TORONTO — Scotland’s Eve Muirhead defeated Sweden’s Margaretha Sigfridsson 8-5 to win the Players’ Championship on Sunday at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Muirhead, who defeated Sigfridsson last month in the World Women’s Curling Championship final, held the hammer in the eighth end and made no mistake driving her final stone to the eight-foot and earn her first career Grand Slam of Curling title.
“It’s always tough for the world champion to come into the Players’ Championship because you know you’re on such a high from the worlds,” Muirhead told Sportsnet’s Brad Fay after the match. “But we’ve had great fun here. It’s been a relaxed competition. To come out and top a great season with the Players’ Championship is just phenomenal.”
Sigfridsson struggled to build momentum right from the opening end as she held shot rock with one stone remaining but could not get her final stone to roll in and she settled for a single.
Muirhead went ahead 3-1 in the second after she nailed an incredible double takeout with her final rock to score three.
Sigfridsson tied it up with counting two in the third but Muirhead regained the two-point lead with a deuce of her own in the sixth.
It’s been a roller coaster week for Muirhead, whose team almost didn’t make it to the final. Muirhead dropped to a 1-2 record in the round-robin after falling 8-5 to Saskatoon’s Stefanie Lawton in Draw 8 but her rink was red hot from that point forward.
“When you’re kind of on your last legs you can’t give up anything and you’ve got to go for it all and that’s exactly what we did,” Muirhead said. “The girls played great. I think all of us have had a good week here.”
Muirhead was in tough in a rematch against Lawton but rebounded from a three-point deficit to win 6-5 in the extra end of the semifinal.
“We got stronger as the tournament has gone on and when you’re out here at the Players’ Championship, you’re playing the 15 best teams in the world and you can’t have slack games,” Muirhead said. “You know it’s going to be an uphill battle. I think we fought well and at the end of the day we came out champions.”
Rachel Homan won the Rogers Masters of Curling title earlier this season and had a chance to earn a $100,000 bonus if her team also claimed the Players’ Championship but her Ottawa rink fell to Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones in the quarter-finals on Saturday.