He had few wins in the next few seasons, although he qualified for the 1995 International Open, beating players including Fergal O'Brien and Doug Mountjoy in the process.

Lines briefly fell off tour in 1997 but returned immediately via Qualifying School, and his results started to improve.

Lines scored his best ever result at the 1999 China International as he defeated John Higgins and Peter Ebdon en route to his first career quarter-final, where he lost 4–5 to Brian Morgan.

After working with coach Steve Prest, Lines had a successful 2007–08 season in the Pontins International Open Series.

During the next season, he reached the last 64 of the Shanghai Masters and the last 48 of the Grand Prix, before a strong run in the UK Championship.

He defeated Xiao Guodong, Ian McCulloch and Nigel Bond to qualify for the venue stages; there he beat Marco Fu 9–3, before causing an upset by edging out Mark Williams 9–8 to reach his second career quarter-final.

He regained full professional status for the 2017–18 season by coming through an EBSA playoff, where he defeated Zack Richardson 4–0 in the final round.

[3] A WPBSA disciplinary committee fined him £2,500 over the incident and ordered him to pay costs of £5,464.80 for breaching conduct rules and bringing the game into disrepute.