Players’ Championship Live: Jones wins seventh GSOC title
TORONTO — Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones captured her record sixth career WestJet Players’ Championship title after doubling up on Edmonton’s Val Sweeting 8-4 in Sunday’s women’s final.
It is Jones’ seventh title in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling series. She also won the inaugural Humpty’s Champions Cup last season.
Mistakes by the skips in the first couple of ends resulted in deuces back and forth. Sweeting couldn’t get around and under Jones’ stone in the four-foot circle during the first end, clicking off it and sitting open. Jones delivered a tap for a deuce to take a 2-0 lead. After Jones took out her own with her first skip shot in the second, Sweeting capitalized to split up the rings and finished with a hit and stick to score two.
Sweeting fell into trouble in the third end with Jones sitting a bunch. She made a come-around draw that just barely missed another stone in the third, but didn’t get deep enough and Jones popped it out with a runback to score three.
Facing three counters in the fourth, Sweeting went through a port to hit and stick for just a single. Jones had to fire a missile in five to bash out a bunch of counters. She got two of them going, but a third stuck around for a steal. Sweeting got out of a bit of a jam in six with a double takeout, but Jones delivered a hit and stick to score a deuce to retake the three-point advantage.
Jones won her fifth Players’ women’s title in 2014 only a couple months after capturing gold at the Winter Olympics.
Sweeting earned her second career Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling title earlier this season at the Tour Challenge and clinched the Rogers Grand Slam Cup with her semifinal win earlier Sunday over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg. The Rogers Grand Slam Cup is awarded to the overall season champions with a $75,000 bonus prize.
Sweden’s Niklas Edin picked up the men’s Rogers Grand Slam Cup championship en route to defeating Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen 5-4 in the final. Edin earned his third Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling title of the season following back-to-back wins at the WFG Masters and Tour Challenge to start 2016-17.
