ZEN-NOH World Women's Curling Championship 2015 Day 4 Late Roundup

In Tuesday evening's eleventh round robin session of the ZEN-NOH World Women's Curling Championship in Tsukisamu Gymnasium in Sapporo, Japan, Olympic champions Canada defeated Denmark to return to joint top spot in the standings alongside Switzerland.

In the third end of their game, Denmark's skip Lene Nielsen scored two points for a 3-1 lead with a hit.

Canada's Olympic champion skip Jennifer Jones drew her second stone into the house to score three points in the next end to take a 4-3 lead.

However, in the sixth end she missed a shot for three points and had to settle for just one.

With the teams tied at 7-7 after nine ends of play Jones drew the final stone of the game into the house to eventually win by 8-7 and go into joint top position with Switzerland, who sat out the session.

After this win, Jones said: "It's always nice to win those games. I missed a bad shot in the sixth end and I wanted to make that one up to my girls, so it was nice to have the draw for the win. When I missed that shot for three, it kind of changed the game a little bit but we hung in there and came out with the win, which is what you need to do."

In the game between Sweden and Norway, Sweden's fourth player Maria Prytz hit out a Norwegian stone to score two points and take a 3-1 lead in the third end.

Prytz played a similar shot in the eighth end, this time to score four points and take an 8-1 lead. After this, the Swedes emerged as 8-5 winners.

Also in this session, hosts Japan played Russia and in the fourth end of the game, with the score at 1-1, Japan's skip Ayumi Ogasawara hit out a Russian stone, to score two points and take a 3-1 lead.

However, in the fifth end Russia recovered when their skip Anna Sidorova played a double take-out to score two points and level the game again, at 3-3. Russia then went on to win by 7-3.

Later, with Russia now sitting in a clear third place in the standings, Sidorova said: "The main goal now is to get to the top four but it’s probably not quite clear just yet because we still have four games to go and everything can change, so the main thing is to keep trying to win every game and trust each other."

The fourth game of this session was between Finland and Scotland.

The Scots opened strongly, taking last stone advantage and scoring three points in the first end.

After she had blanked the second end, Finland's skip Sanna Puustinen played a hit and stay to score two points.

In the fourth end, Muirhead was facing two Finnish stones in the house as she drew inside them to score one point for a 4-2 lead.

With the score at 7-3 in their favour, the Scots built up the ninth end well, leaving Finnish skip Sanna Puustinen with the prospect of facing three Scottish counters spread across the house when she played her last stone.

She could only remove two of them, giving Scotland a single point steal to win the game at 8-3.

Afterwards, Muirhead said: "That was a good win. We got off to a strong start and that's what we wanted to do. We still have a few games to go, but we know we can't give up any more losses."

RESULTS

Session 11: Russia 7, Japan 3; Canada 8, Denmark 7x; Sweden 8, Norway 5; Scotland 8, Finland 3.

Standings after 11 sessions of play (W-L)

1. Canada (6-1)

1. Switzerland (6-1)

3. Russia (5-2)

4. China (4-3)

4. Germany (4-3)

4. Japan (4-3)

4. Scotland (4-3)

4. Sweden (4-3)

9. Denmark (2-5)

9. Finland (2-5)

11. USA (1-6)

12. Norway (0-7)

During the round robin portion of a competition, teams with the same win-loss record will be listed alphabetically, by their three letter code, and ranked equal.

Results, statistics, news and photos from the ZEN-NOH World Women’s Curling Championship 2015 can be seen here on the World Curling Federation’s official event website: http://worldcurling.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0241c8190a96a3d4afd003317&id=d962e3a55b&e=23d1572579

For further information, please contact:

Danny Parker

Media & Communications

World Curling Federation

media@worldcurling.org

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