After contracting the flu, Hanyu withdrew from the Japanese National Championships. Despite this, he was selected to compete at the 2017 Four Continents Championships and 2017 World Championships. At the 2017 Four Continents Championships, Hanyu placed third in the short program with a score of 97.04 points, due to a mistake in his combination. During the free skate despite a strong start, he again made an error in what was supposed to be a quadruple-triple combination. Hanyu then improvised his layout for the second half of the program, successfully changing three of his jumping passes into more difficult elements to maximize his score after the mistake. He placed first in the free skate with a score of 206.67 but overall finished second behind Nathan Chen by about four points.