Canada slips to 1-3 at Capital One World Women’s

Canada’s Amber Holland dropped her third consecutive game Monday morning, this time to Scotland’s Anna Sloan, 7-3, to fall to 1-3 after six draws of the Capital One World Women’s Curling Championship in Esbjerg, Denmark. Up 3-2 after five ends, Scotland took three in the seventh to virtually salt the game away, as the teams traded singles the next two ends before handshakes. “We needed the win to get our confidence up,” said Sloan, whose Lockerbie team evened its record at 2-2. “We’ve had a lot of close games, so it was really good just to get the win on the board. I played a little bit better than Amber did. It was a tight game at the start but we came good in the second half. We knew we had to up it in this game against Canada, and we managed that. I’d like to think we’re on a roll now.” Canada plays Norway’s Linn Githmark in the next draw, as Holland will try to turn things around for one of the pre-event favourites. “We’re inconsistent – we’re just not really picking up on things out there on the ice, just not getting rocks in really good spots to put the pressure on the other team,” explained Holland. “We’ve just got to keep plugging away, keep doing what we know we can do, we’re not that far off. We’re missing some key opportunities and giving the other team some opportunities that we shouldn’t be.” In other games, Switzerland’s Mirjam Ott of Davos took four in the first end en route to an 8-6 decision over Korea (Mi-Sung Shin), to remain tied for top spot with a 3-1 record. ‘We’ve had a good start,” said Ott, a two-time Olympic silver medallist. “It’s good but we still have the potential to play a little bit better. (The ice) is a little difficult because there are a lot of changes in the draw weight and also in the curl, but it’s really good ice.” Joining Ott at the top are China’s Bingyu Wang of Harbin, the 2009 world champion, who cruised to a 9-3 victory over Czech Republic (Anna Kubeskova of Prague) and Russia’s Liudmila Privivkova of Moscow, an 11-4 winner over United States (Patti Lank of Lewiston, NY). Idle Germany (Andrea Schöpp of Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Norway and Sweden (Anette Norberg of Härnösand) are next at 2-1, followed by Czech Republic and Scotland, both 2-2, Denmark (Lene Nielsen of Hvidovre) at 1-2, Canada and the United States at 1-3, while Korea is at 0-4.