News Players' Championship

TORONTO — Scotland’s Eve Muirhead stole back-to-back ends and rolled out to a 9-2 victory over Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones during Players’ Championship Draw 5 action Wednesday night at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre.

Muirhead, who captured the 2013 Players’ Championship in this very rink, evened her record to 1-1 in the round robin while Jones, a five-time Players’ winner, fell to 0-2.

“I think it’s got a lot of positives to take but again we’ve got a lot of hard teams to go,” Team Muirhead third Anna Sloan said. “It doesn’t matter who you play, it’s still one on the board and one losing on the board so we just have to keep going and play the way we know we can play. We’ll take it one step at a time and hopefully get to the playoffs at the end of the week.”

Their pool looks like an encore of last month’s women’s world championship featuring the winner (Alina Paetz), silver medallist (Jones), bronze medallist (Anna Sidorova), and fourth-place finisher (Muirhead). For Sloan, that’s just the way the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling goes. 

“To be honest, you’re at the Grand Slams so you’re never, ever going to get an easy draw out of there,” Sloan said. “We just need to concentrate on our performances and our game and just take it from there.”

After giving up one in the first, Muirhead countered with a single in the second to tie it and then took control with steals of three in the third and two in the fourth to make it 6-1. Jones made the draw shot to get one in the fifth, but Muirhead continued to apply pressure and scored three in the sixth to bring out the handshakes.

“It was a really good, solid performance,” Sloan said. “We just been struggling a little bit with consistency and I think that performance … we just went out there and we were really strong from the start. We lost a steal of one in the first but we did really well to move on and we just managed to control that.” 

Sloan will be taking over the @grandslamcurl Twitter account Thursday night to answer questions from fans and she’s looking forward to the experience.

“It’ll be good. It’ll be nice to answer some questions,” Sloan said with a smile. “I’m sure, hopefully, they will not be too hard for me.”

Paetz also rolled out to a big win Wednesday night defeating Binia Feltscher 9-3 in an all-Swiss matchup. Paetz opened with a three-ender in the first and stole one in the second to go up 4-0 but Feltscher, the 2014 world champion, cut the deficit down with a deuce in three. Paetz regained the four-point lead scoring a pair in four and added a single in six followed by a steal of two in seven. Paetz moved up to a 2-0 record while Feltscher fell to 1-1.

In the men’s division, Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., climbed to a 2-0 record with a 10-5 victory over Glenn Howard of Penetanguishene, Ont. After Jacobs got one in the first, Howard scored four in the second to take the lead. Jacobs made a double takeout in the third to count three and tie it 4-4. Howard (1-1) pulled back ahead with a single in the fourth, but Jacobs cruised onward with a four-ender in six followed by a steal of two in seven when Howard missed the mark on the angle raise.

Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock stole a 6-5 victory from Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers. Laycock (1-1) trailed 5-3 through six ends and rallied with a deuce in seven to tie it and swiped the winning point when Carruthers (0-2) rolled heavy with his last shot in the final frame.

Toronto’s John Epping also climbed up to 2-0 in the tournament after edging Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton with a single in the eighth end to win 5-4. Stoughton, who is stepping back from competitive curling after the tournament, is 0-2 in the round robin.

The Players’ Championship is the fifth and final stop on the season for the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling series. Action continues Thursday morning with Draw 6 starting at 8:30 a.m. ET.