Dunstone, Tirinzoni win tiebreakers at Princess Auto Players’ Championship
TORONTO — Better late than never, Canada’s Matt Dunstone scored the last spot in the Princess Auto Players’ Championship playoffs with a 5-2 victory over Scotland’s Ross Whyte during Saturday’s tiebreakers at Mattamy Athletic Centre.
The Winnipeg-based Team Dunstone will now clash with Kevin Koe’s Calgary club in the late afternoon quarterfinals.
Dunstone is also in the running for the Pinty’s Cup, which is awarded to the season champions in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling series.
Although Dunstone didn’t start with the hammer, he opened the scoring with a steal in the first after making an amazing hit and roll to lie mostly buried.
Whyte could only manage to tick Dunstone’s shot rock and conceded the point.
The closely contested matchup saw singles back and forth on the scoreboard like binary code with Dunstone leading 3-2 after six ends. Whyte pulled off a double takeout with his first skip stone in the seventh end that set the table for the blank and retain the hammer for the final frame.
Dunstone escaped with the victory, and two more points on the board, as Whyte attempted a tricky angle raise in the eighth but missed the target.
Meanwhile, Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni topped Canada’s Clancy Grandy 7-2 in the women’s tiebreaker.
Tirinzoni, who won her fourth consecutive gold medal at the women’s worlds last month, got out to a 0-2 start this week but has regained her momentum and now has four straight wins in the tournament.
Team Tirinzoni now take on Tabitha Peterson’s squad from the United States.
Sweden’s Niklas Edin vs. Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller and Canada’s Kerri Einarson vs. Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa are the other two quarterfinal games.
Italy’s Joël Retornaz and Canada’s Brad Gushue hold the byes to the semifinals in the men’s division with South Korea’s Eun-Ji Gim and Sweden’s Isabella Wranå also going straight to the final four on the women’s side.
UP NEXT
The quarterfinals kick playoff coverage at 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT on Sportsnet One followed by the semifinals at 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT on Sportsnet.
Both finals are scheduled for Sunday.
Tickets are available at the box office and online at Ticketmaster.ca.
