McLeod lost in the last 32 of the Riga Masters and Indian Open 4–1 to Anthony McGill and 4–2 to Barry Hawkins. It took until the penultimate ranking event of the season to reach the same stage again when he beat Liang Wenbo 5–2 and Mike Dunn 5–3 at the China Open. He was defeated 5–3 by Hossein Vafaei in the last 16. A pair of 10–7 victories over Darryl Hill and Sydney Wilson moved McLeod one win away from qualifying for the World Championship and he took the first seven frames against Hammad Miah. Miah then rallied to be 7–6 down, but McLeod would win 10–7. At the Crucible he drew Judd Trump, a man who went into the tournament proclaiming that "I honestly believe I can play to a standard which is very rare nowadays," and that he was "the best" in the world. He won the first four frames, but McLeod, at 46 the oldest player in the event, responded brilliantly to take a 5–4 lead. McLeod went on to claim a famous 10–8 victory against a player ranked 52 places above him in the rankings and said it was the biggest win of his career. He lost 13–3 to Stephen Maguire in the second round with a session to spare and said the hype from his win over Trump had distracted him.