THE CANADIAN PRESS
GANGNEUNG, South Korea — Jennifer Jones faced her first serious challenge Sunday at the world women’s curling championship.
It lasted exactly one end.
The Winnipeg skip overcame a shaky start to earn an 8-5 win over Russia’s Liudmila Privivkova in Draw 5 action to improve to 3-0.
After surrendering three points in the second end to find herself trailing 3-2, Jones reeled off four straight points, including a critical steal of three when Privivkova was heavy on a draw with her final shot of the fourth end.
Jones, third Cathy Overton-Clapham, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn Askin cruised from there, limiting Russia’s scoring chances and eventually running them out of rocks in the 10th end.
Though the defending champions have been mostly dominant through the first two days, Jones has found fault with each game — and the victory against Russia was no exception.
"We didn’t play very well in about three of the middle ends," said Jones, who curled 72 per cent in the win. "When we gave up that three, I think we had six misses in a row, which is very uncharacteristic.
"I thought we played really well after that. We ended the game well, and hopefully we’ll carry that into tomorrow, but it was a little bit of a shaky game for us."
Privivkova didn’t have a strong game either, missing a number of routine shots and giving Jones plenty of chances to take control. With several teams struggling with the ice or the rocks through the opening weekend, Jones believes the more experienced foursomes will start to figure it out soon.
"There’s a lot of teams that have a ton of experience," said Jones. "There’s always going to be issues, you just have to deal with them the best you can, and hopefully deal with them better than anybody else."
Jones, who was idle for Monday’s opening draw, was alone in second place after Denmark’s Angelina Jensen beat Sweden’s Anette Norberg 7-6 in 11 ends to imrpove to 4-0.
Norberg (3-1) fell into a tie for third place with Scotland’s Eve Muirhead and Switzerland’s Mirjam Ott. Muirhead moved into the third-place tie with a 8-7 extra-end win over Norway’s Marianne Rorvik (0-4) in Draw 6. Meanwhile, Ott defeated South Korea’s Mi-Yeon Kim (1-3).
In Monday’s other Draw 6 match,. .Germany’s Andrea Schopp (2-2) needed just seven ends to earn an 8-1 win over Italy’s Diana Gaspari (0-4).
Jones opened Sunday’s action with a 10-3 drubbing of Deb McCormick of the U.S., in a game that went just eight ends.
Jones opened the game with a deuce, and added an open hit for two more points in the fifth end to take a 5-2 lead into the break. After holding McCormick to a single point in the sixth, Jones played a hit and roll for three points in the seventh to put the game away.
Canada added a steal of two in the eighth, and the teams shook hands.
McCormick admitted her team wasn’t sharp, but attributed most of her struggles to the stones.
"Some were straight, and then we had a couple curly ones," said McCormick. "I feel like we’re throwing good, we’re just getting fooled by the rocks a bit."
McCormick fell to 0-3 with an 8-4 loss to China’s Bingyu Wang (2-1) in Sunday’s Draw 5 action.
Jensen earned a share of the lead with a nerve-jarring 7-6 win over Germany’s Andrea Schopp (1-2). Denmark led 4-0 after two ends, but needed to score one with the hammer in the 10th end after giving up a steal of one in the sixth, and another in the ninth.
."It’s just good to know that you have wins to fall back on," said Madeleine Dupont, who throws final stones for Denmark. "We’d like them all to be easy, but we’ll take all of them. (The start) is way better than we expected."
In other Draw 5 action, Ott rallied for an 8-6 win over Rorvik. Switzerland trailed after giving up a steal of two in the eighth, but Ott responded with two in the ninth and stole a single in the 10th to secure the win.
Norberg, considered one of Jones’s biggest threats, earned an 8-5 win over Muirhead in the marquee matchup of Draw 4.
After playing tightly through the opening three ends, Sweden broke the game open in the fourth. A costly gaffe by Muirhead, the world junior champion, left Norberg an open hit for four, and she made no mistake, opening up a 5-1 lead and cruising from there.
Kim provided the biggest thrill of Sunday’s action, beating Gaspari 6-4 to earn her country’s first-ever win at a world championship. Kim went 0-9 at her first appearance in 2002, and dropped her first two games as the host team before downing Gaspari.
Kim, third Mi-Sung Shin, second Seul-Bee Lee and lead Hyun-Jung Lee bowed to each side of the rink after the win, while the afternoon crowd of around 1,000 at the Gangneung International Ice Rink stood and cheered. With South Korea enjoying a bye, barely 100 fans attended the evening draw.
The other Draw 4 matchup saw China beat Russia 9-3.
In Draw 3 action, Jensen rallied from 7-2 down to beat Ott 9-8, while Schopp beat Rorvik 5-3.