[5] He ultimately lost to Selby 4–10, becoming only the second player to lose a World Championship match despite a 147, the other being Ronnie O'Sullivan against Marco Fu in 2003.

Milkins also made a maximum break against Xiao Guodong in the fourth qualifying round of the 2012 tournament, and this time he won the match 10–4.

At the 2006 Grand Prix, he and Ronnie O'Sullivan were the only players to win all 5 group matches; however, Milkins lost 5–0 to eventual finalist Jamie Cope in the last 16.

After being elevated into the top 48 seeds due to a clash with previously arranged Premier League Snooker matches, he won two qualifiers before reaching the quarter-finals at the venue, defeating Michael Holt 5–4 in the last, 16 having trailed 0–3.

Milkins' walk on music for the main stages of events is I Am a Cider Drinker by The Wurzels, and after his defeat in the 2014 Ruhr Open Final, he performed a verse of the song in his post-match interview to the crowd.

[8] However, Milkins lost his last 4 encounter with Stephen Lee 2–6 and admitted after the match his performance levels had dropped from his previous displays in the tournament.

Once at the venue in China he came through the wildcard round and then defeated Andrew Higginson 5–3, world number two Judd Trump 5–3 (after being 1–3 down) to reach the quarter-finals where he was on the wrong side of a 5–3 scoreline against Ricky Walden.

[10] He bucked the trend at the Welsh Open by scoring 4–1 and 4–2 wins over Mark Williams and Sam Baird, but lost 1–5 to Ding Junhui in the quarter-finals.

[15] Milkins was drawn against world number two and 2010 champion Neil Robertson in the first round, and defeated him 10–8 having trailed 2–5 and described the win as the best of his career afterwards.

[19] In Milkins' third ranking event semi-final of his career he faced new world number one Neil Robertson and lost all four frames in the first mini session, going on to be beaten 2–6.

[20][21] His consistent play carried into the next ranking event, the Australian Goldfields Open by seeing off Ben Woollaston 5–3, Rory McLeod 5–2 and Tom Ford 5–3 to reach another semi-final.

[19] Milkins was 1–4 down against Marco Fu, but pulled it back to 4–4 before losing the next two frames to fall short of making his first ranking final.

[27] Milkins began the season well once again by beating Liang Wenbo 5–3 and John Higgins 5–2 to play Neil Robertson in the quarter-finals of the Australian Goldfields Open and was defeated 5–2.

He said ahead of his match with Ricky Walden that he had to forget it was a semi-final and focus on his game in an attempt to reach his first ranking event final.

[33] Milkins did not drop a frame in seeing off Michael Leslie and Marcus Campbell at the UK Championship, but was then whitewashed 6–0 by Graeme Dott in the last 32.

[43] Milkins followed that up with a 6–5 victory over Hammad Miah, before playing in his opinion the worst match of his professional career as he was defeated 6–1 by Mark Selby.