Svart natt i Canada

Etter en sterk seier mot Sveits kom de norske jentene ned på jorda igjen etter tap mot Sverige og Canada i nattens kamper.  Først tapte Norge 5-9 mot Sverige før de møtte Jennifer Jones og Canada i den neste kampen. Her tapte Norge 3-8.

Standings after 5 sessions:
Canada 3-0
Denmark 2-1
Germany 2-1
Russia 2-1
Scotland 2-1
Sweden 2-1
USA 2-1
Japan 1-2
Latvia 1-2
Norway 1-2
China 0-3
Switzerland 0-3

W 3: Denmark 8, China 3; Scotland 6, Germany 9.
W 4: Sweden 9, Norway 5; USA 6, Latvia 7; Russia 7, Japan 6 (extra end); Canada 6, Switzerland 4.
W 5: Germany 3, Denmark 10; Norway 3, Canada 8; Switzerland 6, Sweden 7; China 4, Scotland 14.

Swift Current, Canada - 21 March 2010:  Latvia made a little bit of curling history when, in the third game of their maiden appearance at world championship level, they carved out their first victory, beating USA by 7-6.

Latvia clawed their way back into this game from 2-5 down, taking advantage of a complete miss in the eighth end by USA skip Erika Brown to score three and level.  Latvian skip Iveta Stasa-Sarsune followed this up by scoring the two points needed in the tenth for her team’s historic win.  Speaking about her miss, Brown said, “we were in control until that shot and I didn’t throw it well.  It was a really bad miss”.

Meanwhile, Canada moved to the top of the rankings with two wins on Sunday.  Jennifer Jones followed up a 6-4 win over Switzerland with a more convincing 8-3 win over Norway in her evening game.  The game against Switzerland swung on a score of three for Canada in the fourth end.

Speaking about that incident, she said, “I missed my first one badly in that end, but the angles were set up pretty good.  It was a huge momentum change in that game, and we knew when we got it, we had control”.

She was even more pleased after her Norway win, saying, “it’s been a good day.  We played better than yesterday and we just want to play better as the week goes on”.

Defending champion Bingyu Wang of China also wants to get better as the week goes on, but, following her team’s third successive loss, by 4-14 against Scotland’s Eve Muirhead, she knows she has a lot to do to get back into contention.

After this defeat, Wang admitted she considered not playing against Scotland because of what was going on in her head, saying, “I feel I’m not thinking the right way and that’s why I thought about taking a rest, but playing the games is good for me.  I need to find the way out of the problem on the ice”.

By contrast, Muirhead, who had earlier gone down to Germany by 6-9 said, “I’m delighted with that performance.  We didn’t have many slack shots at all, and we had our stone placement good and capitalised on all their mistakes and really had a good performance”.

With all teams now having played three games, unbeaten Canada leads ahead of a pack of six teams on two wins and one loss – Denmark, Germany, Russia, Scotland, Sweden and USA.

For full line scores visit: http://www.seasonofchampions.ca/2010worlds/scores_results.asp
All results mirrored on: http://results.worldcurling.org/default.aspx

Event website: http://www.seasonofchampions.ca/2010worlds/index.asp

TV and Web coverage of the event: http://www.worldcurling.org/wwcc-2010-tv-web-coverage