15 March 2025
Scotland defeat defending champions Canada
With a score of three in the last end, Scotland beat defending champions Canada by 8-7 in Saturday evening’s second round-robin session of the LGT World Women’s Championship 2025, being held in Uijeongbu, Korea.
Earlier Canada had opened the defence of their title with a 13-2 win over newcomers Lithuania in the opening session, but they found the Scots a much tougher proposition.
Scotland led by 3-1 after three ends and 4-3 after six. The Canadians then took a 7-5 lead into the tenth end but when their skip Rachel Homan jammed her final shot, the Scots made a touch hit for three to win.
Afterwards, Scottish skip Sophie Jackson said, “it’s brilliant. We’re absolutely thrilled to get that first win. It almost felt like that (game) was a free hit, so we just went out and tried to play our best. We put together a really good last end. We’ve practised being two down in the tenth end a lot, so it’s great to see that’s paid off.”
In their opening game against newcomers Lithuania, the Canadians had built a 9-2 lead by the sixth end when their skip Rachel Homan had a straightforward draw to score four more points and take a 13-2 lead. After this the Lithuanians conceded the game.
Sweden start strong
Like Canada, Sweden also had two games – but two wins – on Saturday.
In the opening session, they faced Norway and in the tenth end, with the game tied at 4-4, Sweden’s skip Anna Hasselborg picked out shot stone for the 6-4 win. After this, Hasselborg said, “it was a solid performance. I think we played really well and we were happy to come home with hammer in the last end. It was nice to get that win.”
The Swedes then followed that up with a more straightforward 8-1 win over Türkiye. This result puts the Swedes into the lead on the table.
Meanwhile, this was a second loss of the day for Türkiye, who had earlier gone down by 5-3 to China.
Korea please home crowd
In the opening session, hosts Korea lit up a packed home crowd with a 10-8 victory over Japan. This game went to an extra end where Korea’s skip Gim Eunji made a hit for thw victory. Asked about the added pressure of playing in front of their home-town crowd, Gim said, “we just had to concentrate on our own game there.”
Switzerland and United States opened their campaigns in the second session, and it was the Swiss who emerged as 5-4 winners when their fourth player Alina Paetz cleared out two of three American stones sitting in the house to give her team the win.
Switzerland skip Silvana Tirinzoni said, “we had a good feel for the ice and conditions were great out there, so we felt really comfortable. It’s a long week, it’s good for our confidence to win the first game, so I like that.”
Italy and Denmark faced each other on Saturday evening, and the Danes emerged as winners, with a 7-6 extra-end stolen victory.
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