Women’s worlds takeaways: Canada’s best performance earns semifinal spot

For the first time in Kerri Einarson’s career while wearing the Maple Leaf at the women’s world curling championship, she won’t have to play a qualification game to reach the semifinals. 

Einarson, along with her teammates Val Sweeting, Shannon Birchard and Karlee Burgess, earned that right by beating Japan 6-5 on Friday night in Calgary to finish with a record of 10-2 and secure the No. 2 seed.

Coming into the match, both teams were 9-2. 

While Canada has been good for most of the week, all four team members elevated their game versus Japan. 

Einarson’s double takeout through a tight port in the eighth end embodies that. Because at that point, even though Canada was most definitely outplaying the Japanese team, the game was only 4-3. 

Canada had shot stone even before Einarson threw her last rock, but there was no draw path available with Japan sitting two stones in the four-foot. Einarson launched a bullet that connected to score two (Japan was lucky it wasn’t more), sending the crowd into a frenzy. 

Now, after 12 round-robin games, Canada will get much-needed rest before facing the winner of Japan versus Turkey, which meant a lot to Sweeting and her teammates. 

“It’s a long week, long round-robin, so to be straight through to the semifinal is definitely nice, and we all wanted to have a good sleep in tomorrow,” Sweeting said in her post-game interview.

Canada wasn’t the only team to feel great about itself on Friday, as the rest of the playoff field was set. 

Swiss lock up No. 1 seed

If you had to pick one team to finish first this week in round-robin play, Switzerland probably wouldn’t have been anyone’s pick. 

And that would be fair. 

Look, skip Xenia Schwaller, along with third Selina Gadner, second Fabienne Rieder and lead Selina Rychige are not only making their world championship debuts but are also the youngest team by average age (22.5). 

It’s fair to think playoffs would’ve been the goal coming in for Schwaller’s team, considering how well they’ve performed on the Grand Slam of Curling tour this season. The Swiss team made the playoffs in three events, including two semifinals. It’s also ironic that the team that eliminated her in each of those three events was her country rival, ​​Silvana Tirinzoni, whom Schwaller beat in the Swiss nationals to make the worlds.

It took all of one game against Japan for Switzerland, but Schwaller in particular, to find their groove. Schwaller shot 63 per cent in that game. She didn’t shoot below 80 the rest of the round-robin. 

Like in other takeaways written this week, the biggest thing to talk about is how calm this team is, no matter the situation. In the most complimentary way possible, they look like they’re 35-year-olds out there instead of 22 and 23. 

The Swiss rattled off 11-straight wins to finish as the No. 1 seed. That wasn’t the only thing they finished first in this week, either. 

As a team, Switzerland shot 88.8 percent this week, coming in as the top-ranked squad. Schwaller, Gadner and Rieder also led their positions while Rychige finished second behind Canada’s Burgess. 

Even though they are such a young team, it’s hard not to think they’re the favourite to win heading into the playoffs. 

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Turkey makes the playoffs

Some history was written in the women’s world championship record books on Friday night. 

For the first time ever, Turkey, led by skip Dilşat Yıldız, will play in the elimination round at this event.

In a win-and-you’re-in game, Yıldız got the job done against Italy to win 10-7 and finish with a record of 7-5, good for the sixth and final playoff spot. Turkey’s previous best record/finish came in 2023, when Yıldız (who has represented the country all five times they’ve been in the tournament) finished with a 6-6 record, which was eighth overall.

Yıldız’s squad was the No. 37-ranked team in the world coming into the event and proved a lot of people wrong this week. 

This is a monumental step for women’s curling in Turkey. In the last year, Turkey has opened up three new curling facilities in three different cities and has over 100 new women playing the sport.

Seeing what Yıldız has already accomplished this week, we may see lasting impacts for Turkish curling on both the men’s and women’s sides, opening up new opportunities as well.

To be Sweet(ing) at curling 

Sweeting played so well against Japan on Friday night, and made everything look easy, that people will definitely think they can replicate what she did — good luck trying!

The Canadian third curled 99 per cent, the best by any third this week. Just like Einarson, Sweeting also made a sweet (pun intended) double takeout in the eighth end to set up the deuce for Canada. 

Sweeting started the week off excellently but found herself not trusting the ice during a three-game stretch in the middle of the event, which resulted in her shooting in the mid-70s. 

Now that Sweeting is believing what she’s seeing, the high-precision shots are coming back to her. 

“It feels good,” Sweeting said when she found out she curled a 99 per cent game. “I thought we had a really good handle on the ice tonight and just believed it a lot sooner than last night. So, I think we learned a lot and carried that into today. I thought it was a good team game overall.”

If this is how Sweeting plays in Saturday’s semifinal, Canada advancing to the final is all but certain. 

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