Canadian rink rolls to 7-0
Homan rink beats Japan
SYDNEY – Rachel Homan and Team Canada continued their dominance at the World Women’s Curling Championship on Wednesday morning.
Canada cruised to a 7-2 victory in nine ends over Japan at Centre 200 in Sydney, pushing their record to 7-0 at the international tournament.
Entering Wednesday evening’s game with Turkey, the Homan-skipped team had won 23 straight games with a season record of 56-5.
Homan and the Canadians wasted no time getting on the board, scoring one in the first and third ends to take a 2-0 lead.
Japan collected one in the fourth, but Canada responded with a single in the sixth end to regain the two-point lead. The Japanese team scored one in the seventh to make the score 3-2, but Canada blew the game open in the eighth with three.
Canada added an insurance point in the ninth to secure the victory.
The Canadians shot 86 per cent to Japan’s 74 per cent.
In afternoon play on Wednesday, Scotland upset Switzerland 6-5 in an extra end, Italy downed Denmark 8-6, Japan defeated Norway 8-5 and Turkey beat Estonia 8-6. Meanwhile, in the other morning draws, Sweden took out the United States 10-5, Italy edged South Korea 10-9 and Norway beat New Zealand 11-4.
Canada sits atop the standings, followed by Italy 7-1, Switzerland 6-2, Korea 5-2, Denmark and Sweden at 5-3, Japan, Norway and Scotland at 3-5, the United States 2-5, Turkey 2-6, New Zealand 1-6 and Estonia 1-7.
On Tuesday night, Canada defeated four-time defending world champion Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland 8-5. Homan scored four in the seventh end to bring the Swiss world winning streak of 42 games to an end.
The top six teams qualify for the playoff round. The top two teams receive a bye while the remaining four play in the qualification round to qualify for the semifinals.
The qualification games will be played on Saturday at 11 a.m. while the semifinal will be held later in the day at 5 p.m. The bronze medal and championship games are set for Sunday at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. respectively.