Players’ Championship Live: Jones meets Muirhead
TORONTO — Double defending champ Eve Muirhead of Scotland improved to a 1-1 record at the special 25th running of the WestJet Players’ Championship.
Muirhead topped Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones 7-3 in a repeat of last year’s final during Wednesday’s round-robin action at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Even though the five-time Players’ champ Jones (1-1) started with the hammer, Muirhead put the pressure on early forcing Jones to make tricky shots with her last rocks in the first and second ends that didn’t pan out and resulted in single steals. Jones wrecked on a guard with her final shot of the third end and Muirhead swiped a couple more points to lead 4-0 without even holding the hammer once.
Jones scored a deuce in four to get on the board and chip away at the deficit. Muirhead finally got the hammer for the first time in the fifth, but gave up a steal herself as Jones closed to within one 4-3. Muirhead took two in the sixth and swiped another point in seven for handshakes.
“The hammer didn’t seem to be our friend there but we seemed to get on along without it, which is good,” Muirhead said with a smile. “For us, after losing last night, I guess it was a pretty scrappy game. We came out that game and we played great. The ice conditions have definitely settled down a little bit and we caught on to that pretty quickly and played well.”
Muirhead rebounded from a 6-5 loss to Edmonton’s Val Sweeting during Tuesday night’s opening draw.
Elsewhere, Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland crushed China’s Bingyu Wang 10-1 in only five ends. Tirinzoni took two in the first and stole a couple in the second for an early four-point lead. Wang was limited to just a single in three and Tirinzoni added three in the fourth and stole a trio in five to roll away.
It was a two-win Wednesday for Tirinzoni, who bounced back from an early deficit to defeat Scheidegger 9-5 during the morning draw.
“Now the Blue Jays have to win and then it’s a perfect day,” Tirinzoni said with a laugh. “To win it’s always a great day. That’s a good start to the Players’ Championship. We had a rough start in the first game but we recovered very well.”
With the evening off, Tirinzoni is going to the Blue Jays game at the Rogers Centre against the Milwaukee Brewers and is hoping to bring the winning vibes to the Toronto team, which has struggled to start the MLB season with a 1-6 record.
“I’m very excited,” Tirinzoni said. “Now I’m here so they can start to win.”
Tracy Fleury of Sudbury, Ont., also earned her second victory of the day defeating Michelle Englot’s Winnipeg team 5-1. Englot, the Scotties silver medallist, dropped to a 0-2 record.
Canadian Open champ Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge, Alta., defeated Sweden’s Margaretha Sigfridsson 8-6. Scheidegger drew level to a 1-1 record while Sigfridsson fell to 0-2.
Sweeting climbed to a 2-0 record with a 7-1 win over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg (0-2).
Round-robin action at the WestJet Players’ Championship continues Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET. TV coverage begins Thursday at Noon ET on Sportsnet.
NOTES: The WestJet Players’ Championship is the fourth major and sixth event of the 2016-17 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season and runs through to Sunday at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre. … The Rogers Grand Slam Cup will be awarded to the overall season champions following the conclusion of the WestJet Players’ Championship. … Winners of the WestJet Players’ Championship will earn berths to the Humpty’s Champions Cup running April 25-30 in Calgary.
