ZEN-NOH World Women's Curling Championship 2015 Day 6 Early Roundup

Switzerland and Canada qualified for the 1-2 Page Play-off with wins in Thursday morning's fifteenth session of round robin play at the ZEN-NOH World Women's Curling Championship in the Tsukisamu Gymnasium, Sapporo, Japan.

Switzerland won their game against Scotland by 8-6. After blanking the first end, they went on to score two points every time they had last stone.

This result and their Wednesday evening win against Canada means that they have guaranteed themselves top slot on the final rankings as well as a place in the Page 1-2 Play-off game.

Following this success, Paetz said: "We’re very happy with the result, we played really well and we hope that we can keep that for the next game."

Canada beat Germany by 7-5, but it took all the way to an extra end for them to record that win.

The third end of this game featured a triple take-out by Germany's Daniela Driendl but Canada eventually scored two points in the extra end for a win that guarantees them a place in the 1-2 Play-off against Switzerland.

China and Russia are the only teams who could equal Canada’s win loss record, but as they both lost to Canada earlier in the round robin, Canada will rank above them according to WCF rules.

After the game, Canada's skip, Sochi 2014 Olympic champion Jennifer Jones, said: "We expected to have to play our best today and found a way to win."

China faced Finland with a Play-off place still in their grasp.

In the third end of the game their skip Sijia Liu drew her final stone into the house to score three points and take a 3-1 lead.

In the eighth end she hit out a Finnish stone to score two points, this time for a 5-2 lead. China won the game by 6-5 and now lie third in the standings.

After the game China skip Sijia Liu said: "That's OK, but there’s another game to play. We never think about progression, we just want to play our own game."

In the fourth game of this session, USA faced Denmark, with both teams out of the Play-off hunt. With the scores tied at 3-3, Denmark scored four points in the seventh end to take a 7-3 lead on their way to an eventual 8-5 victory.

In the sixteenth session of round robin play on Thursday afternoon, wins for Russia and Scotland guaranteed both teams at the very least a tie-breaker.

Russia went into their game against Finland with their Play-off hopes still alive. In the fifth end, Russia's skip Anna Sidorova scored one point with a draw-shot to give her team an 8-1 lead.

Finland conceded with the score at 8-2 after the sixth end which guaranteed the Russians at least a tie-breaker, with one game left on their round robin programme.

Speaking afterwards, Russia's skip Anna Sidorova said: "We were very confident and we played really well, but we have one more game to play."

The game between Scotland and Sweden was crucial for both teams' Play-off hopes.

Sweden's fourth player Maria Prytz drew her last stone of the third end into the house to score 2 points and take a 3-1 lead.

However, in the next end, Scotland's skip Eve Muirhead hit out a Swedish stone and kept her own in the house to score two points and go ahead, at 4-3.

Scotland were ahead at 5-4 when Muirhead drew her last stone of the seventh end into the house to score three points and build her lead to 8-4. The Scots eventually won by 10-7.

This completed their round robin programme on seven wins and they will now go into a tie-breaker between the loser of the Russia v China game in the last round-robin session while this defeat ended the Swedish campaign.

Canada were already assured of their place in the 1v2 Page Play-off before they came onto the ice to face Japan, while their opponents were trying to keep their slim hopes alive.

Canada opened their account with a score of two points in the second end for a 2-1 lead and then built on that with a steal of two points in the third end.

Another steal of two points in the seventh end gave them a 7-3 lead and they eventually ran Japan out of stones in the tenth end, with the score at 8-5, eliminating Japan from Play-off contention.

After the game, Canada's skip Jennifer Jones said: "It was a fun game and a great crowd for the Japanese team. We’re making some shots when we have to and we’re really comfortable with the ice so we can’t ask for anything more."

The fourth game of this session, saw Denmark play Norway. Denmark won this by 7-1 to record their fourth win, while Norway now have a final chance to record their first win of the week, against the USA in the last round-robin session.

It was also confirmed that the 3v4 Page Play-off will take place at 19:00 on Friday 20 March while the 1v2 Play-off between Switzerland and Canada will take place at 09:00 on Saturday 21 March (all times local – JST).

RESULTS

Session 15: USA 5, Denmark 8; Germany 5, Canada 7 (extra end); Finland 5, China 6; Switzerland 8, Scotland 6.

Session 16: Japan 5, Canada 8; Denmark 7, Norway 1; Scotland 10, Sweden 7; Russia 8, Finland 2.

Standings after 16 sessions of play (W-L):

1. Switzerland 9-1 (Qualified for the 1v2 Page Play-off against Canada)

2. Canada 9-2 (Qualified for the 1v2 Page Play-off against Switzerland)

3. China 7-3

3. Russia 7-3

5. Scotland 7-4 (To play tie-breaker against loser of China v Russia)

6. Japan 5-5

6. Sweden 5-5

8. Germany 4-6

9. Denmark 4-7

10. USA 3-7

11. Finland 2-9

12. Norway 0-10

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=c8ea9dc42c&e=23d1572579

For further information, please contact:

Danny Parker

Media & Communications

World Curling Federation

media@worldcurling.org

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