Grace reached the final round of qualifying for the 2012 Shanghai Masters after seeing off Michael Leslie, Li Yan and Xiao Guodong, but was edged out 4–5 by former world champion Peter Ebdon just one match away from reaching the main stage of a ranking event for the first time.&lt;ref name="DG 2012/13"&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; He played in all ten Players Tour Championship events this season, where he enjoyed his best result in the PTC Event 1 by beating James Gillespie, Jimmy White and Gareth Allen, before losing to Jack Lisowski. Grace was placed 74th on the PTC Order of Merit. His season ended when he was beaten 9–10 by Craig Steadman in the first round of World Championship Qualifying. Grace fell 11 places in the rankings during the year to finish it world number 88.