He opened the 2008/2009 season strongly by qualifying for the Northern Ireland Trophy and defeating local hope Joe Swail 5–4 in the first round, before beating Ding Junhui 5–4 in the last 32 in one of the best wins of his career.

He followed this up by also qualifying for the Bahrain and UK Championships, though in the latter he was forced to pull out early in his last-32 match against Joe Perry, due to a stomach upset.

He also qualified for the 2010 Shanghai Masters event where he reached the last-eight beating Marco Fu and Stephen Maguire on the way before surrendering a 4–1 lead against Jamie Burnett and going out 5–4.

This result was a large contributory factor to Davis finishing 16th on the PTC Order of Merit, inside the top 24 who made the Finals.

[6] Davis started the 2012–13 season very successfully by reaching the first ranking event semi-final of his 21-year professional career at the Wuxi Classic.

[7] His run included wins over local favourite Ding Junhui, Jamie Burnett and Graeme Dott to set up a last 4 clash with Stuart Bingham who had won the previous week's Asian PTC.

However, Bingham then levelled the contest before compiling a 134 break to win the decider and end Davis' hopes of a first ranking final.

[11] In the Australian Goldfields Open Davis saw off Jack Lisowski (5–2), home favourite Neil Robertson (5–1) and Martin Gould (5–2), to reach his second successive ranking semi-final.

[14] Davis saw off Matthew Stevens 6–4 in the quarter-finals, however his lack of experience on the big stage showed in his semi-final against Mark Selby, as he was beaten 4–9.

[26] A second ranking event quarter-final of the year came at the Shanghai Masters with comfortable 5–2 and 5–1 victories over Ali Carter and John Higgins.

[29] Davis was an automatic qualifier for the World Championship for the first time in his career this season and said before the event that his minimum goal was to win through to the quarter-finals, but he was beaten 10–5 in the first round by Dominic Dale.

[36] Davis' consistent season continued as he restricted John Higgins to just 38 points to thrash him 4–0 in reaching the last eight of the Indian Open, but he lost 4–2 against Thepchaiya Un-Nooh.

[40] Davis' first quarter-final of the 2015–16 season came at the Shanghai Masters, courtesy of 5–1 and 5–3 wins over Michael White and Shaun Murphy, but he was beaten 5–1 by Mark Allen.

His third quarter-final of the year came at the Scottish Open after he squeezed past Mark Williams 4–3, but he was heavily beaten 5–1 by Marco Fu.

[43] Davis knocked out Ronnie O'Sullivan 4–3 in the second round of the Welsh Open after being 3–0 down and then made the event's high break of 144 as he eliminated Fergal O'Brien 4–2.