Olympic champion Le Clos, who won this short-course series last year, was five points back after the opening leg in Dubai, but is now 14 behind Australia's Kenneth To.

To make matters worse, at the weekend Le Clos was beaten in his favourite 200m butterfly race by Daiya Seto of Japan.

Le Clos trumped Michael Phelps in that event at the London Games, but he admitted before the World Cup series that he had not trained as much as he would have liked.

Seto, the 400m individual medley world record-holder, edged Le Clos by one-hundredth of a second.

The two-lap race was won by compatriot Roland Schoeman.

Le Clos accumulated 16 points in Doha, fewer than the 20 he bagged in the first leg. That allowed Seto to match him on 36 points overall, but on countback is lying second on the overall rankings.

High-flying To is on 50, Darian Townsend fifth on 12 points, Schoeman sixth on 10 points and Cameron van der Burgh ninth on five points.