Olympic champion Matthew Mitcham is perfectly poised for a maiden world title after delivering the highest scoring dive in the preliminary round of the 10m platform at the FINA world championships on Monday.

Mitcham nailed a 102.60 point dive with his sixth and final attempt in the qualifying round - the only diver in the field to post a 100-point plus score.

It wasn't quite the 112.10 points he scored in Beijing last year to clinch the Olympic gold medal, but there is little doubting Mitcham's ability to deliver with the back two and a half somersault with two and a half twists.

"I am surprised how well I'm doing," Mitcham said.

Despite his last round heroics Mitcham still only qualified in fourth place with 491.50 points, behind China's Qiu Bo (515.75), Cuba's Jose Guerra (515.65) and Chinese Olympic silver medallist Zhou Luxin (495.55).

Highly touted British teenager Thomas Daley was just behind Mitcham in fifth place on 475.80 points.

Mitcham will start as the favourite for the semi-final and final on Tuesday, and should improve considerably in the rankings after he failed with his new dive in the preliminary rounds, scoring a meagre 55.80 points with his back 3.5 somersault with pike.

He scored more than 100 points for that dive at a competition in Madrid last month and repeating such an effort here in Italy would put him in a good position to improve on his 1m springboard bronze medal from earlier in the meet.

"I severely dropped about 30 points on my fourth dive today," said Mitcham. "It is my new dive (back 3.5 pike), which I have only added in the last two months to my dive list.

"I'm not overly concerned as it can only get better as I perform it more often.

"It is actually a good score today as I always dive better in finals and don't feel any pressure."

Mitcham isn't the only Australian vying for medals on Tuesday after both Briony Cole and Sharleen Stratton powered into the final of the women's 3m springboard.

Cole qualified in sixth place and Stratton in seventh in the semi-final on Monday as reigning Olympic champion and queen of the boards Guo Jingjing of China set the pace to easily qualify with the highest score of 368.10 points.

Canada's Jennifer Abel was second with 351.65 points and China's He Zi third, just 0.2 points behind Abel.

Cole was further back with 317.30 points while Stratton was next best with 314.35 points.

It is going to take a significant improvement for the Australian pair to figure in the medals on Tuesday, however both made major leaps forward between the preliminary and semi-final.

Stratton (291.70 points) was eighth in the morning while Cole (266.40 points) only just qualified for the semi-final round of 18 by placing 14th.

Todd Balym
AAP