Estonia had a 6-5 win over Czech Republic while Japan beat Germany by 7-6 in Saturday evening’s second women’s round-robin session of the Olympic Qualification Event, and these two teams now share the lead, undefeated at the top of the table.
Elsewhere in this session Turkey and Latvia both recorded their first wins. Turkey beat Olympic silver medallists Korea by 12-7, while Latvia beat Italy by 8-4.
Estonia were down 4-5 to Czech Republic when they played the tenth end. In that end, Czech skip Anna Kubeskova came up short with her final draw, to give Estonia a steal of two and a 6-5 victory.
After their second win, Estonia skip Liisa Turmann said, “We’re feeling really good, we really fought hard for that last end. We knew what we had to do – and did it.” Looking forward, she said, “We’re going to try to stick to our game, play as good as we can, and make shots.”
Japan faced Germany in this session. The Germans were playing their first game after sitting out the morning session.
In the sixth end, with the teams tied at 2-2, Japan’s skip Fujisawa Satsuki played a draw into the house to score three points and take a 5-2 lead.
In the seventh end, Germany’s Daniela Jentsch played a double take-out to score two points and reduce Japan’s lead to just one point, at 5-4.
Then, in the tenth end, with the score at 6-6, Japan’s Fujisawa was facing three German counters when she played a solid hit-and-stay to score the one point that gave her a 7-6 win.
Korea held a 3-2 lead in their game against Turkey as the teams played the fourth end. Korea skip Kim Eun-Jung was facing three Turkey counters when she came to play her last stone.
She just clipped a front stone on the way into the house, to give Turkey a steal of three and a 5-3 lead.
The teams were level at 7-7 as they played the ninth end and Turkey skip Dilsat Yildiz picked out a Korea stone to score five points and win the game by 12-7.
Afterwards, an understandably delighted Yildiz said, “I’m very happy with that… our target is to get to the top four in the group and that’s a big step towards that.”
In the fourth game of this session, Latvia faced Italy, with both teams still looking for their first win.
Latvia opened with a score of two points in the first end when their fourth player Evelina Barone played a hit-and-stay within the four-foot ring. The Latvians then went on to carve out single-point steals in both the fourth and seventh ends, as they went on to win by 8-4.
After this first win, Latvia skip Santa Blumberga-Berzina said, “We’re definitely pleased with that, it’s always a pleasure to get that first win. We just played better than in the morning. We got used to the ice and the arena, we just felt more comfortable and played our game… Results follow. That’s a real boost to our confidence, we’re happy with ourselves.”
Scotland sat out this session.
Women Session two results: Estonia 6-5 Czech Republic; Italy 4-8 Latvia; Korea 7-12 Turkey; Germany 6-7 Japan
Engage with the World Curling Federation during the Olympic Qualification Event 2021 on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Weibo and by searching the hashtag #OQE2021 #Roadto2022 #curling
