20 March 2026
Four teams qualify for World Women’s play-offs on day five
With their 8-2 win over United States in Thursday’s afternoon session, Switzerland became the first team to qualify for the play-offs at the BKT World Women’s Curling Championship 2026.
But once the dust settled on an evening session that saw three games go all the way to an extra end, Canada, Japan and Sweden all joined them in the weekend play-offs line-up.
In the game between Switzerland and United States, the score was tied at 2-2 in the sixth end when Swiss skip Xenia Schwaller played an open draw into the house, to score three points and take a 5-2 lead. Switzerland then had a single steal in the seventh and a further steal of two points in the eighth to complete the 8-2 win that secured their play-offs place.
After this, when she learned of her qualification, skip Schwaller said, “That’s pleasing. This is our first world championship and it was our goal to qualify, so I’m glad we’ve done that. It’s a long week but I think we’re playing really well.”
Canada had two games on Thursday, beating Korea in the morning by 8-3. In this game, Canada were already ahead by 3-2 when, in the fifth end, their skip Kerri Einarson drew her final stone into the four-foot ring to score three more points and take a 6-2 lead into the break. The Canadians then went on to win by 8-3.
They came back onto the ice to face Norway in the evening session, but struggled and found themselves down by 1-4 at the fifth end break. They fought back to force an extra end at 6-6, but in that extra end, Norway skip Torild Bjoernstad played a raise take-out to pick out the sole Canadian stone in the house, scoring four points for a 10-6 win.
Afterwards, she said, “We just tried to play as well as we can, have fun, and just do our best. We had some nerves at the end, but we tried to stay calm.”
She did admit, “I was nervous with my last stone.”
Despite this loss, Canada have now qualified for the weekend play-offs.
Japan also had two games on Thursday. They faced Denmark in the afternoon and, in the sixth end, with the Danes holding a 3-2 lead, Japan’s skip Satsuki Fujisawa played a hit to score two points and take a 4-3 lead.
Japan then went on to win by 8-3, a result that put them into third place on the rankings.
After this win, Japan skip Fujisawa said, “We always try to enjoy the games. We’ve had some good performances so far and that was a good win.”
They came back onto the ice to face China in the evening session, and this game went to an extra end before Japan ran China out of stones to win by 8-7.
This result consolidated Japan’s third place and qualified them for the play-offs.
Sweden had two extra-end wins on Thursday.
They beat Korea by 8-7 in the afternoon, thanks to a hit for one by skip Isabella Wranaa, and then saw off a challenge from Turkiye by 8-6, completed with a nose-hit for two points by Wranaa in the extra end.
After the win over Korea, Wranaa said, “That was a very important win, I think we played really well. It was close and both teams played well.” Asked about her qualification chances she said, “I try to stay focussed on one game at a time.”
However, these two wins mean that Sweden too have qualified for the play-offs.
With three final sessions of round-robin play to come on Friday, and two more play-off places up for grabs, Korea lie fifth on the table while China, Italy and Turkiye are tied in the crucial sixth place.
All World Women’s games will be broadcast on the Curling Channel, however, there may be restrictions due to broadcast partner agreements.
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