At the inaugural Northern Ireland Open, King beat Igor Figueiredo, Liang Wenbo, Fergal O'Brien, Kurt Maflin, Hossein Vafaei Ayouri and Kyren Wilson to reach his first ranking event final since 2004.&lt;ref name="2016/17"&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; He was 5–1 down to Barry Hawkins, before winning six successive frames. King went on to be 8–7 up, with the 16th frame going to a re-spotted black after King had needed a snooker and he missed a double on it to win. King took the deciding frame to win a ranking event for the first time in his 25-year career. He paid tribute to his father who had lent King money for the trip to Belfast.