Dunstone defeats Retornaz to earn first win at Princess Auto Players’ Championship
TORONTO — A hot start helped propel Winnipeg’s Team Matt Dunstone past Team Joël Retornaz of Italy during Draw 5 action in the Princess Auto Players’ Championship.
Dunstone scored four in the first end en route to a 7-4 victory Wednesday at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Team Dunstone improved to a 1-1 record in the Grand Slam of Curling season finale after losing their opener Tuesday against Team Yannick Schwaller.
“It’s must-win territory after dropping our first yesterday,” Dunstone said. “We came out with a very strong first end, picked up a big lead, and then you hang on for dear life. We had a game like this against Joël earlier in the year where they got the four early, so we’ve seen this story a time or two. We knew we had to play good curling.
“Obviously, seven ends still to go, no lead is safe against the best teams in the world. I’m really proud of the guys and it puts us in a good spot for tomorrow.”
Dunstone is also on the brink of clinching one of three pre-qualifier spots for next season’s Montana’s Brier based on CTRS points following the conclusion of the event. Team Brendan Bottcher (366.700 points) lead the way followed by Dunstone (224.250) with Team Mike McEwen (213.500), Team Kevin Koe (209.500) and Team Brad Jacobs (208.000) all in the mix.
“The rankings speak for themselves and everything that we’re playing for here this week,” Dunstone said. “There’s no secret when it comes to that. This team I think has been on the brink of winning Slams in the seven or eight that we’ve played as a team. This is definitely one that we want. We feel like our time is very close to coming and it would be a great way to cap the season, go into the summer as the Players’ champs.”
Team Retornaz, who have won three Grand Slams this season, shook hands after the sixth end to drop to 0-2.
Elsewhere in Draw 5, Bruce Mouat made a hit to score four in the eighth end to lift his Scottish side to an 8-5 win over Team Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L.
It’s a much different start to the Princess Auto Players’ Championship this time for Mouat, who moved up to a 2-0 record and is looking for redemption after finishing fourth at the worlds. Last year, the team was coming off of a high after winning the world championship, but then went winless through the Players’.
“It’s funny obviously we saw how we got on last year having come off winning the worlds and quite flat actually,” Team Mouat third Grant Hardie said. “The way things panned out last week wasn’t the way we wanted it. We had a really good chat Sunday night and we wanted to come out here firing all week and try to get deep into the playoffs.”
Mouat, who have won two Players’ titles, isn’t in the clear yet with three more round-robin games to go against skips who have also all claimed the championship in the past.
“That’s the thing, the old saying there’s no easy games out here,” Hardie said. “OK, we’re off to a 2-0 start, but we’ve got to keep playing well, keep it going and hopefully, get a few more wins.”
Gushue (1-1) beat Mouat in the semifinals at the worlds and took the silver medal after losing to Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin in the final.
In women’s play, Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni beat South Korea’s Team Eun-Jung Kim 6-4 and defending champions Team Isabella Wranå of Sweden downed Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa 8-3.
Tirinzoni, who was runner-up last year, and Wranå both climbed to 2-0 records while Kim is now level at 1-1 and Fujisawa is at 0-2.
PRINCESS AUTO PLAYERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP: Live Scores | Draw Schedule | Broadcast Schedule
UP NEXT
The Princess Auto Players’ Championship continues with Draw 6 at 3:30 p.m. ET. Tickets are available at the Mattamy Athletic Centre box office and online at Ticketmaster.ca.
Broadcast coverage begins with Draw 9 Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET on Sportsnet, Sportsnet+ (Canada) and gsoclive.com (international).
NOTES
The Princess Auto Players’ Championship is the fifth and final Grand Slam of Curling event of the 2023-24 season featuring the top 12 men’s teams and top 12 women’s teams from around the world. … Both divisions are split into two pools of six for round-robin play. The best six teams advance to the playoffs with the top two teams receiving byes to the semifinals. If necessary, a tiebreaker round will be played Saturday morning to determine the final playoff berths. … The quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled for Saturday with the finals on tap Sunday.
