Highfield reached the final qualifying round of ranking events on two occasions during the &lt;a href="2012%E2%80%9313%20snooker%20season"&gt;2012/2013 season&lt;/a&gt;. The first of these was in World Open qualifying in December, where he beat Daniel Wells 5–2, Barry Pinches 5–1 and Liang Wenbo 5–4.&lt;ref name="2012/13"&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; He faced 2002 world champion Peter Ebdon in the final round and, in a match which lasted five hours and 40 minutes, Highfield was edged out 4–5. His other run to the last round was in World Championship qualifying, which saw him defeat Simon Bedford 10–6, Pinches and Jamie Jones both by 10–9 scorelines, before losing 4–10 to Marcus Campbell. Throughout the season Highfield played in nine of the ten Players Tour Championship events, with his best result coming in the sixth European Tour Event, where he saw off Yu Delu, Tony Drago and Dominic Dale, but then lost 1–4 to Kurt Maflin in the last 16. He was placed 69th on the PTC Order of Merit and dropped 10 places in the world rankings during the season to end it world number 76.