News Masters

OAKVILLE, Ont. — From 0-4 in the HearingLife Tour Challenge to 4-0 in the WFG Masters, Calgary’s Team Brendan Bottcher turned the tables from the last Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling tournament and are now at the top heading into the playoffs this week at Sixteen Mile Sports Complex.

Bottcher completed an undefeated run through pool play with a single in the eighth end to edge Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin 5-4 during Draw 14 Friday afternoon.

It was the first loss for Team Edin as they enter Saturday’s quarterfinals at 3-1. Third Oskar Eriksson is skipping again this week with Edin out after sustaining a lower-body injury.

Elsewhere in Draw 14, Scotland’s Team Ross Whyte and Italy’s Team Joël Retornaz both qualified with 3-1 records. Whyte scored four points in the eighth end to defeat Saskatoon’s Team Colton Flasch 9-7 and Retornaz ousted Calgary’s Team Kevin Koe 9-3.

Flasch and Koe dropped to 1-3 records and have not been eliminated yet but fate isn’t in their hands.

Team Michael Brunner topped Team Marco Hösli 6-3. Brunner finished pool play at 1-3 while Hösli went winless at 0-4.

UP NEXT

Play continues with Draw 15 at 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT on Sportsnet, Sportsnet NOW (Canada) and Yare (international).

NOTES

The WFG Masters is the third event of the 2022-23 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season featuring 16 of the top men’s teams and 16 of the top women’s teams from around the world. … Round-robin play runs through to Friday as teams play four games against opponents outside of their pools. … The top eight teams overall advance to Saturday afternoon’s quarterfinals. The semifinals are set for Saturday evening with both finals on tap for Sunday.