In his opening match of the season, Xiao defeated Andrew Norman 5–3 to qualify for the 2013 Wuxi Classic in China where he beat Peter Ebdon 5–3 in the first round and Li Hang 5–4 in the second.&lt;ref name="2013/14"&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; He then faced John Higgins in the last 16 and was whitewashed 0–5. Xiao could also not pick up a frame in the first round of the Australian Goldfields Open, as he lost 0–5 to Joe Perry. He won three matches to qualify for the Shanghai Masters and once there defeated Yuan Siyun 5–0 in the wildcard round. Xiao took advantage of a poor performance by Stephen Maguire in the first round to beat him 5–2 and then saw off Peter Lines 5–3. He continued his run to make the semi-finals of a ranking event for the first time as he came back from 4–2 down to beat Mark Davis 5–4 citing afterwards his work with Terry Griffiths as being a key factor in his success. In the semis he played Michael Holt who was also making his ranking event semi-final debut and from 3–3 Xiao made a break of 111, added the next frame and then closed the match out 6–3 with a 127 break. He played Ding Junhui in a first all-Chinese ranking final and was beaten 10–6, but the runner-up's cheque of £35,500 is the highest of his career to date and he also broke into the world's top 32 for the first time.