Michal Brezina in first place after men’s short program

Michal Brezina, a 21-year-old from the Czech Republic, added by subtraction Friday night at Skate America and put himself into first place after the men’s short program.

Skating as the ninth of 10 skaters, Brezina, who finished fourth at last year’s world championships, downgraded a planned quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop combination into a triple flip-triple toe loop and did it with high-flying verve.

His decision paid off. Brezina’s score of 79.08 gave him nearly a 10-point lead and first place over defending world silver medalist Takahiko Kozuka of Japan, who fell hard and early on his attempted quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop in the competition at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario.

Daisuke Murakami of Japan, who skated second, did the only clean quadruple jump of the night and helped himself into third place. Less than a point separates second-placed Kozuka (70.69 points) from Richard Dornbush of Corona, who is in fifth place with 70.03 points.

Defending ice dancing world champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the United States also dominated in the first portion of their competition, the short dance.

Performing to samba and rumba music, Davis and White scored 70.33 and are nearly 10 points ahead of Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat of France, who had 61.07 points. Pechalat and Bourzat, European ice dancing champions, held second place despite an unusual fall. Bourzat, who was coughing hard afterward and said he was suffering from a cold, tripped during a step sequence.

White said he and Davis think of their short dance program as a work in progress.

“As we get to train it more,” he said, “we’ll feel a little bit more comfortable and be able to show off elements, have deeper edges. We just have the feeling we can attack it a little.”

Brezina used the music Japanese Kodo Drums to help separate himself from his two Japanese rivals and said that even though he had been practicing a quad-triple combination, for this night anyway, it wasn’t needed.

“We decided to go for a triple-triple right before I skated,” Brezina said. “My coaches watched the whole competition and decided to go for a clean skate.”

Brezina quickly added that a quad is in the plans or Saturday’s long program and also for other short programs this year.

Kozuka blamed early-season nerves for his big fall. “But I want to have confidence for tomorrow,” he said.

Murakami said his American coach, Frank Carroll, talked him into doing a short-program quad.

“At the beginning of the season I wasn’t planning on the quad in my short program,” Murakami said. “But my coach and I discussed putting it in the short. He convinced me.”

Coming up: The women begin competition Saturday at 8:25 p.m. with the short program. Americans Joelle Forte and Caroline Zhang skate first and second, and defending U.S. national champion Alissa Czisny is ninth of the 10 skaters.

diane.pucin@latimes.com

twitter.com/mepucin