News Masters

LLOYDMINSTER, Sask. — Jennifer Jones and Kerri Einarson’s Winnipeg-based teams continued their strong play at the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling Masters tournament.

Jones and Einarson wrapped up the women’s round-robin division on top of the table with wins in Draw 12 Friday and are all clear through to the quarterfinals at 4-0.

The reigning Olympic champion Jones downed Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland 8-4 and Einarson eliminated Ottawa’s Rachel Homan 5-1.

Although Jones and Einarson already qualified Thursday, they still aimed to remain red-hot running into the playoffs.

“You still want to win because you get hammer in the playoffs too,” Team Jones lead Dawn McEwen explained. “We definitely wanted to win that one and luckily we came out with the W.”

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Tirinzoni, who will represent Switzerland at the 2018 Winter Olympics, opened with the hammer and looked to make a double takeout on a couple counters to score three in the first. It was a missed opportunity though as Tirinzoni couldn’t get the back one and it stuck around for a steal.

Looking at two again in the second, Tirinzoni hit for a single to tie it.

Jones pulled ahead 4-1 in the third with a nice double tap to count three.

“It was a great little quiet shot and Jenn’s pretty good with those ones,” McEwen said. “It worked out well and had a nice end going into that.”

Tirinzoni struggled to capitalize in the fourth as well attempting a split on a guard to score three and tie it. Her rock overcurled to nose it though and only the guard was promoted into the house for a deuce.

Tirinzoni was able to tie it up 4-4 in the fifth as Jones bumped a counter from the side but didn’t hit it hard enough.

Jones recovered to reclaim the lead 6-4 with an open hit in six to score a deuce and then stole a pair in seven to bring out handshakes when Tirinzoni faced three and hit and rolled away.

Tirinzoni (2-2) still made it through to the playoffs as the No. 7 seed and avoided the tiebreaker thanks to a superior pre-game draw-to-the-button shootout score.

Meanwhile, Einarson jumped out to a 3-0 lead against Homan with a single in the first and back-to-back steals in two and three.

“I think every end we had them chasing, which was good,” Einarson said. “That was our goal. We went out, played well and put the pressure on them.”

The reigning world champion Homan was held to just a single in four.

Einarson grabbed another single in five and stole again in six to make it 5-1. The game wasn’t over yet though as Homan had a chance to make a triple takeout and score four to tie it, but had to hit it off the nose and landed right on to concede one more point.

“In that last end, we just let it get away from us a little bit,” Einarson said. “She had a shot for four but other than that I think we played a really great game. We put a lot of pressure on them and capitalized on their misses.”

The three-time Masters champion Homan finished with a 1-3 record. Einarson, who won the Tour Challenge Tier 2 title to earn a spot in the Masters, will have the No. 2 seed in the playoffs.

“We’ll do well if we can just keep at it and keep having fun,” Einarson said.

Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg (3-1) advanced by squeezing past Russia’s Anna Sidorova 6-5.

American Jamie Sinclair edged defending Masters champion Allison Flaxey (0-4) of Caledon, Ont., 4-3.

Sinclair and Sidorova both finished round-robin play at 2-2 and will face off in a tiebreaker at 8 p.m. MT on Sportsnet NOW (Canada) or gsoc.yaretv.com (international).

NOTES: The Masters is the second event and first major of the 2017-18 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season. … The quarterfinals and semifinals are Saturday with the finals set for Sunday. … Watch the final men’s round-robin draw at 4 p.m. MT on Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet NOW (Canada) or gsoc.yaretv.com (international).