China's 100m backstroke world champion Xu Jiayu was beaten by his old rival Ryan Murphy at the Fina Short-course Swimming Hangzhou Worlds on Wednesday.
Xu, world record holder of the event, touched in 49.26 seconds, 0.03 second slower than the winner. The American led all the way to take the gold. Russia's Kliment Kolesnikov was third in 49.40.
Xu had lost to Murphy at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games where he was also the runner-up.
"I'm sorry," said Xu, who was very disappointed. "I tried my best. I was too nervous that I almost cried before the final."
"This time I didn't perform well. My aim is at the long course," added Xu, who was the gold hopeful of the event as he broke the world record one month ago at the World Cup in Tokyo.
