Chinese ace Zhang Shuai and her partner Samantha Stosur of Australia were humbled by defending champions Timea Babos of Hungary and Kristina Mladenovic of France at the Shiseido WTA Finals Shenzhen in Shenzhen on Saturday.

Home favorite Zhang and her former world No.1 Australian partner lost the hard-fought match 1-6, 6-4, 10-8.

Babos & Mladenovic, who most recently defeated Stosur/Zhang in the quarterfinals of the French Open earlier this year, had a 2-1 head-to-head record before going into the match on Saturday.

Earlier, Zhang and Stosur made a shaky start as a slew of unforced errors saw them conceding the first two games to their opponents. But the seventh seeds soon clawed their way back into the game by storming to a 5-1 lead. They successfully held their next service to seal the opening set in just 27 minutes.

Zhang and Stosur continued with their momentum into the second set before things began to slip up for the home player and her partner in the mid-way through the second set. After losing the second set, the Chinese-Australia duo took the third and deciding set to the tie-breaker and fought hard against their opponents until the end.

However, Babos and Mladenovic got a golden opportunity in the tiebreak when an horrible unforced error from Stosur turned the tide in their favor. After surrendering the momentum to their rivals, Zhang and Stosur handed over the only match point of the tiebreak to their fancied opponents and they didn’t make any mistake to seal the chance to defend their finals crown in just over 90 minutes.

A jubilant Babos said after her win, "Honestly I just want to take a pillow and scream as loud as I can. I have so much anxiety and happiness. We were not playing our best at the beginning but we fought hard. What a match! It was really a pleasure to play in front of such a great crowd as well." Meanwhile, much to the delight of the Chinese fans at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Center, Mladenovic thanked them in Chinese.