Japan's Satoko Miyahara overcame an early slip-up to sit third in the women's competition after the short program at the figure skating world championships on Wednesday.

Miyahara, fourth at last month's Pyeongchang Olympics, scored 74.36 points to trail Italy's Carolina Kostner, who led with a career-best 80.27 and Russia's Alina Zagitova, who had 79.51.

Miyahara opened with a triple flip-triple toeloop combination, but wobbled slightly on the transition and under rotated the toeloop in an otherwise solid performance.

"I was trying to force it and tightened up," she said. "I knew I under rotated it."

Still, Miyahara finished within 1.80 points of her career-best short program score.

"I had a strong desire to perform to my best with everything else because I messed up my first jump," she said.

Wakaba Higuchi, who did not compete for Japan in Pyeongchang, fell when trying to complete a triple lutz-triple toeloop combination and was eighth with 65.89.

"After that my triple flip and my spins were perhaps the best I've ever performed," the 17-year-old said. "That was the product of my continuing practices after mistakes. I'm pleased because I got a higher score than I thought I would."

The Japanese pair of Miu Suzaki and Ryuichi Kihara were 24th in their short program and did not qualify for the free skate. Germany's Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot topped the pairs short program with 82.98 points.