MELBOURNE - Zhang Shuai and Kristina Mladenovic's run at the Australian Open has ended with defeat in the women's doubles quarterfinals.

Ninth seeds Zhang and Mladenovic were beaten by the top-seeded duo of Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova 6-1, 7-5 in 70 minutes at Melbourne Park on Wednesday afternoon.

After losing the first set in under half an hour, Zhang and Mladenovic were gallant in the second, coming back from 2-5 down and saving two match points before eventually falling to the reigning Wimbledon champions.

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"There was definitely a lot of pressure," Siniakova said of the fightback after the match.

"We made mistakes, and suddenly it was close, but we were the ones who had the set up so we were still trying to fight, and I'm really happy that we managed to finish it," she said.

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The score was leveled at 1-1 in the opening set when Townsend and Siniakova won five straight games in 23 minutes to close it out.

The top seeds looked likely to cruise to victory when they broke Mladenovic's serve early in the second set for a 3-1 lead.

At 5-3, with Townsend serving for the match, Zhang brought up three break points with a forehand winner down the line, the first of which was converted when Townsend hit a volley wide.

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Zhang had an opportunity to level the match at 5-5 on her serve in the next game and saved two match points to do so,

Trailing 5-6, Mladenovic had a service game to force a tiebreak but went to 30-40 and could not save a third-match point opportunity for Townsend and Siniakova.

Townsend and Siniakova hit 25 winners for the match, almost double the 13 for Zhang and Mladenovic, while both duos hit 14 unforced errors.

The top seeds will play Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider in the semifinals.