He reached #36 for the 2007–08 season and the same year he reached the last 16 of the Grand Prix, beating John Parrott in qualifying and four top-32 players in the main round-robin stage. He crashed out in the China Open to Mark Selby and in the qualifying for the World Championship, to Mark Allen. Mark Allen was not impressed with Walden's behaviour during the match and coined the nickname Ricky "The Wally" Walden in his post match interview, which received some criticism from World Snooker. Walden rebutted this by calling Allen a "fat c***", also commenting "I may be a wally but at least I don't waddle". For this he received a fine a suspended 3 tournament ban.