This condition caused Cope to slip markedly down the rankings in the 2010s, culminating in his relegation from the main tour at the end of the 2016–17 season.

His stated intention in pre-season was to finish the year in the Top 48, a tough target which he technically achieved by default after Paul Hunter's illness.

Cope has the distinction of being the first player in snooker history to post a verified 155 break achieved in a practice frame in 2005.

[4] On 23 October 2006, Cope made a 147 break in a match against Michael Holt during the Grand Prix in Aberdeen, Scotland.

After progressing from the group stages, Cope defeated Robert Milkins in the last-16 to reach his first quarter-final in ranking events.

Cope made his debut at the Masters, where he reached the semi-final stage with wins over Shaun Murphy and Mark King.

He failed to do this in the next three tournaments, losing to Joe Jogia, Yu Delu and Ken Doherty, in attempting to qualify for the UK Championship, German Masters and Welsh Open respectively.

[8] Cope stopped the rot by beating Jamie Burnett to earn a place in the World Open, held in Haikou, China.

He played Martin Gould in the first round and, after finding himself 2–4 down, produced a comeback to win the last three frames to set up a last-16 clash with John Higgins.

Cope also qualified for the China Open, but was this time on the wrong end of a 4–5 scoreline, as he was edged out by Neil Robertson in the first round.

[8] He was ranked world number 27, meaning he had dropped 12 places during the year, the most of any player who finished the season inside the top 32.

[10] Cope's best finishes of the 2012–13 season were last 16 defeats in the first three ranking events of the year, which did include a 5–1 victory over world number one Mark Selby in the first round of the Shanghai Masters.

[11] Cope played in eight of the ten Players Tour Championship events, but could not advance beyond the last 16 in any of them to finish 50th on the PTC Order of Merit.

He then beat Martin Gould 5–4 at the Australian Goldfields Open, before home favourite Neil Robertson eliminated him 5–3 in the second round.

[17] In World Championship qualifying, Cope defeated John Astley 10–2, Alex Borg 10–7 and Mark King 10–7 to reach the main draw of snooker's biggest tournament for the first time in three years.

[23][24] Cope's second last 32 appearance in a ranking event this season was at the Indian Open after defeating Fraser Patrick, but he lost 4–2 to Higgins.