News Tour Challenge

NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. — Canada’s Team Kaitlyn Lawes picked up a pivotal first win in the HearingLife Tour Challenge during Draw 10 Thursday afternoon.

After starting off the first Grand Slam of Curling tournament of the season with two losses, Lawes needed the 6-3 victory over Team Tabitha Peterson of the United States in order to stay in contention.

The Winnipeg native Lawes said it felt really good to get the win.

“We’ve had some chances the last couple of games and were just on the wrong side of it,” Lawes said, “but today, I felt like we were on the right side of the inch. It was a great game.”

Team Lawes came out of the gate strong as lead Kristin MacCuish and third Selena Njegovan both covered the pinhole during the draw-to-the-button shootout to secure the hammer to start. Considering their totals could end up breaking any ties at the end of round-robin play, having a pair of zeroes certainly helps.

“It’s huge,” Lawes said. “It’s strange not having tiebreakers but that means you have to really put the pressure on the draw to the button and the girls have been doing great at that.”

Peterson struck the scoreboard first, however, as Lawes jammed in the opening end to give up a single steal. Lawes recovered in the second with a soft raise to bump in her guard and counted two points after a measurement.

After back-to-back singles, Peterson made a great shot through the port with her first skip stone in the fifth but couldn’t do it again on her last, crashing on the guards to give up a steal and fall behind 4-2.

The force was strong again in the sixth as Lawes pulled off a great double takeout to hold Peterson to a single. Lawes, who was shot a sharp 92 per cent in the game, continued to have the hot hand with a nose hit in the seventh to take two more points and pulled off another double in the eighth to run Peterson out of rocks.

“It was nice to be able to put the pressure on and make the force in six,” Lawes said. “Unfortunately for them, they slipped a little deep and left us a shot for two. That was nice to get that three-point lead going into the last end.”

Elsewhere, Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni climbed to a 3-0 record after doubling up on Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa 4-2. Team Fujisawa (1-2) played as a trio as Yumi Suzuki, who throws second, is out of the lineup day-to-day with a back injury.

South Korea’s Team Eun-Ji Gim (3-0) is also still undefeated following an 8-3 decision against Sweden’s Team Isabella Wranå (1-2).

Marianne Roervik (1-2) scored three in the eighth end to lift her Norwegian team to a 7-6 win over Scotland’s Team Rebecca Morrison (2-1).

---

HEARINGLIFE TOUR CHALLENGE: Scores/Standings | Draw Schedule | Broadcast Schedule

---

TIER 2: DRAW 10 RESULTS

• Team Casper 6, Team Schneider 5

• Team Wiebe 5, Team Hoesli 3

• Team Morozumi 7, Team Kleiter 5

• Team McEwen 9, Team Bryce 5

UP NEXT

The HearingLife Tour Challenge continues with Draw 11 at 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT on Sportsnet West, Pacific, Sportsnet ONE and streaming online at Sportsnet+ (Canada) and Yare (international).

NOTES

The HearingLife Tour Challenge is the first Grand Slam of Curling event of the season with 32 men’s teams and 32 women’s teams in two tiers of action. Tier 1 features the top teams from around the world. Tier 2 features the next group of teams in the rankings with the winners earning promotions into the Co-op Canadian Open later this season. … Round-robin play runs through to Friday with the top eight teams in each division qualifying for the playoffs. … The quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled for Saturday with the finals set for Sunday.