O'Sullivan went out of the Malta Cup with a 3–5 loss to Michael Holt in the first round. He reached the quarter-finals of the Welsh Open, but lost 4–5 against Neil Robertson. In his quarter-final match against Joe Swail at the Irish Masters, O'Sullivan compiled a maximum break on his way to a narrow 5–4 victory, the second 147 in any professional competition in Ireland. The initial maximum break prize of a Citroën Coupe, worth €20,000, was later withdrawn by the organisers. He then defeated John Higgins 6–5 in the semi-finals, and won the title by defeating Barry Hawkins 9–1 in the final. O'Sullivan then reached the semi-finals of the China Open, but lost 2–6 against eventual champion Graeme Dott. Just before the World Championship, in which he was to play a first-round match with Ding Junhui again, O'Sullivan claimed that the draw was fixed. This was subsequently denied by World Snooker, and O'Sullivan later retracted his accusation. In the end, O'Sullivan won the tie easily by 10 frames to 2. He also won his second-round match against Robertson 13–10 (despite losing six frames in a row at one point), before losing his quarter-final match 9–13 against eventual champion John Higgins.