Dale won the third professional tournament of his career when he won Event 6 of the &lt;a href="Players%20Tour%20Championship%202010/2011"&gt;Players Tour Championship 2010/2011&lt;/a&gt;, beating Martin Gould 4–3 in the final. This win, along with other consistent performances, were enough to see him back into the top 32 players. He also qualified for the World Championship for the first time since 2004, although he was comprehensively beaten 10–2 in the first round by Ronnie O'Sullivan.