Alicia Blagg and Rebecca Gallantree finished 10th as the first British diving finalists of the 2015 World Championships in Kazan.
The City of Leeds pair, who won Commonwealth gold at Glasgow 2014 last season, scored 286.86 in the 3m Synchro final as China’s Shi Tingmao and Wu Minxia defended their title on 351.30.
While they finished fourth in the morning prelim, the Brits were playing catch up from an early stage in the final, ranking seventh after the two opening required dives then slipping down to 11th after scoring 57.66 for their forward 3 ½ piked dive.
Blagg and Gallantree did raise their level in the last two rounds, scoring 68.40 for their back 2 ½ piked and 64.8 for their forward 2 ½ somersaults, one twist piked.
But with a number of countries improving on their prelim scores, the Brits could only recover one place, ultimately finishing less than 18 points shy of the podium places as Canada (319.47) took silver and Australia (304.20) bronze.
"We both dropped that third dive and everyone upped their game in the final," said Blagg. "When people are scoring 70 for their optionals, it's really hard to follow, especially coming after the Russians because they had the crowd behind them.
"When you get that pressure from the crowd, it does get to you."
Gallantree added: "The top three qualified for the Olympics today but the rest of the places will be decided at next year's World Cup so we're going to have to get back in to hard training when we get home to get ready for that."