The Russian junior champion, who won the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final held in Marseille in December, produced a personal best performance in the Taipei Arena.

His score of 83.48 points was enough to place him at the top of the standings at the halfway stage of the competition in Taiwan's capital.

"I think I did a good job today," he said.

"I am very pleased to have set a season best and with my component scores.

"For today it was very good."

Aliev has only a slim lead heading into the free skate, with South Korea’s Jun Hwan Cha and Alexander Samarin producing personal best scores of 82.34 and 82.23 to lie close to the leader.

Defending champion Daniel Samohin of Israel suffered on the ice, with three errors contributing to him finishing down in 16th place.

Russian skaters are also top of the podium in the pairs competition, with Aleksandra Boikova and Dmitrii Kozlovskii  earning 61.27 points in the short programme.

The Junior Grand Prix Final bronze medallists were followed by China’s Yumeng Gao and Zhong Xie, with the pair also setting a personal best score of 59.97.

The top three was completed by Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya and Harley Windsor, as they achieved a score of 59.82.

Alexandrovskaya and Windsor will be ruing an error on their throw triple flip, but the pair will hope to close to the gap to the leaders in the free skate.

Competition will continue tomorrow in Taipei with the short dance and the men’s free skating events.