Russia maintained their undefeated record as they beat Sweden in Monday afternoon's seventh session of round-robin play in the ZEN-NOH World Women's Curling Championship being staged in the Tsukisamu Gymnasium in Sapporo, Japan.
Russia opened with a score of two points in the first end and then had a single steal in the second end to take a 3-0 lead.
In the third end, Sweden's fourth player Maria Prytz was facing three counting Russian stones when she drew her final stone onto the button to score one point and get her team onto the score-board for the first time in the game.
However, in the next end Russia skip Anna Sidorova hit out a Swedish stone to score two points and move onto a 5-1 lead.
The teams then swapped single points and Russia moved further ahead, scoring two in the eighth end for an 8-3 lead.
They followed that up with a steal of one point in the ninth end and Sweden conceded the game, at 9-3, giving Russia their fourth win from four games.
China and Switzerland were tied together in second place on the rankings when they met each other in this session.
The Swiss took the early lead with a steal of two points in the third end for a 3-1 lead.
In the seventh end of the game, Switzerland's Alina Paetz hit out a Chinese stone to score one point to move her lead to 4-2.
Eventually Switzerland scored three points in the ninth end to complete their 7-3 victory.
After the game, Paetz said: "We struggled a bit at the beginning. I think our steal of two was the turning point. We're happy with our position now. Our goal is top six and we're on our way, trying to improve with every game."
USA, still looking for their first win, faced Germany. In the eighth end German skip Daniela Driendl drew her final stone into the house for two points to level the score at 4-4.
In the tenth end, Driendl produced another draw into a collection of stones around the button to score two points, win the game by 6-5, and still leave USA without a win.
Speaking later, Driendl said: "Today was a really hard day. I struggled in the first game and I wasn't confident in the second game there, but the two in the eighth was very important to bring us back into the game and then we felt confident that we could win this."
In the game between hosts Japan and Norway, the score was 5-3 to Japan as the teams played the eighth end.
There, Norway skip Kristen Moen Skaslien drew her final stone into the house to score two points and tie the game at 5-5.
The game came down to the last stone and Japan's skip Ayumi Ogasawara drew it into the house to score one point and win by 6-5.
After the game, Ogasawara spoke about her tense last stone, saying: "Well as a skip it's my job to get a good shot at the end, that’s what I have to do."
She also spoke about the enthusiastic home crowd, saying: "They were awesome and fabulous. This was the first time that I've had crowd support at this level in a World Championship and that helped a lot."
In Monday morning’s sixth session of round robin play, Olympic champions Canada returned to winning ways when they beat China 7-1.
This was Canada's third win out of four games and it was as straightforward as the one-sided score-line suggests.
China had last stone advantage in the first end and blanked it. After that Canada manufactured steals in the next four ends - one point in the second end, two in the third, and singles in each of the fourth and fifth ends for a 5-0 fifth end break lead.
Canada scored one point in the seventh end when skip Jennifer Jones hit out a Chinese stone, and stole a single point in the eighth end for 7-1, when China conceded.
This win was in contrast to Canada's loss to Sweden in the previous session and about that Canada's Jones said: "It's always nice to bounce back from a loss with a win and I thought we played a lot better today, so hopefully we'll carry that through."
Scotland also bounced back from defeat in this session, beating USA by 9-2 in just six ends.
The Scots scored two points in the first, third and fifth ends, while USA could only score singles in the second and fourth ends.
In the sixth end, the Scots had built a collection of stones in the house and when USA skip Aileen Sormunen was heavy and wide with her final stone of the end, the Scots stole three points for a 9-2 lead, at which point the USA, still looking for their first win, conceded.
After the game, Scottish skip Eve Muirhead said: "That was more like us out there, really good. We were just solid, just taking our twos and forcing the ones, it was pretty simple. It was a good performance after last night's defeat."
Like USA, Denmark were winless as they played in this session against opponents Switzerland, who had been unbeaten till this point.
This was a tighter game. The Danes led as the teams went into the seventh end before Swiss skip Alina Paetz drew her final stone into the house to score two points and reduce the Danish lead to 6-5.
Switzerland took the lead in the ninth end, but in the tenth end a last stone hit by Denmark skip Lene Nielsen gave her team the two points needed to seal their first win of the week, by 8-7.
Afterwards, Nielsen said: "Right now I feel great and relieved. We've had three very rough games and we haven’t really been able to pick up our game when we needed to. We did today and I think as a team we played better."
In the fourth game of the session between Finland and Germany, the lead changed hands numerous times.
With the score at 3-2 to Finland, Germany's skip Daniela Driendl drew her last stone into the house to score two points and take a 4-3 lead in the fifth end.
In the tenth end, Driendl drew her last stone into a collection of stones clustered around the four-foot ring to concede a one-point steal to Finland, however, Germany still emerged winners with the final score 7-6.
RESULTS
Session 6: USA 2, Scotland 9; Denmark 8, Switzerland 7; Canada 7, China 1; Finland 6, Germany 7.
Session 7: China 3, Switzerland 7; Russia 9, Sweden 3; USA 5, Germany 6; Norway 5, Japan 6.
Standings after 7 sessions of play (W-L)
1. Russia (4-0)
2. Switzerland (4-1)
3. Canada (3-1)
3. Japan (3-1)
5. China (3-2)
5. Germany (3-2)
7. Finland (2-2)
7. Scotland (2-2)
9. Denmark (1-3)
9. Sweden (1-3)
11. Norway (0-4)
12. USA (0-5)
During the round robin portion of a competition, teams with the same win-loss record will be listed alphabetically, by their three letter code, and ranked equal.
Results, statistics, news and photos from the ZEN-NOH World Women’s Curling Championship 2015 can be seen here on the World Curling Federation’s official event website: http://worldcurling.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0241c8190a96a3d4afd003317&id=eb9ba90425&e=23d1572579
For more information, please contact:
Danny Parker
Media & Communications
World Curling Federation
media@worldcurling.org
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