Canadian women off to good start
Homan improves to 2-0 at worlds with wins over Germany and host China
BEIJING — Ottawa’s Rachel Homan and her Canada rink improved to 2-0 at the world women’s curling championship on Saturday with a 6-2 win over Germany following a 9-3 victory over host China in the tournament’s first draw.
“The first day of any major championship is a little bit exhausting,” said Canada second Joanne Courtney. “There are opening ceremonies, which are great to soak in the environment, but it makes for a longer day. You’re trying to learn the ice, the rocks, get your sea legs under you, and that’s always tiring. Then add it on that our body clocks probably aren’t quite on par with the time here in Beijing (12 hours ahead of the team’s home).”
Against Germany’s Daniella Jentsch, Canada set the tone early with a first-end deuce and never looked back. Single points for Canada in the sixth, seventh and eighth ends resulted in an early concession by the Germans.
“Absolutely, it’s satisfying,” Courtney said. “We had a great run at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and did a lot of things very well there, and we just wanted to make sure that we continued on all that here. We’re really happy with the day.”
In the other evening draw games, Nina Roth of the U.S. (1-1) bounced back from a disappointing loss earlier to Scotland’s Eve Muirhead with a 10-8 victory over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg (1-1); Anna Kubeskova of the Czech Republic won her opener, 6-5 over Denmark’s Lene Nielsen (0-1); and Russia’s Anna Sidorova (1-0) turned back South Korea’s Eun Jung Kim (9-6).
Earleir Saturday, Homan made a delicate inturn tap in the second end to score four and power the Canadian champs to a 9-3 win over China’s Bingyu Wang in its opening assignment of the 12-team round robin.
Canada plays Russia in its only game today.