The Korean women’s team handed Japan their first loss of the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships on Tuesday night at the Almaty Arena, in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
After scoring an early three points in the second end, the Koreans held on to their slight lead despite a strong comeback from Japan. Korea led by 7-4 after seven ends, but after a single point in the eighth end, followed by a steal in the ninth by Japan, it was back to a one-point difference.
Japan played a strong tenth end despite not having the last-stone advantage, forcing Korean skip Eun-Jung Kim to make a pressure draw to the four-foot against two.
With perfect weight and sweeping, the Koreans placed their final stone on the button to win, 8-6. Now, Korea and Japan are tied in first place with three wins and one loss a piece.
“We had some mistakes in the first game [against Japan] so we wanted to reduce some of those,” said Kim. “Game by game we feel more comfortable on the ice, we don’t focus on Japan, just the ice we are playing on.”
Japan’s skip Sayaka Yoshimura followed this saying, “This game we had more draws and we had some missed shots. We gave up a big end but we caught up to our opponents and went to the last end, which could almost have been an extra end.”
Following these teams are Kazakhstan with one win and two losses and Hong Kong with three losses.
Japan men still in first
In the only Men’s session of the day, Japan defeated hosts, Kazakhstan 12-0. This continues their winning streak, giving them a total of four wins no losses. Behind them are Kazakhstan and Korea who are tied in second place with two wins and one loss.
Chinese Taipei have a leveled record with two wins and two losses, after a lopsided victory against newcomers, Saudi Arabia, 13-5.
Results
Women’s session seven: Korea 10-2 Hong Kong
Men’s session eight: Qatar 1-14 Korea; Saudi Arabia 5-13 Chinese Taipei; Japan 12-0 Kazakhstan
Women’s session nine: Korea 8-6 Japan
You can follow the work of the World Curling Federation on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Weibo and by searching the hashtag #curling #PACC2021
