Two of the biggest surprises of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season so far occurred Wednesday morning at the North Battleford Civic Centre during the Meridian Canadian Open.
In a battle of Winnipeg rinks, Briane Meilleur stole a point in the extra end as she pulled off a 5-4 victory over reigning Olympic gold medalist Jennifer Jones.
“We had a little bit of jitters early on, as this is the first Grand Slam for everyone else on the team,” Meilleur said. “You want to keep things close when you are playing against the good rinks like Jones’, and that’s what we were able to do.
“There were a few uncharacteristic misses from their team in the extra end, which is what you need sometimes to win when you don’t have the hammer, and we were able to make the shots that we needed to in order to get that point.”
The other major upset in the ‘A’ bracket saw Mississauga’s Jacqueline Harrison picking up a 5-4 victory over Ottawa’s Rachel Homan after she made a nice quiet bump back on her final shot in the eighth end.
“Overall, I felt like we did a really good job of playing our game,” Harrison said. “We had a little bit of a hiccup in the seventh end (when Homan stole a point to tie the game at four) but luckily we sorted all of that out to get the win.
“There’s usually a lot of rocks in play when we take on Team Homan, so our approach was to try and make as many shots as they can and hopefully make their shots a little bit more difficult.”
Edmonton’s Val Sweeting had a dominant performance against Russia’s Anna Sidorova as she cruised to a 10-2 win in just six ends.
“Normally it takes us a little bit to figure out the ice but we were able to right away and we capitalized on our chances,” Sweeting said.
After falling behind 6-1 in four ends to Sudbury’s Tracy Fleury, Caledon’s Allison Flaxey staged an impressive comeback as she came away with a 9-7 victory, which was helped by a four-ender in the fifth.
The other game on Wednesday morning saw China’s Bingyu Wang pick up a 5-3 win over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg.
First round games in the men’s and women’s ‘A’ bracket will continue at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
On the men’s side, Sault Ste. Marie’s Brad Jacobs will face Kyle Smith of Scotland, Sweden’s Niklas Edin takes on American Heath McCormick and Calgary’s Kevin Koe will go up against Edmonton’s Charley Thomas.
The two women’s games will feature Edmonton’s Kelsey Rocque taking on Lethbridge’s Casey Scheidegger, while Winnipeg’s Michelle Englot, who is from Regina, facing Calgary’s Chelsea Carey.
