After losing 5–4 to Stephen Maguire in the second round of the Australian Goldfields Open, a poor run of form saw Walden fail to advance beyond the last 64 of any of the main ranking events until the PTC Grand Final in March 2016 and during that time described his play as the worst in his career. He qualified for the PTC Finals by reaching the final of the only minor ranking Asian Tour event this season, the Haining Open, where he lost 4–3 to Ding Junhui. At the PTC Finals he beat Tom Ford 4–1, Marco Fu 4–2 and Ali Carter 4–1 to make the semi-finals. Walden saw off Barry Hawkins 6–3 to play in a ranking event final in Britain for the first time in his career and won a trio of frames to only trail Mark Allen 7–6, but then lost three frames to lose 10–6.