Sweden joined Switzerland at the top of the rankings with three wins and no losses after Sunday evening’s play at the Titlis Glacier Mountain World Women’s Curling Championship in Riga, Latvia.
With Switzerland sitting out Sunday evening’s session, Sweden joined them at the top after defeating the USA. It wasn’t until the second end that Sweden took the lead when fourth player Maria Prytz hit out a US stone to score three points, but, in the fifth end the Americans kept themselves in the game when their skip, Erika Brown, also hit, this time to score two points and reduce the Swedish lead to 5-4.
Sweden moved into a strong lead again in the eighth end, when Prytz had a hit for three points to make the score 9-5. Although the USA scored two more points in the ninth end, Sweden removed one of their counters in the tenth end, giving USA a score of one point from the end, but also giving Sweden a 9-8 win.
Scotland came onto the ice to face unbeaten Germany, looking for a morale-boost after their previous heavy loss to Sweden. After giving up a steal of one point in the opening end, Scottish skip Eve Muirhead finally got her act together in the second end, drawing nicely to open her account with two points, for a lead she was never to lose.
German skip Andrea Schoepp used all her experience as she kept her nerve to draw for a single point in the fourth end, against three potential Scottish counters, but after that it was all one-way traffic as the Scots pulled out a 9-2 win in just seven ends, finishing with a steal of three points.
Afterwards, Scottish skip, Eve Muirhead, said: “That was more like
ourselves. We put pressure on them from the start and our stone placement was good, which was letting us down earlier on, and it was the opposite for them this evening. We’re chuffed with that – if you had asked me what I wanted from the first three games, especially playing Canada and Sweden, I would have been happy with two wins and one loss.”
Canada recorded their second win so far when they beat Denmark by 8-2 in seven ends. Such a result looked unlikely when Denmark stole two points in the first end, but after that, it was all Canada. They got two points back in the second end, and then had steals of single points in the next four ends. When they stole a further two points in the seventh, Denmark conceded.
Afterwards, Canadian skip, Rachel Homan, said: “It was close right until the end. Their last shot went a little bit wide but they were in it with every shot and we had to make sure we played really well tonight.”
Although they’ve been pleasing the large home crowds with their battling performances, hosts Latvia had still to record a win when they came onto the ice against Japan.
The Japanese were in charge for the first half of this game, taking a 6-2 led into the fifth end break. The Latvians came right back into the picture however when skip Iveta Stasa-Sarsune had a draw with the backing of one of her own stones, to score four points in the sixth end and level the score at 6-6.
But Japan responded immediately and in the next end Japan skip, Satsuki Fujisawa, had a draw for two points and an 8-6 lead. Eventually Latvia failed with their last attempt in the tenth end, and Japan won by 11-8.
RESULTS
Session 5: Germany 2, Scotland 9; Sweden 9, USA 8; Canada 8, Denmark 2;
Japan 11, Latvia 8.
Standings after 5 sessions:
Switzerland won 3, lost 0
Sweden 3-0
Canada 2-1
Germany 2-1
Scotland 2-1
Russia 2-1
Japan 2-1
USA 1-2
Denmark 1-2
Latvia 0-3
Italy 0-3
China 0-3
