At the 2013 Six-red World Championship he defended his title by defeating Neil Robertson 8–4 in the final. Only a week later he won his next tournament, the General Cup in Hong Kong, beating Robertson again in the final, this time by 7–2. A second ranking event quarter-final of the year came at the Shanghai Masters with comfortable 5–2 and 5–1 victories over Ali Carter and John Higgins. However, he then squandered a 4–2 lead over Xiao Guodong to be beaten 5–4. At the Masters he forced a decider in the first round against Mark Selby, having been 4–0 down but lost the 55-minute final frame to be defeated 6–5. In the quarter-finals of the German Masters, Davis lost in an extremely close match with Rod Lawler 5–4. Davis was an automatic qualifier for the World Championship for the first time in his career this season and said before the event that his minimum goal was to win through to the quarter-finals, but he was beaten 10–5 in the first round by Dominic Dale. Davis hung on to his top 16 ranking at the end of the season as he was the world number 16.