Hosts Canada, Swiss into semis
[With files from World Curling and Curling Canada]
Canada and Switzerland are into Saturday’s semifinals at the World Women’s Curling Championship in Sydney, N.S. and await their opponents after a morning playoff round.
Canada’s Rachel Homan, 11-1 for the week after a meaningless Friday night loss to Korea’s Un-Chi Gim, will play the winner of Korea (10-2) versus Sweden (7-5).
Four-time defending champions Switzerland defeated Italy (6-2) and Sweden (4-2) to finish with a 10-2 won/loss record, and will play the winner of 10-2 Italy versus Denmark (6-6).
Canada skip Rachel Homan wasn’t bothered by the final round-robin loss.
“We knew we were going to lose a game here and it’s a good lesson to take from that game,” said Homan. “Just learn from those misses and tighten things up. It’s good to have some misses and find some areas we can improve upon.”
“We had a phenomenal week. It took every shot out there to have the record we do. Getting hammer and getting colour going into the semis is a great advantage and we worked hard for that.”
Swiss skip Silvana Tirinzoni sounds ready for the playoffs.
“I feel very comfortable,” Tirinzoni said. “The team has played well throughout the whole event, even though we lost two—the other teams have the right to play well as well.”
The Swiss saw their amazing 42-game win streak at the world championships come to an end earlier in the week against Canada.
United States, skipped by Tabitha Peterson, equalled Denmark’s 6-6 record but missed out on the playoff picture, finishing seventh.
Scotland’s Rebecca Morrison, selected for the world championship despite losing the Scottish national final in February, finished eighth at 5-7.
Norway’s Marianne Roervik, the surprise 2023 finalists, could only muster a 4-8 record while Türkiye’s Dilsat Yildiz and Japan’s Miyu Ueno both finished 3-9.
Rounding out the bottom of the standings were Estonia’s Liisa Turmann (2-10) and New Zealand’s Jessica Smith (1-11), who defeated Scotland for her nation’s first-ever game win at the world women’s championship.