Canada steals way to 4-0 at Ford World Women’s Curling Championship

NORTH BAY, Ont. – Jennifer Jones and Team Canada scored two in nine and stole a deuce in 10 to finally subdue a determined Yilun Jiang and Team China, 9-5 to remain unbeaten at 4-0 Monday at the Ford World Women’s Curling Championship. Canada has its hands full throughout the afternoon game at the North Bay Memorial Gardens. Jones, third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer, lead Dawn McEwen, alternate Shannon Birchard and coaches Wendy Morgan, Bryan Cochrane and Elaine Dagg-Jackson stole three in the sixth, but China stole one in eight to tie the game 5-5. “We didn’t play as great as we wanted to in the first half of the game and they played outstanding,” said Jones. “They made everything and we really had to battle back.” Canada got the steal in sixth when Jiang’s last-rock draw came up just short. Jiang, backed by third Rui Wang, second Xindi Jiang, lead Hui Yan, alternate Mingyue Yao and coaches Zhipeng Zhang and Weidong Tan, got her steal in eight on a rare flash by Jones. “I was pretty ticked off at myself in eight, that was just not a very smart thing to do,” admitted the former world and Olympic champion skip. “But it you’re going to do it, the fourth game of the round robin is the game to do it in. We still had the advantage heading to nine.” The win kept Canada tied atop the standings with Anna Hasselborg of Sweden. In the other afternoon games, Japan’s Tori Koana (3-1) scored four in the third end to beat Jamie Sinclair of the U.S. (2-3) 7-6, Anna Kubešková of the Czech Republic (2-2) scored four in the first and stole two in the second to beat Scotland’s Hannah Fleming (0-4) 11-4, and Denmark’s Angelina Jensen (1-3) stole one in an extra end to nip Daniela Jentsch of Germany (0-4) 6-5. Sweden, South Korea’s EunJung Kim (3-0), Russia’s Victoria Moiseeva (3-1), Italy’s Diana Gaspari (2-2) and Switzerland’s Binia Feltscher (1-3) all had byes in the afternoon. The 2018 Ford World Women’s Curling Championship continues with the evening draw at 7 p.m. ET. Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2018 Ford World Women’s are available at www.worldcurling.org/wwcc2018/livescores TSN and RDS2 will provide complete coverage of Canada’s games at the 2018 Ford World Women’s. Go to www.tsn.ca/2017-18-curling-broadcast-schedule-1.593081 for the complete schedule. For ticket information for the 2018 Ford World Women’s, go to www.curling.ca/2018worldwomen/tickets/ This story will be available in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/2018worldwomen/?lang=fr