number 18.&lt;ref name="2011/12"&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; Therefore, Cope was now required to win a qualifying match to reach the main draw of the ranking events. He failed to do this in the next three tournaments, losing to Joe Jogia, Yu Delu and Ken Doherty, in attempting to qualify for the UK Championship, German Masters and Welsh Open respectively. Cope stopped the rot by beating Jamie Burnett to earn a place in the World Open, held in Haikou, China. He played Martin Gould in the first round and, after finding himself 2–4 down, produced a comeback to win the last three frames to set up a last-16 clash with John Higgins. Cope could not continue his run in the tournament, however, being whitewashed 0–5 by the reigning world champion. Cope also qualified for the China Open, but was this time on the wrong end of a 4–5 scoreline, as he was edged out by Neil Robertson in the first round. Cope's season came to an end soon after this, as he lost in qualifying for the World Championship to Liu Chuang. He was ranked world number 27, meaning he had dropped 12 places during the year, the most of any player who finished the season inside the top 32.