Mouat maintains his perfect record in Champions Cup
Murrayfield curler Bruce Mouat maintained his 100% record at the Champions Cup in Calgary yesterday, but a missed final shot consigned Perth’s Eve Muirhead to her first defeat of the week. Despite playing 16 matches at the same Olympic Park venue when claiming silver medals at last week’s World Championship, Mouat and his team appear to have plenty left in the tank after they followed two opening Pool A victories with a 6-3 win over Saskatchewan skip Matt Dunstone.
An early three-stone advantage was wiped out, but the Scots then ticked off three singles to virtually guarantee their place in the knockout stages. Having won their first two games in Group B – beating Olympic champion Anna Hasselborg and world gold medallist Silvana Tirinzoni – Muirhead’s rink wasted an opportunity to complete a remarkable hat-trick when they met their old rival, Jennifer Jones. The former world and Olympic champion from Winnipeg was totally out of sorts, yet the Scots failed to capitalise and trailed 5-2. A tartan three at the sixth end got them back in contention, but the clock was running down and Muirhead had to rush her final delivery at the eighth, giving Jones another steal and a 7-5 victory. Muirhead and company face unbeaten Canadian Tracy Fleury in their last group match as they bid to secure a play-off spot.