News Tour Challenge

GRANDE PRAIRIE, Alta. — Team Duncan defeated Team Jones 6-3 in an all-Canadian clash during Draw 7 round-robin action Wednesday at the Coca-Cola Centre.

After the wheels fell off in the Boost National going 0-4 two weeks ago, skip Hollie Duncan and her Toronto-based club are now back on track at 2-0 and right at the top of the leaderboard in the second Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling stop.

“It feels great, definitely a confidence booster,” said Duncan, whose team received the 16th and final invitation for the women’s division. “We’re one of the lower-ranked teams here, so the first Slam to go 0-4 wasn’t super surprising, but we knew just a couple more shots here or there and we’d have them. We’ve been playing that way these first two games and that ends up in Ws.”

Trailing 2-1, Duncan grabbed the lead for good with a three-ender in the fifth end, forced Jones to a single in the sixth and added two more points for insurance in the seventh. Jones, who has won two tour events so far this season, ran out of rocks in the eighth end to drop to a 0-2 record and now must win out to avoid early elimination.

“They’ve had a strong start to their season, so it’s nice to beat a team that’s hot right now,” Duncan said.

Canada’s Team Homan also climbed to a 2-0 mark by beating Germany’s Team Jentsch in a 6-3 set as well.

Homan counted three in the third, one in the fifth and two in the seventh while Jentsch was limited to singles in the second, fourth and sixth ends.

Sweden’s Team Hasselborg levelled their record to 1-1 by stealing singles in the seventh and eighth ends to escape with a 5-3 win over South Korea’s Team Gim (0-2).

Japan’s Team Fujisawa downed Sweden’s Team Wranå 8-3 with both teams even at 1-1 records.

TIER 2 RESULTS

• Black 8, Crough 4
• Watling 7, Gray-Withers 5
• Rocque 5, Farmer 2
• Galusha 5, Martin 4

UP NEXT

The HearingLife Tour Challenge continues with Draw 8 at 8 p.m. MT.

Broadcast coverage begins Thursday at 2 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. MT on Sportsnet, Sportsnet NOW (Canada) and Yare (international).

NOTES

The HearingLife Tour Challenge is the second event on the 2022-23 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling calendar with two tiers and a total of 64 teams. Both tiers feature 16 men’s teams and 16 women’s teams. … Round-robin play runs through to Friday as teams play four games against opponents outside of their pool. … 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.