In the qualifying rounds for the 2015 Shanghai Masters, Grace beat Joe O'Connor 5–3, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 5–2 and Cao Yupeng 5–4 to reach the final round. He faced Ali Carter and defeated him 5–3, a victory he described as the best of his career afterwards. Grace was due to play Mark Selby in the first round, but he received a bye after Selby withdrew due to family bereavement. In the second round Grace was knocked out 5–1 by Mark Allen.&lt;ref name="2015/16"&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; At the UK Championship, Grace defeated Andrew Higginson 6–1, Robert Milkins 6–2, Jack Lisowski 6–4 and Peter Ebdon 6–2 to reach the quarter-finals of a ranking event for the first time in his career. He fell 5–1 down to Martin Gould, but remarkably won five successive frames to eliminate him 6–5. In the semi-finals, Grace built a 4–2 advantage over Liang Wenbo, but saw it erased to be 5–4 behind. He then missed a simple pink in the next frame which would have taken the match to a decider, stating afterwards that he had twitched on it. Despite this, Grace earned £30,000 for his first last four showing after he had made £13,000 in the previous two seasons. His form continued into the Gibraltar Open where he won four matches to meet Liang in the quarter-finals and was beaten 4–1. However, Grace could only win two out of nine matches during the rest of the season which included making his debut at the World Grand Prix (lost 4–2 to Mark Allen in the first round). Grace finished a season inside the top 64 in the world rankings for the first time as he was 60th.