3 November 2023
Semi-finals set in Kelowna
New Zealand and United States battled it out for the last spot in the semi-finals on Thursday afternoon. After a tight opening, the game changed in the fourth end when New Zealand skip Anton Hood’s draw fell short, handing United States a steal of three and a 5-0 lead. From here, United States closed out the match for a 7-2 victory, clinching the last place in the play-offs, with New Zealand’s fifth-place finish securing them a spot at the world championships. Andrew Stopera, United States skip, hopes the team can produce another strong performance when they face Canada in the semi-final.
“We’re excited to play Canada again tomorrow morning. We put together a good game when we played them last time, and it came down to an extra end. We’ll just play our game, try to dictate play and hopefully get a good one.”
The already qualified Canada, along with Japan, sealed victories against Guyana and Korea respectively. An 11-1 win over already relegated Guyana confirmed the Canadians as group winners and top seeds for the semi-finals where they will face fourth-ranked United States. Canadian skip Brad Gushue believes their gameplan to keep it simple paid off.
“The focus in the first couple of ends was just to go out and play strong and hope to get a bit of a lead. After that, just keep it as simple as possible.”
Japan beat Korea 10-5 in a match that will be repeated tomorrow in the semi-finals after the teams finished second and third respectively. Japan’s Riku Yanagisawa feels that a strong opening end was key to victory, but admitted he was nervous when Korea managed to pull the score back to 5-6.
“We had a good start today, with a big end to start to get two points. We had good communication, good sweeping, and good scoring. We were really worried in the sixth end; it made my life a bit shorter!”
Australia took a 6-3 win in their dead rubber match against Chinese Taipei to finish sixth in the table. Both men’s semi-finals will take place at 9:00 on Friday morning (3 November) with the gold medal game on Saturday (4 November) at 15:00.
Women’s A-Division
With the play-off lineup in the women’s A-Division already complete, Thursday’s final round robin session determined the all-important seedings for the semi-finals. Korea, Japan and United States all recorded victories to move to six wins and one loss each. This meant that the draw shot challenge was required to separate the teams in the rankings, placing Korea first, Japan second and United States third.
This means that Korea will face off against fourth-placed Canada, after Kerri Einarson’s team cruised past Mexico 17-1. After the game, Einarson explained that she is happy with how the team is performing.
“We made a lot of great shots there and had a really good feel for draw weight. We just need to take forward what we learned from that game. We’re all throwing really well and we’re really close. We’ve just got to push forward and move on.”
Despite losing 3-8 to United States, two wins earlier this week were enough to secure New Zealand a fifth-place finish and qualification for the BKT Tires World Women’s Curling Championship 2023. Speaking post-game, skip Jessica Smith was optimistic after her team’s performance.
“We’re pretty happy to be going back to the worlds. Basically, we didn’t hit all that we wanted to this week, but we’re building as a team. We’ve got a stronger five this season and we had a lot of sickness and injury last time, so hopefully we’ll have better luck this time.”
At the bottom of the standings, Australia’s 4-10 defeat at the hands of Japan resulted in relegation to the B-Division. Thanks to a winning head-to-head against Australia, Mexico survive their first year in the A-division, along with Chinese Taipei for whom two victories were enough to secure safety, despite a 3-10 defeat this morning to Korea. Korean skip Gim Eunji hopes that her team can get off to a quicker start in her semi-final against the Canadians.
“We weren’t able to adapt to the ice early in that game, but hopefully in the evening game we hope we can read the ice earlier and adapt earlier than our opponent and get ahead. I feel like we have to rest a bit now and then get ourselves together mentally so that we can show everything we’ve got in the next game.”
The women will not have long to wait before taking to the ice for the semi-finals, which take place at 19:00 today (Thursday), with the gold medal game at 10:00 on Saturday.
Men’s B-Division
In the men’s B-Division, China completed a clean sweep of the round robin with an 8-2 win against Saudi Arabia. They will face Mexico, who secured a semi-final berth with a 12-1 defeat of India. In the other semi-final, Philippines will take on Hong Kong after respective triumphs over Brazil and Kenya.
Women’s B-Division
In a top of the table clash, China defeated Jamaica 12-2 to secure passage directly through to tomorrow’s final. With four wins and one loss in the round robin, Jamaica progress into tonight’s semi-final where they will face Brazil, who clinched third spot in the standings with a tightly contested 6-5 victory over Hong Kong. Both men’s and women’s B-Division gold medal matches take place at 10:00 on Saturday. Elsewhere, Philippines claimed a 11-4 victory over Kenya for their first ever win at international level.
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