Homan, Einarson, McEwen advance to quarterfinals at Grand Slam of Curling event in Charlottetown
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Canada’s Rachel Homan and Kerri Einarson advanced to the women’s quarterfinals at the HearingLife Tour Challenge in Charlottetown with wins on Friday, while Mike McEwen moved on to the men’s final eight.
Homan, the reigning world and Canadian champion, scored three points in the eighth and final end to beat Switzerland’s Xenia Schwaller 6-4.
It was the third win for Homan’s Ottawa-based team at the triple-elimination Grand Slam of Curling event, giving her a spot in the weekend playoffs.
Einarson, a four-time Canadian champion from Gimli, Man., defeated Winnipeg’s Kaitlyn Lawes 5-4. Einarson’s team reeled off three straight wins after losing its opening match.
Schwaller and Lawes both fell to 2-2 and dropped into the event’s “C” bracket.
In a later draw McEwen defeated reigning men’s world champion Niklas Edin of Sweden to improve to 3-1 and book a spot in the quarterfinals.
Winnipeg’s McEwen is looking to build on a strong start to the season which included a win at least week’s PointsBet Invitational in Calgary. Edin (2-2), who has lost two straight, faces archrival Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., in a do-or-die “C” bracket game on Saturday morning.
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South Korea’s Eun-Jung Kim beat Schwaller 10-3 and Lawes slipped by Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni 5-3 in Friday’s final draw, with the winners advancing to the quarterfinals and the losers going home.
Kim stayed alive with a 6-3 win over Anna Hasselborg earlier in the day that eliminated the 2018 Olympic gold medallist from Sweden.
In other Draw 14 results, Sweden’s Isabella Wrana booked a quarterfinal spot with a 6-3 win over the American team usually skipped by Tabitha Peterson.
Cory Thiesse, who’s throwing fourth stones as Peterson is on maternity leave, will face Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa later Friday for a spot in the quarterfinals.
Fujisawa beat Chelsea Carey 5-1 earlier in the day to eliminate the Winnipeg-based team. Carey’s squad was playing as a threesome as second Emily Zacharias was unavailable.
Third Karlee Burgess threw a game-low 57 per cent as the Carey side fell to 1-3.
In other Draw 15 results, Yannick Schwaller of Switzerlandhad a steal of three in the seventh end to beat Winnipeg’s Matt Dunstone 8-3. Schwaller advanced to the quarterfinals while Dunstone will need to beat John Schuster of the United States on Friday morning to move on.
Calgary’s Kevin Koe also missed a chance to advance with a 6-4 loss to Scotland’s Ross Whyte and will face another Scot, James Craik, on Friday. Whyte advanced to the quarterfinals with the win.
Craik stayed alive with a 7-2 win over Switzerland’s Michael Brunner, who was eliminated with a third loss.
In other early games at the Bell Aliant Centre, Gushue defeated Scotland’s Cameron Bryce 6-3 and Tirinzoni beat Scotland’s Rebecca Morrison 6-3.
Shuster made a hit in an extra end for a 7-6 victory over Italy’s Joel Retornaz.
One more draw to determine the remaining women’s quarterfinalists was scheduled for later in the day. The playoffs begin Saturday afternoon and the finals are scheduled for Sunday.
