[8] He played in the Finals against the advice of doctors as he had broken a bone in his hand three weeks earlier whilst sleeping on it awkwardly, but despite this beat Dominic Dale 4–2 in the first round of the event.

[9][10] Xiao then pulled off the result of his career to date by defeating recent UK champion, Judd Trump 4–2 to advance to his first ever ranking event quarter-final, where he was beaten by Andrew Higginson 1–4.

[12] Xiao qualified for the Australian Goldfields Open and the German Masters during the 2012–13 season, losing in the first round in both to Barry Hawkins and Kurt Maflin respectively.

He had his best result in the second event by defeating the likes of Marco Fu and Barry Hawkins to reach the semi-finals, where he lost 2–4 to Stephen Lee.

[14] There, Xiao reached the quarter-finals for the second successive year with wins over Graeme Dott and Alfie Burden, before losing 1–4 to Neil Robertson.

[16][17] In his opening match of the season, Xiao defeated Andrew Norman 5–3 to qualify for the 2013 Wuxi Classic in China where he beat Peter Ebdon 5–3 in the first round and Li Hang 5–4 in the second.

[20] He continued his run to make the semi-finals of a ranking event for the first time as he came back from 4–2 down to beat Mark Davis 5–4 citing afterwards his work with Terry Griffiths as being a key factor in his success.

[22] He played Ding Junhui in a first all-Chinese ranking final and was beaten 10–6, but the runner-up's cheque of £35,500 is the highest of his career to date and he also broke into the world's top 32 for the first time.

[27] At the Australian Goldfields Open, Xiao recorded wins over Liam Highfield, Peter Ebdon and Matthew Stevens to reach the semi-finals of a ranking event for the second time, where Judd Trump defeated him 6–3.

[35] At the Riga Masters, Xiao beat Gareth Allen 4–0 and Jamie Jones and David Gilbert both 4–2 to reach his first ranking event quarter-final in two years.

Xiao defeated Michael Holt 4–1, Noppon Saengkham 4–0 and Neil Robertson 4–3 at the English Open, before being eliminated 4–3 by Chris Wakelin in the fourth round.

[38] Three comfortable victories saw Xiao qualify for the World Championship and he beat Ryan Day 10–4 in round one, before losing 13–6 to Mark Selby.