Rio Olympics stars Anabelle Smith and Maddison Keeney have missed out on a 3m springboard synchro medal at the diving world championships, finishing fourth.
The Australians, who teamed up to claim Olympic bronze last year in the same event, qualified fourth for the 12-team final in Budapest on Monday.
But they failed to genuinely challenge the top three teams from China, Canada and Russia in the final after the first of their five dives was scored the sixth-highest.
They improved on their next two efforts but their fourth dive was again rated sixth-best.
It put Chinese winners Yani Chang and Tingmao Shi, silver medallists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Citrini-Beaulieu of Canada and third-placed Russians Nadezhda Bazhina and Kristina Ilinykh out of reach.
Meanwhile, fellow Australians Domonic Bedggood and Declan Stacey placed eighth in the final of the 10m platform synchro.
Chinese pair Aisen Chen and Hao Yang took gold, taking the country's tally to five titles from the seven events by the fourth day of the championships.
Australia's sole medal come on Saturday when Keeney claimed gold in the 1m springboard.
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