Defending champions Dabrowski and Rutliff were eliminated in the group stage of the WTA year-end finals

Ottawa’s Gabriella Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Rutliff will not defend their doubles titles at the WTA Finals.

The third-seeded pair lost 2-6, 7-5, 10-5 in their final group match on Thursday at the season-ending tennis tournament against seventh-seeded Timea Babos of Hungary and Luisa Stefani of Brazil.

In the end, the defending champion ended the group stage with a score of 1-2 and failed to advance to the semi-finals.

Dabrowski and Rutliff had seven aces in the match but otherwise struggled on serve.

The defending U.S. Open champions won just 50.7 percent of their total service points, and in the second set, Babos and Stefani came back from a set down, being broken three times out of five opportunities.

Babos, who is making her fourth doubles semifinal appearance, and former Dabrowski partner Stephanie, who is making her first WTA Finals appearance, will face Hsieh Su-Wei and Jelena Ostapenko in Friday’s semifinals.