Jones tops Denmark for fifth straight win
NORTH BAY, ONT. — Canada’s Jennifer Jones beat Denmark’s Angelina Jensen 10-5 on Tuesday morning for her fifth straight win at the world women’s curling championship.
Jones scored four points in the eighth end and pulled even with Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg at 5-0 in round-robin play at the North Bay Memorial Gardens.
“We started a little bit slow so we’ll try to fix that in the next game,” Jones said. “But we’re ending really strong, which if you’re going to pick a way to do it, that’s the way to go.”
Hasselborg, the reigning Olympic champion, was idle for the morning draw. Jones was scheduled to play Scotland’s Hannah Fleming in the evening.
South Korea’s EunJung Kim needed an extra end to get by Italy’s Diana Gaspari 8-7 and Scotland held off Germany’s Daniela Jentsch 8-5. China’s Yilun Jiang dumped Japan’s Tori Koana 11-4 in the other early game.
Denmark did a nice job of applying pressure and took advantage of early opportunities.
Canada opened with a deuce and gave up back-to-back singles before tacking on two more points in the fourth end.
In the fifth, Canada third Kaitlyn Lawes rubbed a guard and couldn’t clear two opposition stones from the rings on her next throw. Jones went for a freeze with her last shot but it overcurled, allowing Jensen to draw the four-foot ring for a deuce.
“We were making our shots and we had good draw weight,” said Denmark lead Lina Knudsen. “We were also able to get a few misses out of them by placing rocks really well.”
Jones rebounded with a pair in the sixth end and forced Jensen to a single in the seventh.
Denmark struggled in the eighth end and Canada pounced. Lawes used a nice hit and roll to leave Canada sitting two under cover and Jones closed it out with a draw to score four.
The thirds had the lowest percentages of the eight players. Lawes shot 75 per cent while Christine Groenbech was at 63 per cent.
After nine draws, South Korea was alone in third place at 4-1. The Czech Republic, Japan and Russia were next at 3-2.
China was in seventh place at 3-3, followed by the United States and Switzerland at 2-3. Italy was 2-4, Denmark slipped to 1-4, Scotland was 1-5 and Germany remained winless at 0-5.