Canada in logjam atop standings at Ford World Women’s Championship

NORTH BAY, Ont. – Jennifer Jones and Team Canada erupted for another big end – this time four in the fifth – en route to a third straight victory that kept them in a logjam at the top of the standings Sunday at the Ford World Women’s Curling Championship. Canada followed the four with a steal of two in the sixth that ran the score to 8-1 and convinced Daniela Jentsch and her German teammates to shake hands, which brought about an eruption of cheers from the near capacity crowd in the North Bay Memorial Gardens. “We’re always looking to see if we can score a multiple end,” Jones said after the victory. “This one was pretty fortunate. We got a pretty big miss from them in order to make the split for four.” Jones, backed by third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer, lead Dawn McEwen, alternate Shannon Birchard and coaches Bryan Cochrane and Elaine Dagg-Jackson, is tied at the top of the standings with Sweden, Russia and South Korea, all at 3-0. The log-jam isn’t surprising to McEwen. “I don’t think so,” she said. “This is a really good field, it doesn’t surprise me at all. But it’s a long week, a lot of games left.”

Swiss vice-skip Irene Schori watches her shot as Japanese second Mao Ishigaki looks on. (Photo, Curling Canada/Michael Burns)

Also improving to 3-0 Sunday evening was EunJung Kim of South Korea, who scored three in the seventh and stole two in the eighth to defeat Angelina Jensen of Denmark (0-3) 7-5. Tori Koana of Japan went into the draw at 2-0 but lost 7-6 to two-time world champion Binia Feltscher of Switzerland (1-3). In the one other game in the evening draw Anna Kubeskova of the Czech Republic (1-2) scored four in the sixth and three in the ninth to beat Yilun Jiang of China (1-2) 10-5. Sweden, skipped by Anna Hasselborg, and Russia, skipped by Victoria Moiseeva, had moved to 3-0 with victories in the afternoon draw. Russia, Sweden, Jamie Sinclair of the U.S. (2-1), Diana Gaspari of Italy (1-2) and Hanna Fleming of Scotland (0-3) had byes in the evening draw. The 2018 Ford World Women’s Curling Championship continues with draws Monday at 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. (all times 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